PENTECOST 21 PROPER 24 2007
November 11, 2007
(Job 19:23-27a, Ps. 17:1-8; 2nd Thessalonians
2:13-3:5; Luke 20:27-38)
The Rev. Ken Kroohs
HANGING FROM THE CLIFF BY OUR FINGER
TIPS !
St. Christopher’s,
MAY THE WORDS OF MY MOUTH ... AND THE
MEDITATIONS OF ALL OUR HEARTS ... BE ALWAYS ACCEPTABLE TO YOU --- OUR STRENGTH
AND OUR REDEEMER AMEN
As you may recall, I really like the image for Bible study that
some scholars use. They talk about
“unpacking” the passage.
Shirley and I moved into our home almost a year ago .... and
there are still some unpacked boxes.
When you look into one that is only marked “from den” you have no idea
what is in it. And frequently it
includes several not well related items.
Sometimes we find that in scripture. We look at a passage and when we “unpack it”
we discover several teachings, each important but which are not directly
inter-related.
Today’s gospel is like that.
The first and most obvious item within the box is the discussion
of an afterlife. Notice that at this
point in Jewish history there is great debate about whether or not an afterlife
even happens. The general consensus over
the centuries has been that there is NOT a heaven or hell. The word “sheol” that sometimes is translated
“hell” or even “purgatory” really just means “grave”.
Remember what God promised Abraham? The promise was not eternal life as we
understand that. No, God promised
Abraham eternal life through his descendants
It is only when you get to the book of Daniel, a very recent and new
book in Jesus’ time – less than 200 years old, and a book at that time not
universally considered scriptural, only in Daniel do you begin to get hints about a resurrection and divine
judgement. (See Daniel 12:1-3)
The Sadducees were religious conservatives. They believed only in what the books of Moses
– the first five books of the Bible, contain.
Those books have no clear indication of an afterlife or judgement so the
Sadducees say they do not exist. That’s
why Jesus quickly mentions Abraham and the others – to relate to them and to
directly challenge their beliefs.
In this passage Jesus makes one of His clearest statements about
the afterlife — and yet it is not very clear.
Despite what you might have heard the truth is that the Bible says very
little directly about eternal life. Most
of what we think we know someone has extrapolated from scripture. In fact, I would say that the primary
scriptural lessons about afterlife includes only three points: (1) it exists,
(2) it is good, and (3) — that’s all you need to know!
Jesus tells us it is not like this life — a point Paul later
emphasizes. Specifically this passage
tells us that relationships are not like physical, human relationships. Notice — Jesus does not say we won’t know our
loved ones, or won’t see our loved ones.
My understanding .... here I am extrapolating from a very limited
teaching ---- my understanding is that our close relationships will be
broadened beyond just a person or a few people to include everyone.
All that said, the most interesting items within this package we
are unpacking are more subtle. Notice
first the teaching about the woman and what it assumes. The question describes what is known as the
Levite marriage. To our ears it sounds
like the woman is being passed around like the desk grandpa made and no one
wants to throw away! She is being passed
around like property — and to some extent she is.
BUT — remember that she had no option to survive by becoming a
nurse, or a doctor, or a teacher, or a CEO.
A woman without a husband basically could hope her birth family would
take her back — or beg on the streets – or become a prostitute — or become an
indentured servant. Being taken in by
the in-laws was one of the better options!
Notice also the sense of eternal life as being your
children. The brother was to raise up
sons for the deceased brother. Our
understanding of genetics scoffs at that but it was the understanding they had.
But dig deeper and notice the different understanding of adultry,
and the acceptance of polygamy. No one
would doubt that at least some of the brothers were already married — you did
that as soon as you were old enough. So
no one is questioning the idea of having more than one wife. Remember King David had MANY wives and he was
one of God’s chosen leaders.
And notice the idea that having a child with another woman was
not adultery. In these times adultery —
which was forbidden — was defined differently than we do. In those times adultery was a man having sex
with a married woman other than his wife.
