Trick Questions

First Lesson: Haggai 1: 15b- 2:9
Responsive Reading: Psalm 98
Second Lesson: 2 Thessalonians 2: 1-5, 13-17
​Gospel Lesson: Luke 20: 27-38

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Grace and Peace from Our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ,
​
Let me begin with a few questions which anyone can shout out the answer if they have guesses[1]

1. What goes up and never comes down (no matter what)[2]?  (Age)
2. Once upon a time, there was an airplane crash, every single person on board died, but two people survived. How is this possible? (The two who survived weren’t single but married)[3].
3. How could a man go outside in the pouring rain without any cover, and not have a hair on his head get wet? (The man was bald)[4]
4. What has a head, a tail, but does not have a body? (A coin)[5]
5. Some months have 31 days, others have 30 days, but how many have 28 days? (All months have at least 28 days)[6]. 

 
What these questions indicate is that human beings can be quite good at fooling others.  It can certainly be this way when it comes to religion.  When I was in high school, my grandma had a boyfriend named Irv.  Irv wasn’t a regular church-goer.  Irv’s reasons for not attending were people in the church according to him, didn’t know anything.  He said most of them couldn’t tell you whether the Book of Hezekiah is in the Old Testament or the New Testament.  I was convinced that I knew the right answer.  I loudly proclaimed The Book of Hezekiah was in the Old Testament[7]. 
 
I had fallen victim to Irv’s trick question.  Hezekiah is a king within the Book of Isaiah.  A good and faithful king, but he was not a prophet for whom the majority of Old Testament books are named.
 
Now twenty plus years after falling victim to Irv’s trick question.  I’ve come to realize that Jesus is smarter in the presence of any religious trick questions than I’ll ever be.
 
My evidence of this is our Gospel lesson for today.  Let me set the stage.  A group of Sadducees approaches Jesus with a question.  To understand the question, here’s a little bit about the Sadducees. 
 
The Sadducees were one of the primary religious groups within Jesus’ day. 
What made the Sadducees' unique was their belief that there is no such thing as the Resurrection of the Dead.   You’re dead, and then your body merely decomposes within the ground. The  Sadducees derived their belief from the First Five Books of the Old Testament (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers, and Deuteronomy[8].   These books alone were the Sadducees Bible, so if these books didn’t say it then the Sadducces didn’t believe it.
 
So the Sadducees like my Grandma’s boyfriend Irv put their heads together and come up with a seemingly brilliant trick question for Jesus to try to answer.
 
Let me re-read their question from Our gospel: “Teacher,” they said, “Moses wrote for us that if a man’s brother dies and leaves a wife but no children, the man must marry the widow and raise up offspring for his brother. 29 Now there were seven brothers. The first one married a woman and died childless. 30 The second 31 and then the third married her, and in the same way, the seven (brothers) died, leaving no children. 32 Finally, the woman died too. 33 Now then, at the resurrection whose wife will she be, since the seven (brothers) were married to her[9]?” 
 
Now the practice they cite is what’s known as Levirate Marriage.  Within Levirate Marriage, when a woman became a widow, she would marry her husband’s brother next.   This type of marriage is a concept that arises in the earliest days of the nation of Israel[10].   Women having children was a matter of not only economic survival but benefitted the nation’s military survival.  So  Levirate Marriage as strange a concept as it might seem  to us was a long-standing social welfare program within Ancient Israel.  Woman who were not married, tended to have limited means to earn an income to support themselves.
 
So with this in mind, The Sadducees think they have Jesus trapped by getting him to admit that either Resurrection of the Dead is foolish because of things like Levirate Marriage or Jesus doesn’t go by the First Five Books of the Old Testament.  The Sadducees figure that once they trap Jesus than every one gathered for Holy Week will turn on him.
 
How does Jesus respond to the Sadducees? Simply, by telling them, they got their understanding of what the afterlife will be like all wrong. 
 
Jesus declares:  “The people of this age marry and are given in marriage. 35 But those who are considered worthy of taking part in the age to come and in the resurrection from the dead will neither marry nor be given in marriage[11].”
 
Jesus’ response to the Sadducees is they don’t understand the nature of the afterlife.  How it cannot be compared to our relationships within the here and now.
 
