“You don’t know what its like to be a bat”
Main point: We only know a little about what life will be like in the age to come. But we know it will happen.
INTRODUCTION
Some very interesting things pop up in our gospel today…
The Sadducees come to Jesus with a challenge… they are trying to trap Jesus.
Tell the Story: Comical, Outrageous,
Assuming Life After Death
We see it in our gospel today: Life. Death. Resurrection.
You may have noticed as you attend Christian worship, there are many scenes in the gospels that don't make sense unless we assume that people don't stop living when they die - that there is life after death.
In one scene James and John - two of Jesus’ closest followers - asked to sit on the right and left side of Jesus in his glory. The assumption inherent in that request is that there is a seat in glory where Jesus will sit after this life is over.
You may remember the thief on the cross who died next to Jesus. Jesus said to him, “Today you will be with me in paradise.”
Yesterday, at the funeral for Don Evens, we read the words of Jesus, “I am the resurrection and the life. Those who believe in me, even though they die, will live.”
Our scene today is recorded in all three of the synoptic gospels - Matthew, Mark, and Luke. Jesus is challenged by some of the religious leaders of his day - the Sadducees - about how marriage is going to work in the resurrection because they did not believe a resurrection would happen. Jesus replies, “have you not read what God said to you, 32 ‘I am the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob’? God is not the God of the dead but of the living.” implying Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob were still living.
Death is not the end. There is something that comes after.
This point may be obvious to many of you, but I name it because in our day there are many who think when you die…that's it. Poof. The lights go off and there's nothing more. Christian tradition has always held that there is something more. Life extends beyond what we experience now.
TO LIVE AS A BAT
What is the age to come going to be like?
Answer: We don’t know. Last week we referenced this line from St. John’s letter: “At the present time, we do not know what we will be, but we know we will be like him for we shall see him as he is.”
We live in this age, but in the age to come, we will be different. How different? We don’t know. What are those differences? We only get some clues now. But our consciousness in this age cannot conceive of what our consciousness will be in the age to come.
"What Is It Like to Be a Bat?" is a paper by American philosopher Thomas Nagel, first published in The Philosophical Review in October 1974.
Thomas Nagel argues that while a human might be able to imagine what it is like to be a bat by taking "the bat's point of view", it would still be impossible "to know what it is like for a bat to be a bat".
What do we know about the age to come?
If anyone in our story knows what the age to come is going to be like, it’s Jesus. He says, “In the age to come, we cannot die anymore, because they are like angels”
Death will not be a part of reality.
Because death is not a part of reality, procreation is not needed to perpetuate the species.
Because procreation is not needed, marriage is not needed.
This is Jesus’ basic logic: No death, no need for more people, so no marriage.
But we can't conceive of that. We are timebound and limited.
In this age, we do not know what it's like to live without death. We don't know what it's like to live without marriage. We don't know what it's like to live without the need for procreation. In essence, we don't know what it will be like to live in the age to come.
Or said differently, we don't know what it's like to live as a bat.
