Now, in order for me to discuss with you the Gospel Lesson you have just heard, . . . I must ask you to cast your minds back almost five months, to July first; the Sunday before Abigail Matteson’s wedding to James Lilly.  The Gospel Lesson for July first began at the fifty-first verse of Chapter Nine, where we are told that, “When the days drew near for him to be received up, [Jesus] set his face to go to Jerusalem.”  . . . And, for nearly five months now, we have been traveling with Jesus toward Jerusalem, . . . hearing and thinking about the things He had to say along the way; . . . mostly things relevant to the “receiving up” of Jesus that would be done at Jerusalem.  . . . Well, today Jesus has arrived.  Jesus has arrived in Jerusalem, and, as you recall from the Palm Sunday reading in the Parish House, His arrival created quite a stir, . . . involving a donkey and disciples’ cloaks and palm branches and overwrought crowds shouting, “Hosanna in the highest!  Blessed is He who comes in the Name of the Lord!  Hosanna in the highest!”

    The entry of Jesus into Jerusalem caused quite a stir.  So much so that the religious authorities of that city targeted this uncredentialed rabbi from Nazareth as someone to be discredited and cast in an appropriately inferior light.  . . . And so, today, as Jesus is teaching in the temple, some spies employed by the Jerusalem religious authorities come up and ask Him, “Teacher, . . . is it lawful for us to give tribute to Caesar or not?”  And you know what happens next.  Jesus asks for a coin . . . and examines it, . . . and then He asks whose picture is on it.  Being told that it is Caesar’s picture, Jesus says, “Well then, render to Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and to God the things that are God’s.”

    A good answer, . . . but it gives rise to a question:  “what are the things that belong to God?”  . . . Well, just then some Sadducees show up with a concocted story about seven brothers, each of whom had the same woman for his wife trying to fulfill an obligation to raise up children for his childless brother before him!  . . . An unlikely story, but the point of it is to stump the rube rabbi, . . . because the question the Sadducees ask is:  “In the resurrection . . . whose wife will the woman be?” (snicker, snicker).

    And Jesus says, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are accounted worthy to attain to that age and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.”  . . . Now, Jesus is no rube; . . . He has just said something very thoughtful . . . and very deep.  When Jesus uses the phrase “the sons of this age”, . . . He’s using the technical vocabulary of Jewish Law; because, you see, a “son” is someone who has the privilege and right to inherit.  . . . So, when Jesus says “the sons of this age” He wants His hearers to understand that He’s speaking about a class of inheritors; . . . by speaking of “the sons of this age”, Jesus means anyone whose focus does not extend much beyond themselves and the complex system of wealth and pleasures necessary to sustain that focus; . . . “the sons of this age” are concerned chiefly with property and status; with charm and personal competence; with marriage and being given in marriage, is the metaphor that Jesus uses.  And, as Jesus has previously assured us, . . . the Lord God Almighty will grant us to inherit whatever thing we insist upon having.  . . . But, Jesus says, . . . the inheritors of that which shall not endure … shall not receive that which does, . . . because, . . . “those who are accounted worthy of that age and to the resurrection” . . . are a different class of inheritors.  When all the things of this life and when time itself come to their appointed end, . . . those who are accounted worthy of the eternity of God and its Life . . . are men and women who neither marry nor are given in marriage, . . . Jesus says.

    Saint Matthew and Saint Mark write that Jesus said, “in the resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage,” . . . but that’s not what Jesus says in Luke’s gospel.  Jesus says, those who are accounted worthy now . . . well, they just don’t concern themselves with marriage!  That’s right.  You heard correct.  If you want to see God and live, Jesus says, then you must be celibate;  you must be virginal; . . . you must not marry . . . nor be given in marriage.

    . . . Some Sadducees ask Jesus an outrageous question, . . . and He gives just as outrageous an answer.  Christ’s reply is so outrageous that Matthew and Mark try to say that Jesus meant something else.  But Luke says that even though Jesus was having some fun with overly serious Sadducees; . . . even though Jesus was yanking the chain of the religious establishment at Jerusalem, . . . He means every word He says.  . . . Jesus says, “those who are accounted worthy to attain to the age to come and to the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage . . . because they are equal to the angels and are sons of God, being sons of the resurrection.”  . . . The sons -- the legitimate inheritors, in the technical parlance of Jewish Law -- . . . the legitimate inheritors of the resurrection are those men and women, Jesus says, who are virginal; . . . they are equal to the angels, Jesus says.  . . . Now, what do you suppose He means by that?  . . . Well, think about what an angel is.  He is a messenger of God; she is a creature of reason who communicates God’s holy Will.  . . . An angel is a creature who does not belong to himself, . . . but seeing the glory of God, has wed herself to Him who is the source of all shalom and of all splendor!  . . . An angel belongs to God.

