Sermon, Remembrance Sunday Parish Eucharist, November 10th 2019

Reading: Luke 20.27-38

From Death to Life

In today’s gospel reading we find Jesus speaking unequivocally about the resurrection.  Contradicting the Sadducees, a Jewish sect that didn’t believe in the resurrection, he makes it clear that we can and should expect the raising of the dead.  This is a highly appropriate text for Remembrance Day when we mark the appalling suffering and loss of two world wars.  In a few minutes we’ll hear the plaintive, haunting notes of the Last Post followed by the wake-up call of Reveille, a musical statement of our expectation of the R of the dead.

To say that the resurrection of the dead is central to our faith would be an understatement. St. Paul underlines its importance with characteristic bluntness in his first letter to the Corinthians:

“If there is no resurrection of the dead…..we are of all people most to be pitied”

And yet, can it really be that all the suffering and pain not just of the last two world wars but of all conflicts and all lives since time immemorial will be put right at the last?  I assure you that if you find belief in the resurrection of the dead challenging then you are not alone, much as it is something devoutly to be wished for.

In the interests of managing expectations I don’t have any clinching arguments to share with you this morning,  more some reflections on the resurrection that my recent visit to the Holy Land have prompted. These have helped me to appreciate how far belief in the resurrection is all of a piece with the understanding of God’s nature that we find in the bible and the extent to which we see it anticipated in some of our own experience in this life.

During the 10 days we spent in Israel and the occupied West Bank we met some extraordinary people, not least two men – one Israeli, the other Palestinian - who are members of the Parents Circle.  This is a peace-making organisation that brings together people from both sides of the conflict who have suffered bereavement. In their case they both lost their daughters.  Rami the Israeli lost his teenage daughter in a Palestinian suicide bomb attack in Jerusalem.  Bassam, the Palestinian, lost his 10 year old daughter when an Israeli soldier fired a rubber bullet at her which hit her in the head. 

Both men admit that the pain of loss is in many ways as acute as it was when their daughters died years ago and yet they found each other and recognised their own pain in the other.  From this they formed a deep and unshakeable friendship that sees them touring Israel and the occupied West Bank telling their stories to promote peace, although shockingly they told us that they are unwelcome in the majority of Israeli schools. 

It was one of Rami’s comments that began to spark my reflections on the resurrection. He said that the pain of loss such as his is one of the most powerful forces in the whole world and he likened it to nuclear power. There’s the power of nuclear fission unleashed in the atom bomb which destroys and obliterates, and there’s the nuclear power from nuclear fusion - as with the sun - which creates warmth and light and nurtures life and growth.

We all of us experience loss and pain, although please God may it never be of the kind endured by Rami and Bassam.  But what we do with it and whether we channel it for good or ill is our choice – and ours alone. 

It seems to me that theirs is a story of resurrection – for both men in the choices they made have passed from death to life and in so doing have become generative of life and hope for others. When I say “life” I mean life in its fullest sense, life that has a moral and spiritual dimension to it as well a physical one and without which human life is not worth living. 

This is where my Holy Land reflections begin to link to Jesus’ words in today’s gospel reading.  He could not be clearer in his answer to the Sadducees who denied the resurrection:

“God is not of the dead but of the living” 

The God we worship is the unstoppable, undeniable force of life itself.  He is the creative, generative impulse that is at the heart of all things.  And part and parcel of his very nature is what in the bible is termed his “righteousness”.  This is a difficult word. When we hear it we immediately think of it in moralistic terms as indicating the correct behaviour of a good, upstanding citizen.  That’s a crucial misunderstanding, for in the bible righteousness has the character of a verb rather than a noun and it refers to God’s action in literally putting things right, in restoring things to how they should be before human sin spoiled things. Righteousness is therefore an essential feature of God’s fundamental creative impulse.

Life, the life that really is worth living, will not be denied by any amount of human sin, even the sin of nailing the Son of God to a cross.

The courage and commitment of Rami and Bassam is an act of righteousness.  Together they are helping bring about life where otherwise there would be death and they weren’t the only people we met who have similar stories to tell.  When you look at these extraordinary, inspiring people you begin to see Jesus’ passing from death to life as the culmination - the final expression, if you like - of a pattern already in evidence in our world. 

Believing in the resurrection doesn’t in any way deny the pain of existence.  Rather it is a statement of faith in the God of life who acts righteously, whose creative will is to put right even the greatest abominations.  The question is whether we will work with Him in this work or seek to thwart Him? 

Both Rami and Bassam have chosen the path of life.  With the help of God may we do so as well.

Amen.