The Rev. Neale L. Miller

Sermon for November 2, 2008

Texts: Psalm 145:1-5,17-21/Luke 20:27-40

Sermon Title: “Life's Postscript ”

             Young Danny had an inquiring mind. He was one of those kids that liked to know what made things tick, literally.  He was just five years old when he was discovered prying off the face of his mom and dad’s clock radio. His curiosity ranged over all things mechanical, fascinated by the workings of the trash compactor, the vacuum cleaner, and lawnmower. He wore out his dad with questions any time he took out his toolbox to do some household maintenance. He poured over the pages of Popular Mechanics before he could even read.

              His parents did everything to encourage his curiosity.  They were well read on the subject of childrearing, always attempting to read one level or two beyond their son’s developmental level.  But one day, quite unexpectedly, arose a circumstance in the family that for a time diverted Danny’s attention away from the delights of gears, motors, and machines.  This was a circumstance that, had his parents been forewarned, most definitely would have sent them scurrying to their well-stocked parenting bookshelf for help.  But in this instance the test paper had already been distributed, and it was too late to consult outside sources. 

               There was uncertainty surrounding how long exactly old Corky the cat had been a part of the household. One of those cats that adopt a home and its occupants, Corky had been around for at least 12 years, or so said Danny’s mother, 14 years, quote his Dad.  Twelve, fourteen years, or split the difference, Corky had become a fixture in the house for a long time, his comings and going as unremarkable as the rising and setting of the sun, until, that is, the day that the sun didn’t rise for Corky.  Nestled under the footstool that offered him safe and undisturbed sanctuary for sleep, Corky for all appearances was asleep, but that illusion was shattered when, after his food dish was prepared, the cat failed to stir.  There were the tears and the consoling words, but for Danny’s parents there was also the uncertainty of not knowing how this first experience of death would impact their son. 

                While there may be some textbook answer to help parents in such situations, at the end of the day it is probably instincts upon which most rely. Danny’s parents where thrust into a situation for which no parent is really ever prepared. His gaze intently fixed on the cat’s lifeless body, the young man inquired, “Mom,” where did the life go?” 

              Now you can hang out with the most celebrated theologians and biblical scholars in all of Christendom, but I would venture that there isn’t a single question that would better test their scholarship, or expose the substance of their personal faith, than the question young Danny asked that day.  “Where did the life go?”  Where DID the life go?”  How would you answer?

                It should come as no surprise considering the nature of the question, that the same uneasiness that crept over Danny’s parents as they listened to their son’s question, is also a palpable reality across the church, and that is the case whether you happen to be the occupant of a book lined study overlooking the seminary quadrangle, or whether you are a Sunday school teacher attempting to respond to a second grader.

                “Where did the life go?”  The question can humble the best of us, but then the best of us, read the most scholarly and thoughtful theologians and philosophers of religion, stand on common ground with the rest of us with respect to death and God’s eternity.  Fact of the matter is, there is no person who could have given a conclusive answer to Danny’s question.

              There is no textbook one can consult, no seminary one can attend, no learned scholar at whose feet one might sit, to unravel the mystery that a single cat’s death represents.  Where did the life go? Life and death we know.  We are born, we live, and then we die---a beginning, a middle, and an end.  All of that is very straightforward.  Nothing could be more straightforward, and to the natural mind uncluttered by religious faith, be more predictable and final.  But for those of us professing allegiance to Jesus Christ, there is this little matter of that postscript to life’s all too fleeting day, and that postscript is the resurrection, the life hereafter. Because you are a Christian---you take seriously that little postscript, even if in your wildest imaginings you can’t call up a picture of yourself outfitted in angel’s wings.  Because you are a Christian the dimensions of your universe encompass a whole lot more terrain than that to which your five senses will ever give you access.

                You can live without the postscript. You can do it.  Many are doing it, their philosophy of life summarized in the credo: “what you see is what you get.”  And to be frank, what we see is not that hard to take, particularly this time of year when big-hearted October and November fill us with thanksgiving for their substantial blessings.  Privileged to enjoy considerably advantages, there are many more wonderful things to experience than we shall ever experience. It’s a good life, even a great life, absent any expectation of a life to come. Why, then, commit the time and the energy to speculating about what lies around the bend?  Why do we bother? 

               We spend our time in those pursuits because that is the way we were made. “Where did the life go?”  It is the kind of question residing within each of us, the question the child is at liberty to openly and honesty voice, but one the adult is seldom prone to seriously address.

               Most of us wouldn’t even clutter our minds with questions of the hereafter, did not God implant within us the disposition to ask them.  A disposition to ask them, of course, without the least guarantee whatsoever that our questions will be answered. We’re disposed to ask ultimate questions if for no other reason than each of us have had in some shape or form an encounter with the transcendent, an encounter that had God and eternity stamped all over it.

                You know, even the Sadduccees who set out to sandbag Jesus with their frivolous question were experienced in the transcendent realm I just described.  God is non-partisan in the way he distributes his gifts.

             The Sadduccees approached the question of life after death with their minds already made up.  Their thought process was exposed when they came to Jesus with that question about the successive marriages of the seven brothers to the one, presumably exhausted and long-suffering, wife.  Reveling in their shrewdness they thought they had constructed an airtight scenario to expose the folly of Jesus’ teaching.  “Jesus, the seven had her for a wife, with which one will she end up in the afterlife.” From their perspective the resurrection was a fraud. 