It was considered essentially a property crime — you had damaged the
other husband’s property. For example,
remember that when Paul condemns the use of a prostitute he does not call it
adultery.
And when Paul says that a church leader ... the word is frequently translated “bishop”
... should be the husband of one wife he is not talking about divorce but
polygamy. Paul is saying a church leader
has only enough time for one wife. ...... I know that opens up lots of good
jokes. But either out of discretion or
cowardice I refuse to take the bait!!
The point is to notice that Paul is only limiting church leaders
to one wife ---- church members, by implication, were allowed to have multiple
wives.
What we discover as we unpack this passage is that our
understanding of scripture .... our
understanding of what God is telling us, what God wants us to know,
changed over the years.
Please understand that this is not a slippery slope we have
found. No, this is hanging by our finger
nails from a cliff! The slightest
mistake can send us crashing down. If
you can visualize hanging by your finger tips from a cliff, you probably would
accept that changing positions is not something you do easily. This may not be a great position to be in,
but it is better than falling! So if
someone says you should move your hand you are likely to think about it long
and hard.
In a similar way, if someone suggests changing the way the church
has understood scripture we should spend a lot of time, thought and prayer on
the question. I wish we had some
transcripts of church conventions when the definition of adultery changed — I
bet those were “enthusiastic” discussions!
No, we need to both question our human understanding of God’s
word, and be extremely cautious about changing traditional understandings.
I do think that as we consider this passage we can gain some
guidance for that challenge. Notice that
the underlying teaching effectively protected the woman — a person who needed
protection. True, it protected the dead
man’s legacy but the result also protected the woman because once she married
one of those brothers she became their concern.
The law could have been simply to father a child and take care of the
child. That would have protected the
man’s legacy but left the woman destroyed.
My point is simply that it helps to look beneath the specifics to
see the intention.
Another example, we now know that many diseases are spread by
contact with infected blood. In ancient
times there was no way to test the blood so the rule was to avoid all
blood. The intention of the rule was
health but if we focus on the details we can easily mis-understand the
scripture.
I believe our current understanding of adultery is closer to
God’s intention ---- God’s teachings than first century Jewish and Christian
thought. I believe an emphasis on
committed, loving, caring relationships ---- and the damage done to those
relationships by other actions, is what God intended when adultery was
forbidden. If we were to consider it
still basically a property crime than property laws could settle the
issue. I believe God created us in such
a way that it is a crime, a serious crime against the relationship.
Notice how many times in scripture our relationship with God is
compared to a human marriage. Usually we
think the intent is to consider the human marriage and extend that image to our
relationship with God. But what if we
reverse the process and take the best possible relationship between God and
human beings ---- and compare that, use that as a model for marriage? That sets a mighty high standard.
And yet ---- if we accept that standard we are moving beyond the
simple words of scripture. Accepting
that word “adultery” can be defined in different ways, find me a passage that
speaks to monogamy. King David with all
those wives and concubines was the model for the coming messiah. God never criticized King David until he
sought another man’s wife. Yet I firmly
and sincerely believe when we take the time to look at scripture in its entirety
and in its depth, monogamy is what God intends.
The fascinating thing we learn from this passage is that we tend
to be Sadducees — we tend to be so sure of what we believe, whether that is
consistent with church tradition or not.
We are stubborn in our understanding and reluctant to even consider
another person’s beliefs as having merit.
Hanging from the cliff by finger tips — and being willing to
question scripture are both frightening, dangerous positions to be in. So let me add one additional belief of
mine. I belief God wants us to unpack
scripture ... to struggle with scripture — to wrestle with God and thereby seek
to deepen our understanding. And I
believe God knows we will get it wrong some of the time. My belief, and my only personal hope, is that
God gives us credit for the effort, even when we are wrong!
AMEN
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CLICK HERE TO RESPOND: I would enjoy reading your comments about this sermon. Please feel free to discuss content or presentation. (If you wish to use another email system send your comments to: ken@st-christopher.com)