Implications of a Living God
November 9, 2025, The Twenty-fifth 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
When we are far away from what we love, we dream of it. We tell stories and write songs and poetry. We do our best to keep the memory of it alive by remembering the scent, the sight, the feel of it. We want to hear the sound of it ringing in our ears. We want to be reunited, for the way things were to be restored. It’s the very nature of nostalgia, isn’t it? We want to revisit a happy time in our lives, recreate it so that it can be present now, too.
Don’t you know that those who returned to Judah from their exile in Babylon wanted to rebuild the Temple as quickly as they could? They got started, but 18 years passed with only a couple layers of stone assembled, a sorry comparison to the former Temple’s grandeur. In the meantime, attention turned to the people’s own houses, individuals investing their time, energy, and resources on their own families . . . until the Prophet Haggai spoke up.
Rev. Dr. Wil Gafney wrote in her commentary:
“God spoke through Haggai (saying): ‘How many of you remember the good old days? Does this new temple hold a candle to the previous one? Buck up, Z! Hold your head up, Josh! Everyone, keep working! You have nothing to fear; I am here, and I am with you all. And it won’t always be like this. I will bring resources—treasure—from faraway lands, and in its final form, this holy house will be even better than the one Solomon built!’”[1]
In five years, the Temple was built, finished, though successive generations would add onto it. Haggai lit a candle, fanned the flame, reminding them that, yes, God was with them. They needn’t let comparison to the past cause stagnation or retreat from the work at hand. Remember: God heard their ancestor’s cries in the bonds of enslavement and their grumblings in the wilderness. God saw them through to the Promised Land, into exile, and back home again. God was with them before and is with them still. They have what they need. God will provide for them. They have what they have always had as God’s people: God’s promise. And God only ever asks of them to bring themselves and do all they can with all that they have, obediently and faithfully.
Just over 550 years after Haggai, the Sadducees clung to the laws given by Moses, faithfully and obediently. At some point, their way garnered them a place among the elite, a position among the powerful. Certainty can do that: bring a sense of assurance and the prowess to position oneself over others who are obviously lesser for not abiding by the right ways. Confidently, the Sadducees sought to humiliate Jesus by focusing on the resurrection in which they do not believe.
And Jesus knows that they do not believe in the resurrection, that they are projecting the life they know onto some supposed future life beyond the grave. Jesus highlights the difference when he speaks of “this age” where people “marry and are given in marriage” and “that age” when “they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection” (Luke 20:34, 36). God shows love in that all are taken into God’s presence as children. Mercy is revealed in how the suffering of this world, culminating in death, will be no more. Ultimately, all the rules and ways of this world that are so often skewed by chaos and injustice are taken into God and transformed into pure life.
Jesus challenges the Sadducees by presenting as fact that the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob is a living God, just as Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob are alive in God in everlasting life–an understanding and interpretation of what God says in Exodus that the Sadducees didn’t agree with. To believe in the resurrection, to believe in this kind of living God and everlasting life would change everything. It would mean the destruction of their own temple of understanding. Could they risk changing course to follow this person who has no social status, who is wreaking havoc in the systems of power, and who doesn’t promise a life of security and physical comfort. After all, this life is what we know. Why risk everything known on the uncertainty of what might come?
Some have considered their belief in the resurrection and focus entirely on the second coming of Christ, putting all their hope and trust in the promised eternity. The Thessalonians are concerned that they actually missed the second coming. They are among those willing to let go of the past and are focused entirely on the kingdom to come. Others who share this perspective can also find themselves so caught up in trying to make parallels to the signs of the end times that they forget that no one knows the hour but God alone, forget what work it requires to keep tradition alive so that it will survive for future generations. It is good to remember what we have experienced, learning from what we have loved and from what we have overcome. It is also good not to be afraid to let go and release ourselves into the fullness of God’s love now and in the time to come.
How we respond to our present moment has every reason to bear the marks of the good news of belief in a living God and hope in the resurrection.
We are accompanied by God’s presence, guided by Jesus Christ, and filled with the power of the Holy Spirit—what can’t we do? We might start by filling the fridge and pantry, talking with those who are most affected by lack of food, shelter, adequate clothing, or healthcare. We can volunteer at the food banks and call our legislators about the injustice of food insecurity, let alone poverty. We might find ourselves running for office or knocking on doors for those who reflect the moral character of one who believes that the love of God is for all and that death does not have the last word. Our presence will be a witness to a living God, full of love and mercy. Our belief will inspire hope for others who are wondering if the best of times have already come and gone or if there is any hope at all. Bringing healing and compassion to a hurt and broken world is our work until we are all counted among the children of God, abiding in glory everlasting.
[1] https://www.workingpreacher.org/commentaries/revised-common-lectionary/ordinary-32-3/commentary-on-haggai-115b-29-6
~The Rev. Sara Milford