PROPER 27, YEAR C

November 9, 2025

Saints Matthew and Mark, Barrington, R. I.

 

Job 19:23-27a 

Luke 20:27-38

 

Some years ago, an engaged couple sat across the coffee table from me in my study. They were attractive, intelligent, and very much in love. As I always do in my pre-nuptial instruction, I emphasized the importance of entering marriage as a lifelong commitment: “till death us do part.” With a smile that expressed utter confidence, the young man leaned forward and said, “Oh yes, Father, we love each other so much that we know that we’ll be married not only for this life but for all eternity as well!”

 

Although the thought flashed through my mind, I didn’t have the heart to quote today’s Gospel: "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." Instead, I just mumbled something inane like, “How nice,” and moved on to talk about the importance of making wills and balancing checkbooks.

 

In today’s Gospel, Jesus is responding to a question posed by the Sadducees. An aristocratic religious group based in Jerusalem, the Sadducees were theological conservatives and biblical literalists. They believed only what they could prove from the Torah, the first five books of the Bible. So, unlike the Pharisees, the Sadducees didn’t accept more recent developments in Jewish belief, such as the existence of angels or the resurrection of the dead. They would not have counted the Book of Job as authoritative, which in our Old Testament reading hints at the resurrection of the dead, where Job says, "For I know that my Redeemer lives, and that at the last he will stand upon the earth; and after my skin has been thus destroyed, then in my flesh I shall see God …"

 

Perhaps to force him to take sides in these debates, the Sadducees challenge Jesus with the question about a woman who married seven brothers. In the resurrection, whose wife will she be? Of course, it’s not an honest question. It’s designed to ridicule the very idea of resurrection, and to make Jesus look foolish no matter how he answers.

 

Rather than attempting to answer the question on the Sadducees’ terms, Jesus rejects the premise. He says, in effect, that marriage is for this life only. In the life of the world to come, there’ll be no more marriage. So, the woman in the story won’t be anyone’s wife. For in the resurrection, they "neither marry nor are given in marriage."

 

Then, Jesus cleverly demonstrates the truth of the resurrection by quoting scripture that the Sadducees also accept as authoritative: the passage in Exodus 3, where God appears to Moses in the burning bush and identifies himself as the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob. Even though those three patriarchs lived long before Moses, they must still be alive, because God is the God of the living, not of the dead. It’s a brilliant comeback. And Luke notes that after that, they no longer dared to ask him any more questions.

 

But to return to the question of no marriage in heaven, this revelation may come as a bitter disappointment to some—certainly to that young couple in my office—and perhaps as a welcome relief to others. But why would Jesus say such a thing? Why should marriage be only “till death us do part?” Why shouldn’t happy marriages on earth resume in heaven and continue for eternity?

 

The explanation that Jesus himself gives is that in the resurrection they “neither marry nor are given in marriage, for they cannot die anymore …” The underlying assumption is that we get married in this life to beget children to carry forward our name and inheritance after our death. Since those resurrected to eternal life don’t die anymore, they have no more need of either marriage or children.

 

That explanation may have been persuasive in first-century Palestine, but today we understand the purposes of marriage differently. Most couples planning to marry don’t tell me they're doing so to produce heirs to secure the family's future. Instead, the reason they almost inevitably give is that they’re in love with each other and want to spend the rest of their lives together. So, to understand our Lord’s teaching about no marriage in heaven, we need to approach the question in terms of love.

 

In the classical Christian tradition, marriage is a sacrament. In this life, God communicates his love to us by material signs, which we call sacraments. In Holy Baptism, for example, God uses water to show us his love by washing away our sins and incorporating us into the Body of Christ. And in the Holy Eucharist, God makes use of bread and wine to show us his love by feeding, nourishing, and sustaining us with Christ’s true Body and Blood.

 

Marriage is a sacrament because it follows the same pattern: God using the created realities of this world as vehicles of his love. Not everyone is called to Christian marriage, and those who aren’t have ample opportunities to experience God’s love in other ways. But in a Christian marriage that works the way it’s supposed to, the man receives God’s love through the love of his wife, and the woman receives God’s love through the love of her husband. At its best, the joy of physical intimacy serves as an anticipation and foretaste of the joy of heaven. Each spouse becomes, in effect, a sacrament mediating God’s love to the other. 

 

A basic tenet of Christian teaching, however, is that in heaven all sacraments shall cease. They won’t be necessary anymore, because there we shall see God face to face, and receive his love directly, without intermediaries. So, for example, in the world to come, the Eucharist shall cease, because there we shall worship directly at the Lord’s heavenly throne, and feast directly at his heavenly banquet.

 

Likewise with marriage: in a way that’s impossible to understand or explain, we shall all be married to Christ, the heavenly bridegroom, as members of the Church, his Bride. In this life, God places us in particular families, relationships, and communities where we can learn how to give and receive love. In this way, we’re schooled in the ways of heaven, where love reigns completely.

 

God communicates his love to us through many good gifts. Like that young couple in my office, however, we’re tempted to cling to the gifts rather than the Giver. We rightly rejoice and give thanks for all God’s blessings. But the happiness they bring in this life is never an end in itself. Instead, they point beyond themselves to the infinitely greater happiness and bliss that awaits us in the world to come.