27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came to Jesus with a question. 28 “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way the seven died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven were married to her?”
34 Jesus replied, “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage, 36 and they can no longer die; for they are like the angels. They are God’s children, since they are children of the resurrection. 37 But in the account of the burning bush, even Moses showed that the dead rise, for he calls the Lord ‘the God of Abraham, and the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob.’ 38 He is not the God of the dead, but of the living, for to him all are alive.” Luke 20
Let me start with a quick survey. Just one question. How many have had to get up, maybe labor through a thick shag carpet, to change the channel on the television for your parents? Or maybe just for yourself?
Okay, one more question. How many remember having to set your schedule around a television show so you wouldn’t miss it? I remember coming home from school and rushing to sit in front of the TV so I wouldn’t miss a moment of Dark Shadows! Because if you missed it, well–you missed it. Unless you caught a rerun. And who wants to wait months for that?
Such tedious difficulties have been completely done away with. A remote control allows us to never leave our lazy boy and home fashion preferences have saved us from the shag carpet. And of course, the DVR and streaming options means we set the schedule. Admit it, life is good!
But at the time we worked our lives around the television we thought just having a color TV was the best thing ever! Who knew the future would be so good?
This is what Jesus is trying to help us to see. He is trying to give us a vision of a life that is beyond what we could imagine now. Peterson puts it this way in the Message: “Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage nor, of course, with death. They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.”
This is a vision that blows color tv, remote controls, DVRs and AI right out of the water! How can this be? I haven’t a clue but it will be amazing to find out!
Take a moment to close your eyes and feel the joy and peace and love that flow through that promise to us. I say feel it because it is the Holy Spirit that will open our hearts to these possibilities. “All ecstasies and intimacies will be with God.”
As amazing as this sounds to us, imagine what such a promise would have sounded like to this poor woman in the story. Admittedly, this was a made up scenario by the Sadducees, meant to trap Jesus into saying something that might get him in trouble, but it is pulled from real life.
If a married man dies without children, his wife is obligated to become pregnant via the closest relative. (Ladies, think about that for a moment.) She is expected to produce a son to carry on the name of her deceased husband. Truly, she would then have offspring to take care of her when they grew up, but how hard would it have been for the 7 brothers to simply have helped her? Instead she was exploited for the means of carrying on the name of the man.
I wish Jesus had addressed this directly, but instead he hoped to bring their hearts into the vision of a better world so that this and other forms of exploitation would be addressed by those committing them. He is always calling us to repentance. To a change of heart. It is only through repentance things will ever truly change.
Martin Luther King Jr may have helped to change the laws of the land, but the hearts of humanity continue toward prejudice of many forms. Men and women continue to be exploited for the pleasure or prosperity of others. I choose to not mention specific examples, simply because we already know them all too well. Unless of course we choose to be blind.
And this is what the kingdom of God will be like. A place where people are treated equally. A place where we will all be one in the Father. Remember Jesus’ prayer in John 17?
“I am praying not only for these disciples but also for all who will ever believe in me through their message. 21 I pray that they will all be one, just as you and I are one—as you are in me, Father, and I am in you. And may they be in us so that the world will believe you sent me.”
There will be no labels: immigrant, poor, needy, homeless, etc. because we will all be united and if even one is homeless, then we all will be.
Every Sunday, and more often I would hope, we pray together “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as in heaven.”
This is the picture of God’s will, God’s kingdom. Why do we pray this when we seem bound and determined to not allow it in our own hearts.
Your kingdom come, but not right now Lord. I don’t want to unite with those people in their pain.
Brothers and Sisters, it will be truly wonderful. One day we will be united with God. But God wants that for us now.
Yes, our bodies die now, but if we are all united in God, then we are always together. Jesus prayed in that Priestly prayer: “Now this is eternal life: that they know you, the only true God, and Jesus Christ, whom you have sent.”
To know in the scriptures is not simply a mind thing. It is intimacy.
United because we allow the Holy Spirit to change our hearts, to bring repentance and become united with God and all of creation. United so that to exploit one is to be exploited ourselves. To reject one is to be rejected. To leave one to be hungry and homeless is to be hungry and homeless.
Some may rejoice in the vision of this future and some may not. Preferential treatment feels good but what Jesus proposes will be even better.
I was happy with color television but how much better do I have it now! How wonderful we will have it if we are open to his kingdom.
amen
I challenge you now to take a moment of silence to hear the Spirit speak.
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