On Sunday November 11, 2007 I preached the following sermon at the Cathedral. Enjoy--Cathy

I know that my Redeemer lives. It is a beautiful sentence isn’t it? Too bad Job wasn’t actually referring to God. Actually he was referring to a friend, an advocate, someone to represent him to God, for at that moment in time Job was pretty ticked off at God. But for centuries we have heard this line as a loving statement of faith. And I am all for keeping it that way.
I know that my Redeemer lives. I know it, I know it, I know it. Except for those times when I forget. Sometimes we forget.
Job forgot. Paul was worried that the church in Thessalonica would forget. The Sadducess? They forgot. Jesus? He forgot---not for long, just for a moment when he was so scared on the cross.--- But then before the lament was out of his mouth, he remembered. He remembered that His Redeemer lived.
I know that my Redeemer Liveth, that wonderful solo from Handel’s Messiah. Handel knew that his Redeemer lives and he shouted it to the world through his music.
So even though it may not have been the original intent in the book of Job that phrase resonates with us—Job may not have meant it as we meant it, but the statement works, it will warm us when our choirs sing Handel’s Messiah on December 2 right here at the Cathedral. Even the coldest of December nights are warmed when he hear: “My Redeemer Liveth.” Because it is true.

December, it will be here before we know it. Two short weeks ago it was hard to imagine the cold and dark of a Buffalo winter, but now? Now there

has been snow, we have dug out the gloves; the ice scraper is back in the car. The earth is going dormant, the leaves are dying, and the plants are frost bit, but even in the darkest and coldest of nights, we know that spring will come. We just know it.
Everything around us has died, yet we know that spring will come. We know that the earth will live again. The circle of life.
We live each day to its fullest even though we know we will die. We may weep at the grave of family and friends, but we are not hopeless. For we know we will be together at the last day (John 6:40). The relationship we had with the deceased is not over, it is changed. It is this point the Sadducess are having trouble with, so they challenge Jesus with their long tale of marriages and remarriages [as was the Levrite marriage custom] . To whom would the woman be married in the afterlife? The woman,is a child of God, and in the world to come, that’s all that matters. Because, according to Jesus, it is the relationship we know as faith which feeds and fuels all other relationships. As John says in his epistle, God is love. (1 John 4:8) And all other love flows out of that.
Our ability to have relationships-- to be in relationship with each other-- is because of the relationship God has with us.

God the three in one, trinity, is all about relationships, actually the triune God—father son and holy spirit isn’t about relationship. God is relationship.
The creator God made the heavens and the earth and all the interconnections and inter-relatedness of that creation. That vast expanse of interstellar space? We now know that it is vast beyond all our wildest imaginings. It is

exponentially larger than scientists thought. Yet, in all that vastness there is intricate interconnectedness. The effect of a butterfly flapping her wings in Peru can, 3 weeks later, impact the weather patterns in Tibet. This “butterfly effect” is just one of a whole cadre of discoveries science has made regarding the inter-relationship of creation. Can not recycling your newspaper destroy the earth? Single-handedly no, but in conjunction with other seemingly miniscule decisions? Yes. This interconnectedness is relationship. The ultimate form of this interconnectedness is the trinity—for each aspect of the trinity feeds off the other:
This God the Creator and God the Son in relationship is what fuels our faith. That fuel ,that action between God and Son, God and Creation, Son and humanity—that is the Holy Spirit.—

My ability to love you, your ability to love me, our ability to love one another is God Given. It is the relationship which is God, it is Grace. Grace is the stuff of relationships. The love we feel for others is God. God the Father lovingly incarnated as God the son, lovingly at work within us, between us, above us, before us, behind us, below us is God the Holy Spirit.

In today’s Gospel, The Sadducees were trying to trick Jesus and Jesus did what he was very good at—he beat them at their own game. It was easy for Jesus to do for he knew that the Sadducees were focused on this life, the life we know the life which we can taste touch and see. But Jesus is talking about a greater life—the true and eternal life which is not easily


comprehended. The life which requires faith to grasp. The life which is shown to us day in and day out through our loving relationships.
Jesus understood that the relationships we have on earth are precious to us and I don’t think he is saying that we should scrap it all .
The relationship of Three in One—the trinity-- fills our hearts and souls. It is the action of that relationship which gives us the ability to be in relationship with one another.

Jesus isn’t demeaning our loving earthly relationships—not at all—but he is saying that we must always remember that our ability to be in relationship, our ability to love and to nurture is a gift…a gift of the Holy Spirit bestowed upon us by God, through Jesus Christ.
If we acknowledge the fact, that it is through relationship God is expressed, then so much falls into place:
The irritating co-worker, the annoying driver, the whiny friend, the belligerent 2 yr old, the impatient spouse—all of these people are in relationship with us, and in that relationship God is working. The Sadducees were in relationship with Jesus, just as Job was in relationship with God—and those relationships are a conduit for Grace. All relationships are potential vehicles for God’s Grace. It is up to us, in our human condition to decide whether we will cooperate with God’s grace. When in relationship we can one of two things: we can head toward the life giving light of God or toward the life draining darkness. When we head toward the darkness we deny the flow of God’s grace.


When in darkness we find many false redeemers: power, prestige, drugs, money, and elitism. In Denying God we embrace all the worst aspects of humanity: anger, hatred, abuse, bigotry, the list goes on.
Darkness begets darkness so once in it, finding our way out is hard. We can’t do it alone. We need help. We need a partner. We need another. We need to be in relationship.
The Church, the one in Thessalonica, as well as this one in Buffalo, is all about relationships. A church of one is no church; a church of one is no community. For the church relies on people, people who gather in faith to rejoice in the relationship we know as God. In this world, we need the church. In this world and in this church, we need each other.

Old Testament theologian Walter Brueggemann has a theory about what we, the modern day church needs to be for the world in the 21st century---what he calls a non-anxious presence. To illustrate his point he reminds us of the role a loving adult plays when a child awakens in the middle of the night
from a nightmare. We go to the child take them in our arms and say, do not be afraid, I am here.
That’s being the light in the child’s darkness: I am here. You are here, together we will be ok, because together we are in relationship and that relationship is God’s grace.
How powerful this can be. What if, when we are blind with rage at another we stopped to think, is this God’s grace?



What if when the government made decisions about the war they stopped and thought that every person they harm, Americans or Iraqis or Afghanis has relationships and that in those relationships is God. Each of these people can be vessels for God’s grace. We must cherish that grace, we must realize that they—all of them---are creatures of God.

They are part of the ever flowing grace and love of the Holy and Undivided Trinity, One God.
What, if when we exchanged the Peace with one another we realized—I mean really realized that we, right then and there in that exchange are doing what God has intended: to connect, to relate, to love.

When we stand together, look at each other and say “The Peace of the Lord Be With You” we are also saying, “Do Not Be Afraid, for I know that my Redeemer, Your Redeemer, Our Redeemer, Lives.”