Now, as Christian people, when we think about relationships within the afterlife.  For many of us, the first image that pops up is people like Frank and Shirley Moschet, couples that are happily married for years and years where one spouse longs to reunite with the other spouse after both their deaths. 
 
Yet human relationships for many of us are more complicated than this. 
 
Let me tell you the story about a couple that I’ll call Curt and Julie[12].  Curt and Julie had been fighting for months and months.  They had both began to gather facts for their upcoming divorce case.  When Curt and Julie were together, the situations would quickly blow-up into screaming matches.  One day, Curt got a phone call saying Julie had been in a terrible accident.  Julie’s life was hanging in the balance.  Now let me ask you this, what would  Curt and Julie’s relationship as husband and wife be to each other within the afterlife?
 
Now let me pose a second scenario:  Nathan lost who appeared to be the love of his life,   Louise, unexpectedly at a young age.  A few years go by,  Nathan meets another woman named Kim.  Kim had been previously divorced .  Nathan and Kim then find many years of happiness together until Nathan’s death.  Now let me ask you this: “To whom is Nathan married to within the afterlife his first wife Louise or his second partner, Kim?”
 
Now let me lay out a third scenario for you.  Scott was a good man. He was gainfully employed and a churchgoer.  Scott had a few girlfriends when he was young.  These girlfriends would go on to marry other people.   Pretty soon, Scott was the only one of his friends not to be married.  Scott would then never marry.  Scott’s years on Earth were marked with loneliness.  Scott then dies.  Now let me ask you this: “Does Scott remain forever alone within the Afterlife?”  
 
After considering each of these scenarios, which probably describe people you know, perhaps what Jesus is getting at within our lesson for Today begins to make sense.   Resurrection Life will not be like life in this world. 
 
Our relationships in heaven cannot be compared to our relationships Today.  We cannot exactly say what our various relationships might look like within the Resurrection.  What we can say is that the brokenness and sin which divides us as people shall be no more, as we’re gathered into the arms of our savior. 
 
Our Lutheran Book of Worship within their Marriage ceremony has couples pledge commitment to each other until the moment that death parts them[13].  What happens beyond death, this was a question that the Sadducees thought could trick Jesus on.  What Jesus points out to the Sadducees is Resurrection life is beyond what we can imagine within this world.  What might this exactly look like, is not something that I can say for sure whether one is single, happily married, unhappily married, divorced, widowed, or remarried. 
 
 
I believe that all martial statuses are included in Paul’s powerful promise from Romans 8: “neither height nor depth, nor anything else in all creation, will be able to separate us from the love of God that is in Christ Jesus our Lord.[14]”
 
The point of our lesson is this. Our Savior’s promises of eternal life given to people throughout the course of their often imperfect lives are more powerful than any trick questions about marriages that even the seemingly most clever can throw at us.  Amen


[1] Hoezee, Scott. “Luke 20:27-38.” Center for Excellence in Preaching. Calvin Seminary. Grand Rapids, MI. 31.Oct.2016. Web. Oct.30.2019.
[2] Zhang, Allen. “What are some examples of trick questions and answers?” Quora. 15.June.2019. Web. Oct.30.2019.
[3] Editor. “114 Trick Questions with Answers [Funny Mind Trick Questions].” Icebreaker Ideas. 17. Apr.2019. Web. Oct.30.2019.
[4] Editor. “114 Trick Questions with Answers [Funny Mind Trick Questions].” Icebreaker Ideas.
[5] Editor. “114 Trick Questions with Answers [Funny Mind Trick Questions].” Icebreaker Ideas.
[6] Zhang, Allen. “What are some examples of trick questions and answers?” Quora.
[7] “Hezekiah.” Wikipedia: The Free Encyclopedia. Wikimedia Foundation. 29.Oct.2019. Web. Oct.30.2019.
[8] Lose, David. “Commentary on Luke 20:27-38.” Working Preacher.
[9] Luke 20:29-33.
[10] Deuternomy 25:5-10.
[11] Luke 20:34-35.
[12] Zingale, Tim. “Life After Death.” Sermon Central. 5.Nov.2001. Web. Oct.30.2019. 
[13] LBW pg.203. 
[14] Romans 8:39.