The Fire of Freedom

Do you believe in the resurrection? It’s a question that might make some of us squirm in our seats in our highly scientific, post-Christian society. A question that can pigeon-hole us into one of 2 answers. And it’s a question that might hit us differently, particularly after reflecting on loved ones past at our All Saints Service last week. But it’s a question that not only got laughed at, scoffed at and scratched many a head at 2000 some years ago, it’s a question that continues to elicit a similar response today. So in our last few weeks of Pentecost, perhaps it’s fitting to sit at the fire of this burning question before the awe and anticipation of Advent. To stand before its harshness so we might hear from the one who upturns all our assumptions and expectations: where the last shall be first, where the poor will inherit the kingdom of God, where the hungry will be filled with good things, where those who weep will be filled with laughter, and where death itself will be undone. And our scripture begins with, not all, but some Sadducees who do not believe in the resurrection. They’re in the Temple—still ringing from the echo of corruption, with tables upturned and coins clattering the chapter before. And it’s clear that they’re trying to trip up Jesus. They use the authority of Moses and his levirate law to ask whose wife a hypothetical widow will be in the resurrection if she’s married not once, not twice but seven times to brothers who keep dying. It almost sounds like those ridiculous questions we were asked as kids in school… you know the ones: “If Sally has 10 socks and she puts 3 socks on her goldfish, how many socks are still dry?” It’s a wonder how any of us made sense of anything from math class. And yet, somehow, this is exactly how resurrection is treated: —abstract, absurd, a puzzle to solve rather than a story to enter. But Jesus doesn’t play their game. Instead, he completely dismantles the marriage system altogether. Although the levirate law attempted to ensure women weren’t left without, it was ultimately flawed as it only served as a bandage over the corrupt societal system of patriarchy. To be clear, Jesus is not saying we will not be reconciled with our spouses at the resurrection. What Jesus is saying is that the need for this levirate law will not be necessary because there won’t be patriarchy at the resurrection. Can I get an ‘Amen’? A statement that would have been so incomprehensible at the time… And yet, Jesus is getting at something far more liberating than they could ever imagine. Because what he does next gets to the heart of their question: He uses the same authority of Moses by revealing that the resurrection didn’t start with him, but reaches all the way back. But he doesn’t use the argument of God’s laws given to Moses, he goes back further… Back before the 40 years of wandering in the desert, before the moment of splendour on Mount Sinai, before the dry path that guided the Israelites across the Red Sea and before the plagues. He goes back to the moment that started the Exodus story, of God’s people being led into freedom: the precipice on which the possibility of the Israelites’ liberation hinged on: a moment in the middle of the wilderness, where a bush is burning but not consumed, where a shepherd who was living a half-hearted life in hiding and humiliation responds to a voice calling from flame. And there, God awakens Moses from his hollowness, declaring: “I am the God of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. I have seen the misery of my people; I have heard their cry; I know their suffering, and I have come to deliver them. I AM WHO I AM, the God of your ancestors. This is my name forever and this is my title for all generations.” Admittedly, a rather strange moment to point to, to prove the resurrection. But in this strangeness we see that Jesus is pointing to something far more radical and far-reaching than what we may have first thought this story meant. Jesus reminds them that in this holy moment, God claims, in no uncertain terms, that it is God’s nature, God’s very name that reveals resurrection. “I AM WHO I AM” — not, I was who I was. In other words, this is a God who sweeps the floor with death, who gathers within God’s self, not the dead, but the living Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. A God whose liberation does not end with breath, but carries through the grave itself to strangely, mysteriously and powerfully enter Moses’ story. A connection that silences the Sadducees and satisfies the scribes because, in Jesus’ answer, is the burning truth about the God who refuses to leave us alone, dead or alive. Whose very name is connected and dependent on our living, breathing names, from Abraham, Isaac and Jacob, to me and to you. Now, when I first read this scripture earlier this week, I found myself squirming at the thought of preaching about life after death. I tried to safely navigate to a sermon about resurrection now so I wouldn’t have speak about this strange