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S. Pentecost 22.25 Luke 20:27-40

‘But those who obtain the Age and the Resurrection of the Dead neither marry nor are married… And they dared question him no more.’

For me, it’s the most wonderful time of the year, these last 3 Sundays of the Church Year that focus on eschatology—the End Times. For my wife, this passage is an important reminder of the fleeting, transitory nature of earthly life and loves.

I guess I’m just a hopeless Romantic. I always tell my wife (the love of my life 😉 that 
“we’ll be married forever, and isn’t that great news?” She’s like: “I guess? I mean, you’re… a lot. And I’m not sure that’s even true. Doesn’t it say, somewhere in the bible, that we won’t be married in heaven, anymore? I recall making a vow to love, honor, and cherish you until death us do part. After that, I think it’s over?”

I quote the ESV to her, and say “well; it doesn’t say we aren’t married. It says: ‘in the Resurrection they neither marry nor are given in marriage’—that no more marriages will happen in heaven, but it doesn’t say we won’t still be married in heaven.” She furls her brow and gives me that “I’m not so sure about that?” look. I just shrug and give her that “who has the M.Div. from Yale?” look, in return 😉

I really shouldn’t tell you this, and “ear muffs, sweetheart”, but I looked up the Greek for the first time ever, prepping this homily, assuming the ESV got this one right. And, guess what?, they don’t translate the Greek correctly here! γαμιζονται is a present passive indicative verb that is simply “are married” with a ουτε “not” in front of it (!)

Our vicars could tell you how much I love it when I’m right, and how rarely I have to admit being… wrong. Maybe that’s part of the reason I’m not getting vicars anymore? Maybe they didn’t love me being right as much as I did? Food for thought! But Bonnie was right on this all along and I was wrong. There! I said it! OK, “ear muffs off, sweetheart…” 😉

But this passage—besides giving comfort to long-suffering wives everywhere—reveals a deeper truth about us and the Age to Come. It’s not going to just be the “same old, same old” as on earth, infinitely extended. It will be gloriously different—WE will be gloriously different! Unimaginably so!!! But many of us don’t find that good news.

Many hold The Talking Heads view heaven’ll be “the same as it ever was”—maybe we’re a little nicer, healthier, handsomer, with slightly better toys and entertainments? That was the Sadducees’ idea of Heaven and, contrary to the old quip that they didn’t believe in the Resurrection of the Dead and that is why they were sad, you see? Maybe they are actually showing wisdom by rejecting that idea of Heaven…?

This is the problem with the widespread notion that the soul is immortal—scriptures teach quite plainly that every part of us—body, soul, and spirit—is infected by sin; and death (the death of Jesus Christ on the cross) is God’s way of putting sin out of commission, forever. Immortality of the soul would mean we never really change. But the Good News is by sharing Jesus’ dying, body, soul, and spirit, we share his Resurrection—body, soul, and spirit—made New Creations, gloriously different!

While we’re at it, the scriptures don’t teach there is an intermediate state between death and the Resurrection of the Dead. St. Paul says in I Corinthians 15 that, at the Last, in a flash, a twinkling of an eye, at the Last Trumpet, we all will be changed by death and instantly brought to the Resurrection of the Dead!

The best way to picture it is that if you’re standing next to Moses on Resurrection Day and you ask him: “what were you doing for these last 3,000 years?” Moses will go: “What? Just an instant ago I was standing on Mt. Nebo asking God to let me go into the promised land, and now, here I am!” And you’ll be like “That’s funny. Because just a second ago I was telling my wife that the semi-truck is surely going to stop, so she can quit telling me how to drive! And here I am with you and Jesus!” 😉

Luther says, quite correctly, that the instant we step off the island of Time, we are in Eternity with Jesus—body, soul, and spirit.

It is this attachment to what we are now that keeps us from plunging head-first and laughing into the holy rage calling our name, trust-falling into Jesus’ strong arms to let him re-make us any way he wants to…

At the end of Donna Tartt’s novel “The Goldfinch” (one of my favorites 😉 the protagonist Theo (a thief and con-artist that most people find unlikable but whom I like a lot 😉 has been traveling the world returning all the millions he made selling rich people fake antique furniture his father-figure Hobie had labored to make look old and valuable—buying the fakes back with the money he got as a reward for the return of Fabritius’ “Goldfinch” painting Theo had stolen from the Met when he was a kid.

Theo says, “I am immensely moved by the impermanence of hotels… with a fervor bordering on the transcendent. Some time in October, right around the Day of the Dead, I stayed in a Mexican seaside hotel with rooms all named for flowers—all opulence and splendor, breezy corridors that swept into something like eternity. And who knows? Maybe that’s what’s waiting for us at the end of the journey, a majesty unimaginable until the very moment we find ourselves walking through the doors of it, what we find ourselves gazing at in astonishment when God finally takes His hands off our eyes and says: Look!”

It is a failure of imagination that makes us yearn for everything—especially ourselves—to be exactly the same in heaven, just spruced up a bit. And the name for that failure is sin. And the refusal to give it up results in damnation—a cutting off of your nose to spite your face and the One who made it.

Jesus demolishes all our ideas of heaven—the Pharisees’ as well as the Sadducees’!—in order to tease us into letting him give us, make us, something… Better—unimaginably and gloriously Different!

And when we let go all our ideas of good and bad, heaven and hell, love and hate—when we simply let Jesus have his way with us—every way, always, well then: we’re finally getting somewhere… GOOD!

When we confess our sins, we’re beginning down that new and better Road with Jesus. Like Jacob, victories are not inviting to us—not anymore! Our gain, now, is to be deeply defeated by every greater things. And in this losing of our old loves, lives, and very selves, Jesus is gifting us, making us, by faith, through his cross, something Much Better!: little non-identical repetitions of Himself.

And daring question him no further, we find, at Last, the Peace, surpassing all understanding, guarding our hearts and minds in Christ Jesus. Amen.