God's Time is Not Our Time

The Church of St. Paul & Incarnation, Jersey City NJ

November 10, 2019

Year C, Proper 27: The Twenty-Second Sunday after Pentecost

Haggai 1:15b-2:9

Psalm 145:1-5, 18-22

2 Thessalonians 2:1-5, 13-17

Luke 20:27-38

God’s Time is Not Our Time

I don’t know about you, but it seems that there are some life lessons that I need to learn over and over again.

            For example, the need for patience.

            Over these past couple of weeks as we’ve been sorting out our boiler issues, I have found myself increasingly impatient.

I want to know what exactly is wrong.

Now.

I want to know how best to fix it.

Now.

And, I want the problem – or, actually, the problems – fixed.

Now.

            Well, I can want all of that and more now but the truth is I am not in control of this situation and the truth is that my impatience can’t make the solutions appear any faster and I can’t even make the contractors work any quicker than they can or will.

            So, with God’s help, I need to be patient with our boiler situation and patient with the people who are working on fixing it.

            And, as much as it may be driving me a little nuts – and it is - this call for patience is actually a good spiritual lesson because the truth is you and I need to be patient with one another.

And, most of all, we need to be patient with God, trusting that although God’s time is not our time, God is at work: rebuilding, healing, and, most of all, creating new life out of death.

Today’s first lesson is from the Prophet Haggai, who is not a prophet we hear from very often.

            Haggai lived during a tumultuous time for the people of Israel: in the sixth century BC the Babylonians had conquered Judah and destroyed its capital city of Jerusalem, including the Temple which had been the center of life.

            After some years of exile in Babylon, the Babylonians themselves were conquered by the Persians and, surprisingly enough, in 538 BC, the Persians then allowed the Jewish exiles to return their homeland and start over.

And, when they got back home a top priority was rebuilding the Temple.

            The Book of the Prophet Haggai, part of which we heard today, is set in the year 520, eighteen years after that homecoming, and to everyone’s frustration the Temple had still not been rebuilt!

            (So, actually, I’m starting to feel a little better about our furnace situation!)

            But, God speaks through Haggai, reassuring the people that despite the delay, despite not working according to the schedule that human beings might want or expect, God is still at work.

            God says, “My spirit abides among you; do not fear.”

            And, in God’s good time the Temple will indeed be rebuilt and eventually that new Temple will be even more spectacular than what had previously stood in Jerusalem.

God’s time is not our time.

But, God is at work: rebuilding, healing, and, most of all, creating new life out of death.

           

            It wasn’t just our Jewish brothers and sisters who had to learn patience, who had realize that God doesn’t work according to the schedule that we might want or expect.

            The first generation or two of Christians had expected that the Risen Christ would return very soon – certainly within their lifetimes – to judge the living and the dead and to bring all of history to an end.

            Well, as we know, that’s not what happened.

            And, so one of the first big tests of the Jesus Movement was whether it could accept that God’s time is not our time, that God doesn’t work according to our schedule.

            And we hear some of that stress in today’s second lesson, from the Second Lesson to the Thessalonians.

            You know how human nature works: since people were eagerly awaiting and expecting the coming of the Lord, it seems that there were rumors flying among the community that Christ had in fact already returned.

            The author of Second Thessalonians warns them not to be fooled but to trust in God and to trust in what they had been taught.

God’s time is not our time.

But, God is at work: rebuilding, healing, and, most of all, creating new life out of death.

And then there’s today’s gospel story of the Sadducees who have a kind of off-the-wall question for Jesus.

Among other things, today’s gospel lesson reminds us that there was quite a bit of diversity in first century Judaism.

            We often hear about the Pharisees, a group within Judaism that is usually depicted in the New Testament as opposing Jesus.

            And now today, we hear from another Jewish group, the Sadducees. From what we know, the Sadducees were from the upper class, and were responsible for the maintenance of the Temple, and played prominent roles in Jewish life.

            They followed the Torah – the first five books of the Bible – but they did not recognize the rest of what we call the Old Testament.

            And, most important from the Christian point of view, and relevant for today’s story, the Sadducees did not believe in the resurrection of the dead.

            Not only that but, judging by today’s gospel lesson, it seems that the Sadducees were willing to challenge – and even ridicule - people who did believe that the dead will rise.

            So, the Sadducees tell Jesus the sad and plainly absurd story of this poor woman who, in succession, was married to, and widowed by, seven brothers.

            To make any sense of this strange story you need to know that the Book of Deuteronomy includes something called “Levirate Marriage.”

            It’s a type of marriage in which the brother of a deceased man is required to marry his brother’s widow. It was a way of holding together the extended family and also a way to protect the widow who would likely have been particularly vulnerable.

            Now, by the first century Jews were no longer practicing Levirate Marriage, but they still knew what it was.

            And, so, the Sadducees ask Jesus about this poor woman widowed by the seven brothers.

            “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be?”

            Of course, this is not a sincere question because the Sadducees don’t believe in the resurrection! Naturally, Jesus knows this, but he still answers their foolish question, and then makes the larger point that God is not God of the dead because the dead are not dead to God.

God’s time is not our time.

But, God is at work: rebuilding, healing, and, most of all, creating new life out of death.

            And so, here we are.

            Today many of us are impatient, wanting what we want now.

            We want these furnaces fixed already!

            And, in our impatience and anxiety, it’s often hard to see and feel God at work.

            But, just as in the time of the Prophet Haggai and just as in the time of the early Christians, God’s spirit still abides with us, so we do not fear.

God’s time is not our time.

But, God is at work: rebuilding, healing, and, most of all, creating new life out of death.

Amen.