Spacious Silliness

 "...there were seven brothers. The first married a woman and then died childless. The second, then the third, married her. Eventually, all seven married her... When all are resurrected, to which one does she belong?  Luke 20:29-33

The legal authorities in Jesus' day spent too much of their privileged time in spacious speculation about unimportant matters.  Rather than feeding the hungry and clothing the naked, they preferred coffee cake and mind-tripping. Perhaps, it was their puffed-up intra-group egoistic contest to outdo one another with clever what-ifs that caused them to cook up a hypothetical of such an unlikely occurrence.  Though it should be noted, their goal was to spring a trap and discredit as a theological scowflaw the far more popular folk hero operating in their ballywick. So much is wrong about this tale from our modern perspective that one might wonder why it isn't lying on the floor of the editors.   And yet...

Inside the tale (and the minds of the debate-ers) is revealed the simplicity humans prefer over cosmic glory. Let's list some of the deeper elements that are passed over in the hypothetical.

1. The inherent sacred value that God places on every person. The wife here is not some inanimate object of inheritance.  Nor is she a hand-me-down future bearer of the family name—though culturally, that was one of the assumed functions for women of that period. If religious minds had been aimed higher than their cultural norms, they might have been advocating for the sacredness in all human nature.

2. Do humans really have ownership over anything?  a) We can't possess another soul.  To share our soul with others creates the weave in the fabric of eternity.  The essence of relationships is the memories and love held in the vault of forever, often passed down from generation to generation. b) In practical purposes, marriage is a social contract for the sake of family stability and child rearing, not a bill of sale. Marriage, in religious contexts, however, is the recognition of and honor shown to the commitment to love.

3. Life on planet Earth appears as a zero-sum game.  One lives.  One dies. End of story.  That would be the tale if life were solely the tangible.   But it is not only tangible flesh & blood.  Even in the legal authorities' hypothetical, they recognize the intangible.  The eternal dimension == Life that is broader, higher, and eternal.  Where exists the energy & essence of life -- grounded in love, mercy, justice, peace...  Co-joined (married?) to God. We come from God.  To God we return. 

We do not worship a God of the dead, but a God of life -- a life that knows no end.