In this post-election season, permit me to fantasize what the aftermath of Jesus' debate on the resurrection with the Sadducees might have sounded like if in his day there were fawning reporters who ran after spin doctors to find out what really just happened.
"The Sadducees hit a home run tonight. Jesus didn't answer the question - he never did say which brother would be married to the woman in the resurrection. People want to know where a messiah stands on these issues. And imagine how he would have dodged the issue if he had been asked about a man with eight brothers or nine brothers. He's simply unfit to be a messiah. He's wrong on resurrection; he's wrong for believers!"
But as it turned out, it wasn't much of a debate. For Jesus and the Sadducees were talking about different things - the Sadducees were talking about the nature of resurrection and Jesus was talking about the nature of God. For Jesus, the resurrection was not a fact that was yet to come - something that could be debated hypothetically. Instead, it was a reality that did and had defined people's relationship with God since God called and people responded.
In talking about God and the resurrection, Jesus goes to a surprising place - to Exodus - back to the early days of God's story. And he quotes God's introduction to Moses: "I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob." Zal Stein, a U. City rabbi who has spoken here at Trinity once commented about this threefold introduction. Zal said that for millennia, Jewish scholars have wondered about why in Exodus we read about the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob, rather than the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Why the redundancy - especially when extra words take up space on precious papyrus? Zal suggested, and this goes along with Jesus' response to the Sadducees, that we speak of the God of each person because each person had a unique relationship with God. Each person experienced God differently and God treated them according to their needs, their gifts, and their purpose. Because every person is alive to God, we cannot speak of God only in terms of generalities, but we also need to speak of God specifically.
A little later in our service we will do that when we read the names of the saints on this All Saints Day. We read each name, not only to remember each person individually, but to recall and celebrate that God was, and in the resurrection, is the God of each person - giving specific gifts and specific callings. God is not just out there, somewhere, but God is near to us, and we know that, we relate to this intimate God through Jesus Christ - who although in the form of God did not regard equality with God something to be grasped, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave was found in human form. God is not only the King of the Universe, but also the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, the God of Jacob, and the God of each saint.
Which brings us to us. If God is the God of each of these persons, God is also the God of each one of us. God has redeemed us and calls us by name. Like Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, we each have a unique relationship with God. And we are alive to God, not only now, but forever.