Luke
20:27-38
(Note: Each Sunday the Confirmation
Class gives me a word to include in the next week’s sermon. If I fail to do so, I am obligated to provide
ice cream for everyone the following week.
This week they altered the rules slightly and I agreed to try leaving
out a word. They gave me my choice
of three: “God”, “Jesus”, and “the”. At
some risk, I attempted option #3. Since
Luke 20:27-38 uses all three words, however, I am ruling quotations – and this
introduction – as out of bounds for this editing, and only applying the rule to
my own words. Actually preaching this will be a challenge, and I have no doubt that some of the students will hear "these" as "the". In other words, "Chocolate, strawberry, or butter pecan?")
One
big difference between two major religious parties in Judaism in Jesus’ day,
Sadducees and Pharisees, was that Sadducees believed that this life is it,
while the Pharisees believed in a judgment day when God would raise righteous people
from their graves and restore them to life.
In Jesus’ teaching that there is more to human life than what is
immediately visible to us, he was much more like a Pharisee than a Sadducee. He talked about people having “eternal life” [John 3:16] and about
each of us having to face God one day, with our lives being reviewed [Matthew
25]. So some Sadducees decided to push
him on this point.
There’s
an old debaters’ technique that’s called a reduction
ad absurdum. It means disproving a
proposition by showing that accepting it would lead to a ridiculous conclusion. They drew on that, along with a provision
written in Deuteronomy [25:5-6]
“When brothers reside together, and one of them
dies and has no son, the wife of the deceased shall not be married outside the
family to a stranger. Her husband’s brother shall go in to her, taking her in
marriage, and performing the duty of a husband’s brother to her, and the firstborn whom she bears shall
succeed to the name of the deceased brother, so that his name may not be
blotted out of Israel.”
It was a way to provide for widows’ long-term welfare
by trying to make sure there was someone to take care of them in old age. These Sadducees put this together with the
belief in a resurrection to come up with one of those reduction ad absurdum
situations.
“Now there were seven brothers; the first
married, and died childless; then
the second and the third married
her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose
wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” [Luke
20:29-33]
You just know that somebody had some fun coming up with that
one.
It wasn’t supposed to be about that
type of question, though. Old Testament
Law was there to provide help, not to trip someone up. It was supposed to reflect God’s nature, God:
who is not out to catch people in legalities but to establish ways of living,
as individuals, and as a community, that enhance and protect life. That’s what all scripture is about. It bears witness to God’s will for human
beings, especially as it’s known in Jesus’ fully human and perfectly-lived
life.
Living involves people in all kinds
of situations that come along, where opportunities present themselves to live
in narrowness or to live in grace. Since
the Sadducees consider widowhood, let’s look at that as an example. A United Nations report published just a few
years ago notes,
“Widows across the
globe share two common experiences: a loss of social status and reduced
economic circumstances. Even in
developed countries the older generation of widows, those now over 60, may
suffer a dramatic but subtle change in their social position. The monetary value of widows’ pensions is a
continuing source of grievance, since the value often does not keep up with
fluctuations in the ever-changing cost-of-living indices, or with expectations
that the older generation may have had of what life would be like in
retirement.”[1]
Again, scripture
provided a means to alleviate at least some of that. It gave guidance on how to enhance life, and
was not ever meant for playing mental games and scoring intellectual points.
Paul's Second Letter to Timothy [3:16-17] says that
“All scripture is inspired by God and is useful
for teaching, for reproof, for correction, and for training in righteousness, 17so that everyone who belongs to God may be
proficient, equipped for every good work.”
Our Bibles are there
to help us become better people, more Christlike, more and more truly children
of God. They are not intended to be used
as a weapon.
So look at Jesus’ response. He told them that he was not about to play
that game, with scripture or with people’s lives.
“Jesus said to them, ‘Those who belong to this
age marry and are given in marriage; but
those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection
from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage.’” [Luke 20:34-36]
He told them they
weren’t getting it. Eternal life isn’t
just some replay of this life. It is a
whole new way of living.
In doing that, he challenged them
(and us) to set aside our preconceptions and see people as people, not cases or
files or categories or things. Eternal life
is not like this life, but for his followers, this life, too, is a whole new
way of living. It’s one where women
aren’t treated as property. It’s one
where marriage isn’t just a matter of social status or economic survival. Life in Jesus reveals God as a living
reality, and that people made in his image, male or female, are not things, but
persons.
“Now he is God not of the dead, but of the
living; for to him all of them are alive.” [Luke 20:38]
By
way of contrast to these Sadducees’ question, consider this story, which I
often share with couples preparing for marriage and to promise publicly to be
faithful as long as they both shall live.
This happened one summer in a small town in North Carolina. There was a retired missionary couple and the
wife was diagnosed with terminal cancer.
It was hard for them both, but I think that he took it harder than she
did. She loved him very much. So one day, before she was too sick, she
called two of her closest friends, who happened to be part of her women’s
circle at church, and they spent an afternoon together in her kitchen while her
husband was out. Soon afterward, she
gave him a list with ten names on it.
She explained that these were the women she would consider suitable for
him when she was gone. After proper consultation they had been put into order
of preference (her preference, not his).
She only asked that he wait what she called “a decent interval” to
invite any of them out and that he observe her order of precedence. I don’t know who Number One was, but I know
for a fact that he eventually had dinner on New Year’s Eve with Number Two (who
told him she knew about that list and that she hoped he knew it was only going
to be dinner), and that he ended up marrying Number Three. Last I heard, they were very happy.
God
brings life because “he is God not of the dead, but of the
living” [Luke 20:38]. It is for us to live our lives as real people
who serve a real God, with generous and loving hearts, seeking one another’s
good, putting life above death, “being
children of the resurrection.” [Luke 20:36]
[1]
“Widowhood: Invisible Women, Secluded or Excluded” (United Nations Division for
the Advancement of Women, December, 2001), p. 5.
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