(P)Review Bible Study: Luke 20:27-38...Yup, That's a Red Herring

    I am personally pretty impressed by folks who can get dogs to do exactly what they want them to.  I am just happy if I can convince my dogs not to tinkle on the tile or eat my shoes.  I have had a modicum of luck convincing dogs not to bark at the postman or jump on strangers but my canine training skills end right there. But I have known folks who could train dogs to do any number of astounding feats.  I once had a parishioner who owned a hunting dog that he swore could feed his family almost all on his own.  It was both a champion rabbit dog and it was just as good at flushing birds.  Like I said, I am hard pressed to get my dogs to sit or stay, let alone stealthily stalk a grouse or run a rabbit back to me. The training for these dogs requires hours and hours of work since, even though you are trying to work with the dog's natural instincts, you still have to overcome the dog's natural inclinations.  Take for instance training bloodhounds to track and locate specific prey.  When a dog is out in the woods searching for a scent there is a vast world of other scents that assail their senses, and those senses are outstandingly adapted for exactly that task.  

Researchers have estimated that a bloodhound’s nose consists of approximately 230 million olfactory cells, or “scent receptors” — 40 times the number in humans. Whereas our olfactory center is about the size of a postage stamp, a dog’s can be as large as a handkerchief.  Some call hounds "Noses with dogs attached" and to be honest, I have a Basset Hound that that certainly seems to be all nose and no brains.  She gets a scent in her nose and she is almost unstoppable in running after it. 

 Of course all that nose-power is only useful if it can be channeled into a focused purpose.  So, dog trainers spend huge quantities of time training their dogs to only follow and find the things that their owners want them to follow and find.    Trainers used to take a smelly fish and drag it along a path parallel to where they wanted the dogs to go just to see if they could distract the dogs with the smelly fish stink.  Hounds that could keep on track were rewarded, hounds that could not were corrected.  

    By the way, the smelly fish was a kipper.  Kippers are herrings that have been brined and preserved in a smokehouse. The process turns the fish reddish brown and thus they are called "red herrings". Literally the first "red herring" was originally a literal red herring used to distract hounds from tracking their actual prey. Today when we call something a "red herring" it means pretty much the same thing, just without that fishy smell. 
     In today's Gospel someone drags a seriously smelly fish across Jesus' path to see if they can get him off target. Needless to say, he does not fall for the red herring.  Here is the text from Luke:

Luke 20:27-38  Some Sadducees... came to him and asked him a question, "Teacher, Moses wrote for us that if a man's brother dies, leaving a wife but no children, the man shall marry the widow and raise up children for his brother. Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; then the second and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. Finally the woman also died. In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her." Jesus said to them, "Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. And the fact that the dead are raised Moses himself showed, in the story about the bush, where he speaks of the Lord as the God of Abraham, the God of Isaac, and the God of Jacob. Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive."

   OK, let's take a moment and review ancient Hebrew sects.... 

   Wow, did that sound boring.  No, let's not do that.  

    All you need to know for the moment is that there were a bunch of warring denominations in ancient Jerusalem and two of them were the Pharisees and the Sadducees.       The two were pretty similar in most ways, but while the Pharisees believed that there was life after death, the Sadducess did not.  My old Sunday School teacher used to say they had no hope of resurrection, that's why they're "sad-you-see"? Yes, that is a terrible pun, but you will probably not forget what the difference is between the Pharisees and Sadducees.  
    So a Sadducee asks Jesus a question about marriage law, but this is a red herring.  He is trying to lure Jesus into a circular argument about who's married to whom in hopes that he can trap the Lord into saying something incorrect about marriage law. Of course, the Sadducee has no interest in marriage law, he wants to disprove the whole notion of the afterlife and hopes that Jesus will provide him some ammunition for the argument.  
   Jesus is the bloodhound equivalent of theologians.  He is not going to follow a false trail so he leaps on the actual issue like a champ.  Let's be clear, he says, there is life after death.  Equally, lets be clear, the life that comes after this one is not just a little different...it is orders of magnitude different.  The old laws and customs that made sense here in this world just don't apply in the next, but there most certainly is a next.  

    As I am writing this the Pope is in Sweden.  He is attending the 499th commemoration of the founding of the reformed church movement known as Lutheranism....my home tribe.  This year we are reflecting as we reach the ripe old age of five hundred years old on what all of this means. The Pope is in Sweden at headquarters of the Lutheran World Federation actually speaking to Lutherans about how great Luther (the guy who led the Protestant split from the Roman Catholic church) was.  He is calling for Lutherans and Catholics to find ways to forgive, forget, and come together behind Christ.  
     Some have pointed out that there are still glaring, enormous gaps between us and them.  Their priests are celibate, our can marry. They don't have women pastors, we do.  They think Mary was born to a virgin and remained a virgin her whole life (weird right?), we don't.  The list of ways we are not alike goes on and on. 
    You could make the same list with Lutherans and Methodists. The same list with Methodists and Charismatics.  The same list with Charismatics and Mennonites.  Let me ask you a question:

"What about me?"  I was born into a house with a Baptist and a Lutheran.  I was baptized in a Methodist church (a compromise). In High School I attended a Full Gospel church from time to time. I went to college and joined a Presbyterian youth group.  In seminary I was a youth pastor at an Episcopal church but worshiped at a Northern Baptist congregation on Sundays.  So, when I get to heaven, what denomination will I be married to?

Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; but those who are considered worthy of a place in that age and in the resurrection from the dead neither marry nor are given in marriage. Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. 

Yup, Its a red herring. When I come into my Father's kingdom I am none of the above.  I will be a child of the resurrection, and a child of God.  That and that only.  While yet here on this Earth I remain a Lutheran, but only insofar as it makes sense in this place for me to serve the Gospel of Jesus Christ in this way.  In no way does it mean that in the Kingdom of God any such sort of divisions exists. Indeed, in my Father's kingdom we are all brothers and sisters, after all what else would you call other people who are also children of the same Father.   So, like Jesus we Christians need to stay on the track and not be drawn off task by the smelly herring of division and factionalism. 
    Do we all agree about all matters of doctrine and practice in the Christian church?  Most assuredly not. But what matters more is that we agree that it is not our philosophies or practices that unites us, it is the gift of Jesus Christ on the cross attaining salvation for us all that unites us.  It is not our love (or lack thereof) for each other that unites us, but the Father's love for us that we express to each other that unites us.  It is not our choice to gather with our fellow, like minded,  Christians that unites us, but the Holy Spirit's guidance that draws us, even in the midst of disagreement, to gather together at the foot of the cross in a community of the redeemed that unites us.  
    Any other pursuit is following false trail.  Jesus is the center of our focus and his gift brings us life, life abundant, life eternal, and life in the Kingdom of God:  both one day in the Resurrection and now as we live in the Spirit.  Let's not throw it away for the sake of some smoked fish.  One God, One Kingdom, One holy, catholic, and apostolic church.  We are one. Always have been.  Always will be.  And no human thought, proclamation, conference, convention, document, or declaration can ever sever us from one another or Christ Jesus.  Because what God has brought together, no man can put asunder.  And that's no red herring.