November 6, 2022 Sermon
Sermon title: "Seven Husbands, One Wife!"
Scripture: Luke 20:27-38
(Other lectionary choices include Haggai 1:15 - 2:9, Psalm 145:1-5 and 17-21, and II Thessalonians 2:1-5 and 13-17.)
Luke 20:27-38
The Question about the Resurrection
27Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him 28and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. 29Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; 30then the second 31and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. 32Finally the woman also died. 33In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." 34Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; 35but 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. 36Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 37And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. 38Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."
When Harlane first heard this story, about the seven husbands of the one woman, when the Scripture says, "Finally, the woman also died", Harlane said, "Thank God!"
What the Sadducees were trying to do here was trip Jesus up. They did not believe in the Resurrection, and they knew Jesus did. So, they tried to give him an unanswerable question. The practice of the day was that in order to assure the lineage of men (women didn't matter much at this time!), if a man died without having any children, his brother had to marry the widow and whatever children were born were considered to be from the husband who had died. Now that may sound weird to us, but that was the practice. To have no heirs was thought to be a terrible fate. Look back at Genesis. Abraham and his wife Sarah were old and were beginning to think that they would have no children. So, Abraham had already made arrangements with a certain Eliezer of Damascus to take care of him, and then he would get Abraham's assets after he died. But that wasn't God's plan, and Sarah eventually conceived and had Isaac. So, in ancient Hebrew thought, having no heirs was thought to have been a bad thing. What could be done about it? Somebody came up with the idea of having a relative - a brother of the deceased - marry the widow, and then whatever children came from that union were thought to have been children of the deceased.
We of course feel sorry for the woman who had to marry the brother, and then ANOTHER brother, and another and another and another, as in today's Scripture reading. But think of the brother! What if he couldn't STAND his brother's widow?! Let's just be glad that we don't feel compelled to practice Levirate marriage now. (That's what it was called: Levirate marriage.) So, that's where the Sadducees were coming from. They didn't believe in the Resurrection, so they were trying to stump Jesus. In other words, they were saying, "Hey, Jesus! We know you believe in the Resurrection. What if THIS happens? Whose wife will she be?" And you can just bet that they looked at each other, snickering and thinking, "We've got him now! He'll never be able to answer THIS one!" But Jesus DID answer, and he gave - in my opinion - a wonderful response. He said there is no marriage in Heaven, and what we have in today's reading from Luke sounds as if Jesus thought people got married in order to have children. The thinking is, as I hear the Gospel reading, that we on earth die, and so we have children to replace us. But in the Resurrection, there is no more death, and if there is no more death, people live forever. So, if people live forever, there is no need to replace them with children. So THAT is why there is no marriage in Heaven!
But Jesus goes a step further. He knows that the Sadducees believe only in the first five books of the Bible, the Torah, or the Penteteuch. (Why they believed in ONLY those books of the Bible, I have NO idea!) But Exodus, the second book of the Bible, is a book which they accept, and Jesus knows that. So, he talks of Moses, who is in Exodus, and when Moses talks to God in the Burning Bush, what does God say? Does he say, I WAS the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob? NO! God says to Moses, "I AM the God of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob!" And Jesus at the end of today's reading, says, "Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive." Oh, isn't Jesus SMART?! He knows his Scripture, and he throws the Sadducees-accepted passage right in their faces!
One more thing.......in another Gospel account of this story, Jesus tells the Sadducees that they don't understand the power of God. What I think Jesus is saying here is that things in heaven aren't going to be the way things are on earth! What Jesus is saying, maybe, is, "Think outside the box, for crying out loud!" And "Don't assume that because things are one way here on earth that they'll be the SAME way in Heaven! Let God be God, for crying out loud!" (I apologize for saying, "For crying out loud", more than once!) Not to toot my own horn, but on the subject of life on other planets, I've always thought that maybe other civilizations could breathe methane and not oxygen! True, it wouldn't be life as WE know it. But who knows what's out there? The same for the Sadducees and their limited view of God and how things COULD be. Since God is God, couldn't the Almighty create some DIFFERENT way of being in Heaven? Of course, God could! Of course, God could! One thing one learns from reading the Old Testament is DON'T LIMIT GOD! GOD is running things, not you, you Sadducees! That's one of the things that I think Jesus was trying to say.
The Sadducees' inability to think outside the box reminds me of the Apostle Paul's words in First or Second Corinthians. He is speaking of the life to come with God, and he says we shall be changed. (Handel wrote a great aria in his "Messiah" that says that. It's an aria for a bass or baritone. Using a quote from the Apostle Paul, he puts to music these words: "Behold, I tell you a mystery. We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed....in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye....At the Last Trumpet." And then follows that beautiful aria: "The Trumpet Shall Sound, and the Dead Shall Be Raised." And shortly thereafter, "We Shall Be CHANGED.") Verla Covey told me a JOKE about the Sadducees, that may have come from her husband Dave. They were SAD, YOU SEE, because they didn't believe in the Resurrection and because they couldn't think outside of the box. It never occurred to them that in Heaven we would be CHANGED, that things would be different.
Again, Jesus was telling the Sadducees that we must not think of Heaven in terms of this earth. Life there will be quite different because WE will be quite different. And again, it's up to God, and we shouldn't speculate how things will be. Whenever I do a funeral. I tell the congregation that I believe we'll see God. But not with these eyes because things will be different - but we will see and we will know! How? I have no idea! And I don't care how God has arranged things! What I DO know is that I trust God, and whatever God has planned is just fine with me! So don't be like the Sadducees and think that Heaven will just be an extension of this life. It won't! Jesus says so! The Bible says so! End of story! And the sermon!
Pastor Skip
