Luke 20:27-38
“What Happens When You Die?”
The American late night show host, Stephen Colbert, likes to interview some of his celebrity guests using what he calls the “Colbert Questionnaire.” It’s a series of 15 questions that Colbert claims have been carefully designed to reveal the soul of the person. Just before the first question, he usually warns them “Prepare to be known.” And then he launches in with the first question which is “What is the best sandwich?”
Among the other questions, they’ll be asked “Dogs or cats?” “Apples or oranges?” “Window or aisle?” and “What’s your favourite action movie?” At the end, they’ll be asked to describe the rest of their life in 5 words, and that one is usually pretty revealing about their hopes, dreams, and values. But the question I’m always waiting for it this one: “What happens when you die?”
Stephen Colbert is a Christian, and he has his own convictions about the question, but I get the sense that he’s truly interested in hearing his guests’ perspectives on the question. And they’ve had answers ranging from “Your body decomposes in the ground,” to detailed metaphysical descriptions of spirits that live on in the universe.
But most people say things like, “I want to believe that there’s an afterlife. I can’t imagine what it will be like, but there must be something.” And it seems that people have been pondering, discussing, and debating that question since the beginning of time. “What happens when you die?”
I wonder how you would answer if you were on Colbert’s stage, or if you were accompanying a loved one at the end of life, or if the question came at you from the mouth of a curious 5-year-old, or a grieving teenager, or a community impacted by tragedy.
I’ve often preached that the faith we hold is not simply about ensuring our salvation and getting the assurance that when we die, we’ll go to heaven. The core of the Christian faith is about how we live in the world – being assured that we are loved by God, learning from Jesus to love others in that way, and being equipped by the Holy Spirit to love more fully, and freely, and unreservedly than we could ever imagine.
But another really central part of our faith also has to do with what happens when we die. Easter is our most important festival of the year, and every Sunday is a kind of “little Easter” as we gather to sing, pray, and celebrate that even though Jesus died, he was raised by God, appeared to many disciples, and ascended to heaven where we believe he is with God, the heavenly parent.
As the Apostle Paul put it, “Because Jesus lives, we also will live.”
Although we may like to imagine fluffy clouds, pearly gates, harps & angels, and reunions with our loved ones, we don’t get a bunch of details about what heaven will actually be like.
During his life and ministry on earth, Jesus either didn’t know what heaven was going to be like either, or he chose not to share the details. But he was clear about his conviction that when you die, you don’t just decompose.
In our Gospel text for today, Jesus discusses the topic with some Sadducees. Do you remember anything about the Sadducees? Most of us know more about the Pharisees who are mentioned in the Gospels a little more often. The Sadducees were similar, in that they were a group of religious leaders within Judaism. But unlike the Pharisees who were leaders within local communities, the Sadducees were associated with the temple in Jerusalem.
Like the Pharisees, the Sadducees were concerned with following the Law of God as contained in the Torah (the first 5 books of the Old Testament that we know), but unlike the Pharisees, they didn’t also consider the prophetic books to be authoritative as Scripture. And… when the Sadducees read the Torah, they didn’t think they it supported the belief in resurrection after death.
Some of us have sung about the Sadducees many times over the years in that silly little camp song, “I just wanna be a sheep, ba, ba, ba, ba.” One of the verses is “I don’t want to be a Sadducee, I don’t want to be a Sadducee, cause they’re so sad, you see? I don’t want to be a Sadducee.” And then we joke that they were sad because they didn’t believe in resurrection. They didn’t think that they or anyone was going to heaven! How sad!
In our text today, the Sadducees (like Colbert) ask Jesus (who was something of a celebrity by this time) about what happens when you die. But they don’t ask because they think he knows the true answer, like you would ask a wise teacher or guru. And they don’t ask because they are curious to know his opinion, listening with respect for his unique perspective on the question. Rather, they ask Jesus about what happens when you die because they want to mock and discredit him.
They don’t just ask, “What happens when you die?” but they make up a complicated scenario that is intended to make belief in an afterlife look ridiculous and naive.
I wonder if any of you have had someone mock your beliefs like that as well. It can happen, especially in hostile online environments where trolls try to tear apart their enemies’ perspectives and systems of thought and belief.
So, the Sadducees try to do that to Jesus (right to his face) by using the patriarchal practice of “levirate marriage” as an example. In ancient Jewish and some other patriarchal societies, if a man died without having children, that was considered a shame, and if a widow lived without children she’d be vulnerable to poverty and destitution.
The solution to both problems was for her dead husband’s brother or another close male relative to marry her instead. She’ll be cared for and protected, and her husband’s name will be carried on as well.
As one commentary pointed out, marriage in Jesus’ time wasn’t about romance, companionship, or even love. It was primarily a practical arrangement for the social and financial benefit of those involved. In particular, it was protection from the difficulties of old age and death.
So, the Sadducees imagine a woman who keeps getting married to each successive brother, and each one dies without her having any children. When the woman dies and goes to heaven, they ask Jesus, “whose wife will she be?”
Interesting question, huh? Heaven can’t possibly be real, they think, because a woman with seven husbands is unfathomable! In the ancient world, and in some places today, it’s normal for men to have multiple wives, but it wouldn’t work the other way around, they are sure!
But Jesus easily solves the problem by letting them know that there’s no marriage in heaven. “Oh!” you might be thinking, “That’s too bad. I was hoping to be reunited with my spouse in heaven.” After all, for many people today, a spouse is the most important person in the world for us, and we can’t imagine being separated, at least not for eternity.
But I think that Jesus is subtly critiquing the marriage practices of his time in which women were actually property – owned by their husbands – and not person in their own right.
“Whose wife will she be?” they ask, and Jesus says, “She won’t be anybody’s wife, she’ll be herself, a child of God.”
Jesus was an excellent debater. And with all the religious leaders challenging him and trying to catch him up in his final days, he had plenty of opportunity to show off his skills.
One of the brilliant things that he does in this encounter with the Sadducees is that he makes an argument based on the Scriptures and tradition that they share. He doesn’t quote the prophets that these guys did not consider authoritative, but he references the Torah – the first five books of the Old Testament that they all agreed on.
The argument is simple. When God says to Moses, “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob,” it is stated in the present tense, not the past tense. Not “I used to be the God of your ancestors when they were alive,” But, “Even now, I AM the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob.”
And Jesus says plainly, God is the God of the living, not the dead. Decomposing bodies in graves don’t need a God, so they must be alive.
I don’t expect that the trolls on social media would accept such an argument, and I don’t know if any of the Sadducees were convinced either. But I’m willing to accept the assurance from Jesus’ own teaching and from the witness of those who saw Jesus raised as well, that life after death is real and that when we get there, each one of us will be received, and loved, and valued, as children of God and persons in our own right.
I’m okay with being agnostic about further details, and not spending too much of my time and energy in this life on wondering or worrying about it.
But when someone asks me, “What happens when you die?” I want to be ready with my answer, and I hope you will be too. One of our tasks as Christians is not only to learn to hope and to trust God for the future, but it’s also to share that hope with others who may not be so sure.