Saturday, October 27

Today’s Lectionary Readings: Psalm 88 & 86; Zephaniah 1:10-18; Luke 20:27-40; Romans 9:1-5

When I wrote yesterday’s entry regarding pastoral care issues surrounding the death of a loved one, I had no idea that this theme would carry through to today as well. For in this morning’s Gospel passage, Jesus’ give the Sadducees a lesson regarding death as well. Jesus’ teaching in today’s passage, however, is a difficult one for many folks at face value; consequently, it rarely gets used in pastoral care situations? And why is that? Well, in the passage the Sadducees try to trip Jesus up with a trick question involving a rather unusual scenario. They ask Jesus to pretend a woman married a man with 7 brothers, and the man later died. His widow then married the man’s next oldest surviving brother. Sometime later the woman’s second husband died. This process of the woman marrying her previous husband’s eldest surviving brother continued until the woman had married all seven brothers. “Which of the seven brothers,” the Sadducees asked, “would the widow be married to in the afterlife? Jesus responded by saying, “Marriage is a major preoccupation here, but not there. Those who are included in the resurrection of the dead will no longer be concerned with marriage nor, of course, with death” (Luke 34-35 from The Message). These words would cause an unprecedented amount of grief in many people who are banking upon the projection of relationships from this plane of existence into the next. So where are the words of comfort within the passage? Luke 20: 36, where Jesus continues, “They will have better things to think about, if you can believe it. All ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God.” Isn’t that last sentence powerful – “all ecstasies and intimacies then will be with God”? What a wonderful description of heaven, or union with God! For the millionth time, our sacred readings remind us that our ways aren’t God’s ways: Gods ways are better! Next Thursday as we observe All Saints Day, I - like many of you - will remember and give thanks for my loved ones who have gone before me. As we do so, I pray that we will not only remember them but celebrate – yes, I said celebrate - the fact that now all of their ecstasies and intimacies are now with God. Perhaps that will put our thoughts into a healthier sense of perspective. Til next time…