              Jesus was prepared to set them straight.  No, not by carefully argued philosophical or  theological reasoning, instead Jesus reached into the Jewish past to expose the true dimensions of the present and the future.  Jesus, you see, reminded his brother Jews, those Sadduccees, that the fundamental assumptions they brought to their faith were dead wrong.  The lineage in which they stood, a lineage founded upon Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, was not, Jesus proclaimed, some dated and fragile treasure of antiquity to be kept under key as a museum piece, but was instead a living and vital organism through which God, in many and various ways, continued to speak.  It was to Moses, Israel’s greatest prophet, that our Lord Jesus pointed to support his case, reminding the Sadduccees that the God whom Moses met in the burning bush did not introduce himself as the great “I was”---the Lord who having once spoken was now silent, but was the God who, introducing himself to Moses, proclaimed himself to be the great “I am,” the living, eternal God.

               “Where did the life go?”  The Sadduccees could not buy the argument that the God they worshiped might not adapt to the dimensions of their conceptual universe.  They had mapped the world according to their own coordinates, and they were not prepared to let anything change their minds.  And, friends, they were deceived.

               “Where did the life go?” There are many entry points into that question.  Your chosen route may be the Bible, theology, metaphysics, or physics. You may speculate at length, considering all the hypotheses ever formulated, but in the end of your inquiry you will merely arrive once again at the beginning; at the beginning with God.  The God who gives life has really never taken it back.  “Where did the life go?”  Friends, it never really left.  “He is God not of the dead, [Jesus proclaimed] but of the living; for to him all…are alive.” 

               It is truly humbling to think how short our span of life on this earth actually is;  in the whole scheme of things a mere drop in the ocean of eternity.  It’s truly humbling to think that not mere millions, but billions equally worthy, equally vulnerable, equally committed people, are living out life’s great drama with us at this very moment.  They, like each one of us, are eager to grasp their measure of happiness and fulfillment before life on earth ends.  It is humbling and sobering to think that God’s affections stretch to all the coordinates of a world this vast, and this utterly complex. But God in Christ, wants to remind us that though we shall not know what precisely lies ahead to celebrate or suffer, life never really ends.  Anonymous as we might individually appear in the whole scheme of things, we are God’s beloved.  We are God’s for life.  We are God’s forever.“In life and in death we belong to God.  Through the grace of our Lord Jesus Christ, the love of God, and the communion of the Holy Spirit.”  That short statement from our confessions perfectly summarizes the hope upon which our faith as children of God, brothers and sisters of Jesus Christ, is founded.  

               “In life and in death we belong to God.”  Where, then, does life go? Life “goes” nowhere.   Life is never extinguished.  As long as God endures, life endures.  And we endure, in life and in death---though we are not given to know precisely how or in what manner we endure---because God has disclosed that nothing whatsoever in all creation can ever separate us from him.  Yesterday, today, tomorrow, and for an eternity of tomorrows beyond, God is God, and “surely goodness and mercy shall follow us all the days of our lives; and we shall dwell in the house of the Lord forever.”  AMEN

              PRAYER

              O God, our God, our need is great because we have not used our freedom responsibly. We have rejected your will, and your truth is not in us.  Lord, in your mercy, help us to change, to re-plot our course.  By the counsel of your Spirit, remake our wills in the image of Christ’s will.

               You have declared, O Lord, that our worship is pleasing in your sight.  May would we do here today give you pleasure, our prayers and songs a worthy offering to place at your feet. 

              Lord, your table is once again spread before us, the bread and cup living symbols of divine grace.  We stand in awe of our Savior’s sacrifice for the sins of the world, body broken, blood spilled, bearing testimony to the love that surrounds us.  As we partake of the bread and cup, the precious symbols through which Christ’s love for the world is communicated, may each of us worthily receive your blessing as people of upright heart.

              O God, the people of the land will once again perform one of democracy’s most sacred acts as we go to the polls on Tuesday.  Grateful for the privilege of electing our leaders, we celebrate our freedom, a freedom secured and maintained through the sacrifice of millions of our countrymen over the past two centuries. Grant us wisdom, O God, as we exercise our vote, but also forbearance.  In these partisan times it is difficult to concede that our candidate’s opponent might be a capable candidate. May partisanship, however, not prevent us from rallying to the candidate the majority selects. 

                 O God, we humbly pray for our nation at this defining moment in our history.  Terrorism ever a threat, a long slate of domestic agendas waiting to be addressed, it will take many hands and much energy and intelligence to conduct the nation’s business.  We pray for all who govern and all who implement public policy.

              God of grace, we thank you for the gifts bestowed upon this church, praising you for the men and women responsible for the programs and initiatives through which we make our public witness. May our elders by word and example provide the leadership our ministry requires.

                  Heavenly Father, you have taught us that your will will be done in heaven and earth.  You have taught us that death will never extinguish the hope that supports and animates our lives.  Teach us to trust in thee, and renew our confidence in thee even as we face the particular challenges of life.  Minister to those, O Christ, who bring special concerns to this place, in this silence we lift our individual prayers. Abide with