thing. But what I realized was that a lot of my anxiety and discomfort was coming from a place of immense privilege, of not really needing to be liberated. And I think this gets to the crux of our struggle in progressive churches in the West. Many of us have become intellectual and theoretical about resurrection because, well, we can be. One of the curses of living in a developed country is the belief that we don’t need to be liberated. We have convinced ourselves we can save ourselves with enough comfort, cushioning, cash and control. In other words, we miss the fire of resurrection when we believe we have nothing to be freed from. We forget that resurrection is not only personal but cosmic — a liberation of all that has been bound, all that has been silenced, and all that has been crushed beneath the weight of the world’s systems. In other words, we forget we are not truly free until all are free. But if you listen to any gospel spiritual, resurrection is not an idea, it’s not a theory and it’s not an intellectual exercise — it’s fuel, it’s hope, it’s survival. For enslaved African Americans, whose songs like “Wade in the Water” and “Swing Low, Sweet Chariot” rose from fields soaked in tears and sweat, resurrection was resistance. It did not minimize or excuse their suffering — it declared that suffering would not have the final word and that all things, inevitably and eventually, would end in God’s liberation, if not in this lifetime, then the next. Their songs sang of a day when death itself would loosen its grip — when the world would rise from its own tomb and breathe again. Harriet Tubman was one of many enslaved African Americans during the 19th century who believed this and sung it with her whole heart. After escaping enslavement herself, she could have rested in her new found freedom. But she knew, intrinsically, that true liberation isn’t just personal, it’s bound up with the whole of creation. And so, she risked her life on over a dozen occasions to come back and guide hundreds to freedom through the Underground Railroad. She would sing the Gospel hymn ‘Go Down, Moses’ to encourage the people she was leading to freedom, eventually being called ‘Moses’ by those who followed her. And it was because Tubman believed in a resurrection where the last will be first, where the poor will inherit the kingdom of God, where the hungry will be filled with good things, where those who weep will be filled with laughter, and where death itself will be undone. In other words, she was awake to the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob living in her, moving her along the Underground Railroad, despite whether she would see the end of slavery in her lifetime or not. Spoiler alert: she did. And this same liberation is what resurrection still promises us now, even in our scientific, post-Christian society. So, perhaps the question isn’t whether you believe in the resurrection but rather, where is the burning flame of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s God in your life? Because we are all a slave to something. Tubman knew this better than most when she said, “If I could have convinced more slaves they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more.” And though we may have not known the kind of enslavement Tubman or the Israelites faced, here’s the thing: the greatest lie the Western world has ever told us is that we are free. Many of us if not all of us find ourselves enslaved to systems that subtly and seductively dwindle God’s resurrection. As much as Jesus was tearing down the patriarchy in our scripture, we still live in a society marred by domestic violence, as patriarchy seems to be continuing on in many ways unscathed. We live in an economic system that still puts the first, first and the last, last, that blesses the rich and feeds those who are already full. And we only need to look at this past week to see how easy it is to mistreat creation and get lured into gambling culture, justifying and even making a public holiday out of cruelty and addiction. And so, because we live in the real world, resurrection can’t be a theory. The stakes are too high. It must be a story to embody. A story that started with Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, that flared up in a burning bush, that led an enslaved people to the Promised Land, that walked out of a tomb in Jerusalem, that sings in slave fields, mourns with mothers who have lost children, and comes alongside us even now. Because liberation is inevitably and eventually breaking through. And the power of this cannot be understated. Whether it be in this lifetime or the next, all systems of suffering, greed, and domination will fall away and even death will be freed from its own sting. So, where is the burning flame of Abraham, Isaac and Jacob’s God in your life? For this God is not a God of the dead, but of the living — who meets us in fire, awakens our hollowed hearts, and whose very being, whose very name, is wrapped up in our liberation, so that all, one day, will be free.