Sunday, November 10, 2019

No Handicap Parking in Heaven

• No Handicap Parking in Heaven
with Luke 20:27-38
www.FirstChurchBville.com    @FirstUMCBville   @kerrfunk
A video of the worship service was posted on Facebook 11/10/19

• 29 years ago my life was changed forever.
I was a freshman in college, I met the woman I would marry, and that’s what we did. 23 years ago she died.
Also 23 years ago my life was changed forever.
I met the woman I’d marry. And that’s what we did.
We’ve been married 20 years now.
The Sadducees’ question has long given me pause.
Who will I be married to in the resurrection?
I don’t even know where I want my body buried!
On the one hand, sounds like a legitimate question.
Luke points out, though, that it’s not: the Sadducees who don’t believe in life after death are asking a question about life after death. Hoping to trick or trap Jesus.
• Levirate marriage idea sounds odd to us, but in patriarchal culture where few women owned property or could honorably sustain themselves, LM offered protection for widows.
Think of it as a kind of life insurance.
A safety net for a woman in the event of her husband’s untimely death.
• One commentator I read said “I have many questions about resurrection, but the details aren’t the point. Or at least they weren’t when Jesus answered the Sadducees in the Temple. The point is, the promise of resurrection and the assurance of that promise have the capacity to guide our life in this age.”
Why aren’t the details the point?
Jesus provides an answer, with a twist.
Levirate marriage, a kind of life insurance, has death at its foundation.
The resurrection, eternal life, the kingdom of heaven, there is no death in the resurrection.
Therefore there is no life insurance and no Levirate marriage.
There are no handicap parking spaces in heaven and no flashlights.
How do our earthly relationships carry over in the kingdom?
I don’t know. Jesus doesn’t say.
But I trust there will be nothing to complain about.
• I think Jesus had another point, though, when he replied to the Sadducees.
Don’t waste your time on these things.
Recall the passage from Isaiah last week:
Live in relationship.
Live in relationship with God and people.
Esteem others.
Ritualistically going through the motions doesn’t honor me, God says. It’s your own mind game.
What I honor: seeking justice – that is, what is right among people. Helping the oppressed. Defending the orphan, pleading for the widow. Using the opportunity, power, influence you have to lift others who lack opportunity, power, influence.
• What if, instead of gatekeeping the Temple,
disciples spent their resources and efforts in outreach and advocacy?
What if instead of deciding who was in or out,
disciples fed the hungry and aided the sick?
What if the people of the church lived their public lives in such a way that others would be drawn to their actions and teachings?
• Churches are intended to be resurrection outposts with the ability to be a site and a people whose resources, words, and being can be a foretaste for the most vulnerable among us.
May we be strengthened by the promise, and worthy of the age to come.
• Hymn 372 How Can We Sinners Know

Luke 20:27-38 (HCSB)
27 Some of the Sadducees, who say there is no resurrection, came up and questioned Him: 28 “Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother has a wife, and dies childless, his brother should take the wife and produce offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first took a wife and died without children. 30 Also the second 31 and the third took her. In the same way, all seven died and left no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For all seven had married her.”
34 Jesus told them, “The sons of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are counted worthy to take part in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. 36 For they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are sons of God, since they are sons of the resurrection. 37 Moses even indicated in the passage about the burning bush that the dead are raised, where he calls the Lord the God of Abraham and the God of Isaac and the God of Jacob. 38 He is not God of the dead but of the living, because all are living to Him.” ò

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