Remembrance Sunday - Sunday Sermon
Let me acknowledge from the outset that I feel totally inadequate when I preach on Remembrance Day. What do I know of war? I’ve never lived during a World War. I was a young child when the Vietnam war ended and the wars that I’ve been alive for have been in far away countries. I have no relatives involved or any real direct, personal or emotional connection with the wars that continue to rage on our planet. My grandfathers never talked about the wars. In fact, the little bit that I think I know about war is from what I watch on TV and movies and what I learn from reading. So, for all intents and purposes, I admit that I know nothing of war.
What I do know is how much I love life. I love living - even through life's ups and downs. I also know that I especially loved life when I was in my late teens and early 20’s. These were some of the best (and most fun) years of my life.
So, with that in mind, the thought of either being drafted to go to war or, even harder, choosing to go to war during that wonderful time in my life is utterly incomprehensible to me. I can’t imagine how deep a sacrifice those boys were making to go to war during what would arguably be the best years of their lives. They gave up everything to serve a greater good, to save the world from tyranny. Now that is true sacrifice. Not just the fact that they could die, but the sacrifice of giving up the life they led. In some ways they all died, even those who came back from war, for they all gave up what was perhaps the best times of their lives for us.
When we look at today’s Gospel we can easily get distracted by the plight of the poor widow in the Sadducees question to Jesus. She’s totally objectified and treated like a mere piece of property, handed from brother to brother in order to propagate the family lineage and perpetuate the family name. Whenever I read this passage I am waiting for Jesus to challenge the law that requires this woman to be treated so unjustly, but no matter how many times I read it, Jesus doesn’t challenge the law, he talks about life after death - the Resurrection.
This is precisely why this reading is relevant for us today on Remembrance Sunday. Yes, in our contemporary place in the western world where we have a keen sense of human and gender equality, the widow is treated terribly - as chattel for a patriarchal purpose. But such is her plight in life, in those ancient times and in accordance with ancient Levirate (brother based) laws. Jesus doesn’t address that concern because that’s not really what they are asking about. It’s not why they asked him the question.
The Sadducees didn’t believe in the Resurrection. The question they pose about the widow marrying his many brothers isn’t a question about marriage or women’s rights but rather a trap. They were trying to trip Jesus up by posing a challenge of logic, suggesting that, if there was really a resurrection then who would this woman’s husband be in the afterlife for she has been legally married 7 times.
A comparable ‘trick question’ today with our laws would be something like:
If a person donates their organs to save several lives and those people die and are raised at the resurrection, to whom do the organs belong? Who gets the organs in the afterlife?
Like the Sadducees’ question, this challenges a literalistic view of bodily resurrection and invites a deeper understanding that identity and eternal life are not bound by physical continuity but by the transforming power of God.
Of course, Jesus doesn’t get tripped up, he doesn’t fall into their trap, because the question is shortsighted and their temporal laws do not apply to the resurrected life.
Jesus distinguishes between “this age” (where marriage sustains life and lineage) to “that age” (where the resurrected life transcends death). More importantly, the Resurrection is not a resuscitation, a bringing back from the dead the profane rules, laws and structures of temporal life. Rather the Resurrection is the gateway to a transformed, angelic, sacred existence. The confines and bounds of this life are broken. The Resurrection abolishes our profane conditions, our rules and laws, like those of family lineage and name. Those laws that made marriage necessary and legally required for the widow in Jesus' time are not relevant and do not apply in her resurrected life. In other words, in her death she is no longer property for a patriarchal purpose. In her death she becomes free.
In the Sadducees' attempt to trap Jesus and logically prove that the resurrection is a falsehood, Jesus turns the table. Their question about death is responded to with an answer about life. Eternal life.
Jesus teaches that “He is God not of the dead, but of the living.” His message is that in the Resurrection we have hope, we believe, we know in faith that our life with God defeats the bonds of sin and death and brings us to eternal life. Our life with God, as taught to us by Jesus, is stronger than death.
As Christians, as people of faith, we are in covenant, in relationship, with God. God makes the same promise to us that he made to Abraham, Isaac and Jacob. We return that promise every Sunday when we say the Creed, our statement of faith, the commitment that we make at our baptism and renew at least once a week as part of this worship service. We state that; “We believe in the Resurrection of the body and the life everlasting.” For us, as people of faith, people of the Resurrection, death is not an end but a gateway to a new life, a new freedom.
We are in a sacred and profound relationship with God, a love that knows no bounds. A faithful relationship that transcends time, binding the past, present and future in our divine life with God eternally. Death is defeated and life with God continues beyond the grave. This is our message of hope. We are his people and he is our God.
This message resonates loudly for us during this season of Remembrance when we are caught in that tension between grief and hope. When we are saddened as we remember our loved ones who have died, and even those unknown to us whose names we hear read aloud at the cenotaph, year after year — all who fought and died — we hold fast to a message of hope. Those who have died are not lost to God but are now free in God. Like the widow in the Sadducees trick question, the profane rules, the sins of war, the tragedies of this life are defeated by the freeing love of God made known to us in Jesus our Christ.
As I said, I know nothing of war.
But perhaps that is precisely why I find myself standing in awe at this service of remembrance and frankly every Remembrance Day. Even though I cannot comprehend the full weight of that sacrifice, I can begin to glimpse its meaning through the lens of faith, through the very Gospel we heard this morning. Those young men and women, who gave up what were arguably the best years of their lives, who laid down their own futures so that others might live in freedom, embody in their own way the mystery that Jesus speaks of - that life is not bound by this world alone, that God’s love reaches beyond death.
The Sadducees’ question tried to trap Jesus within the limits of this life with human laws, logic, and the fear of what comes after. Jesus breaks those limits wide open. He shows that life with God is larger than death, that in the Resurrection we are made new and free, no longer defined by the boundaries, the limits of this world.
In the same way, those who went to war stepped beyond the boundaries of self — beyond comfort, beyond safety — and entered into a love that gave everything. Though their earthly lives ended, that love, that self-giving, continues in God.
The widow in the story was bound by the laws of men, but in death she was freed by the love of God. Freed, not into nothingness, but into God’s eternal embrace. In that sense, she stands today as a metaphor for all who have borne the weight of sacrifice, who have given of themselves for the betterment of others. Like her, those who have died in war are no longer bound by the pain, sorrow and suffering of this world; they are free in the fullness of life with God.
Today we remember them. Not as names on a monument or distant heroes of history but as living souls, alive in God’s heavenly kingdom, who remind us of what love requires. We remember that their gift, like Christ’s, was not in vain. In their dying, they have entered a new life.
We, who live in the peace they made possible, are called to honour them. Not only in remembrance, but in the way we live: with gratitude, with courage, with selfless love, and with steadfast faith in the God who promises resurrection and life eternal.
For in Him, and through Him, all who have loved greatly — all who have given their lives for others — live on forever.
For our God “...is not the God of the dead, but of the living; for to him all are alive.” — (Luke 20:38).
Amen.