    So, going back to the question I asked in response to Christ’s comment about the change in your pocket or in your purse, . . . “what are the things that belong to God?”, . . . Jesus gives us an answer.  Jesus says that if we desire to be worthy of the life of the age to come and of the resurrection to that life, . . . then we must belong to God(!), neither marrying ourselves to the world and the flesh nor giving ourselves in marriage to them.  . . . That is to say, like an angel, our attention must be preoccupied with God; . . . we must love the Lord our God with all our heart and soul and mind and strength.  We must not be preoccupied with the satisfactions of the moment.  We must not be preoccupied with the pleasures of the flesh for their own sake, or of accumulating wealth for the sake of having it, . . . or with the rush for its own sake which both flesh and wealth can provide.

    Now, I don’t want you to leave here and tell everyone that Father says we can’t enjoy ourselves.  Father has simply said that your flesh is a miracle of God; … its enjoyment must be tempered with gratitude and discretion.  And, in a like manner, wealth is a gift from God; . . . its enjoyment must be sanctified with charity and temperance.  For, you are each equal to the angels; we are sons of the Most High; messengers of the Will of His heart of love . . . because we, who have been baptized into the last things; we who have been baptized into the death and resurrection of Jesus, . . . we have given ourselves to belong to God’s heart of love.  . . . Consequently, every moment of this present age must be lived according to the discipline of one of the two states into which God has called each of us.  Every moment of this present age must be lived with simplicity, . . . detachment, … and focus upon God; . . . with poverty, . . . chastity, . . . and obedience to Jesus.

    The first of these two states into which God could call us, who are His sons; the first of the two states of the Christian life might be thought of as the “secular” state.  It is the state of Christian life which engages the world in the Name of Jesus.  The secular Christian is called by God to all that multitude of skills and crafts and technical competence which give joy and which are essential to the good of humanity and the care of Creation.  Secular Christians are farmers and farm workers, factory workers and shopkeepers, physicians and clerical workers, nurses and counselors; teachers and students; salespeople and auto mechanics . . . to name just a few.  This vast body of the Faithful engage the world in the Name of Jesus … with the help of Holy Scripture and prayer and the Sacraments, especially Holy Communion.  Secular Christians are called by God to communicate God’s love given to us in Christ Jesus with simplicity . . . in a world of complex and sometimes predatory relationships.  They are called to do this by regarding the disordered affections of Original Sin with the detachment of a heart that is focused upon the Word and example of Jesus and how these two things (Word and example of Jesus) apply to the vocation into which the Lord God Almighty has called them.

    The second state to which God might call His sons is often called “religious.”  Those whom God invites into the religious Christian life are commonly referred to as “monks” and “nuns”.  My Confirmation Class asked me on Friday if the Episcopal Church has “monks” and “nuns”, and indeed we do:  there is the Society of Saint Margaret, who have a mission house just outside of Utica; there is the Society of Saint John the Evangelist in Boston, the Order of the Holy Cross near West Park along the Hudson; the Community of Saint Mary at our Diocesan Spiritual Life Center in Greenwich . . . to name only a few.  And all of the men and women whom God has called into this second state of the Christian Life are essential to your Christian Life; to the life of every secular Christian and to the health of the Church.  This is because the religious Christian is not called by God to engage the world so much as to sanctify it and themselves and the hours and the days and the moments of this present age with prayer, . . . helped along by Holy Scripture and meditation and the Sacraments, especially Holy Communion.  Religious Christians are called by God to live in poverty so that they might represent, to the world and especially to the Church, the mercy of the Cross and the shalom of the Resurrection; . . . so that they might communicate God’s love given to the world in Christ Jesus chastely -- without encumbrance and without encumbering others, . . . being always obedient to the absolute example set before them by Jesus Himself.

    Many people, especially adolescents and young adults coming out of a secular Christian household, sort of assume that they are intended for a secular Christian life; that they are intended to get a job, marry, and have children.  But everyone must remember that God calls us to one of two states.  Anyone inclined to prefer solitude and quiet to social interaction and conversation; anyone inclined to prefer prayer and reading to more active pursuits . . . should pay attention to the possibility that God may be calling them to a religious Christian life . . . and ask for priestly help in discerning such a call.

    . . . Saint Luke reports to us, today, the outrageous thing Jesus said to some Sadducees shortly after arriving in Jerusalem:  . . . that those who are accounted worthy of the age to come and of the resurrection are virginal in this age.  Luke tells us this thing . . . because, while Jesus may have been having fun with the Sadducees, . . . He is also telling us the Truth.  Jesus doesn’t forbid marriage, . . . but he does remove marriage from the realm of the profane to the realm of the sacred, so that even a crusty old sinner like myself, married to one woman for forty years and father of three sons, has a chance to attain unto everlasting felicity.  . . . Because, those who are accounted worthy of the age to come and of the resurrection don’t concern themselves with marriage.  In matters of the world and of the flesh they are virginal.  By which Christ means that their hearts and minds strive to dwell in the presence of God . . . so that their very selves might be given over to living and manifesting the pure and sacred and chaste love of the precious heart of God our Father . . . no matter what the state of life into which He has called us.