Today is Bible Sunday. We call it that because of the collect for the day. It was written by Archbishop of Canterbury Thomas Cranmer and was originally assigned as the collect of the day for the second Sunday of Advent. Its focus on hearing, reading, marking, learning and inwardly digesting the Holy Scriptures that we may hold fast to the blessed hope of everlasting life is a cornerstone of our reformed catholic theology. Art Reid posted a meme on my Facebook page the other day that had a picture of a Bible and the caption “Episcopalians take the Bible too seriously to take it literally.” I love that and it’s a big part of why I am an Episcopalian.

It’s also why we are lectionary preachers. The practice of preaching from a set of prescribed readings really goes back to our Jewish ancestors who read from the Torah and the haftarah (the prophets and writings) on a systematic basis each week and the rabbis would offer commentary on the texts. The early Christians followed this pattern and Archbishop Cranmer codified the one year Sunday lectionary and readings for the Daily Office for the English Church when he wrote the Book of Common Prayer in 1549. The three year lectionary came out of Vatican II in the 1960’s and now we have a Revised Common Lectionary which has been out for a few years. And this is all well and fine … until you get to readings you’d rather not deal with … like today’s gospel reading.

Today I willingly tip my hand and admit that I do not like apocalyptic literature. You know the stuff: that doom and gloom genre about end times. When I read it, I either get REM’s “End of the World as We Know It” or Wagner’s “Flight of the Valkyries” running in my head and it totally distracts me. But in all seriousness, when I have to deal with Revelation with its destruction and four horsemen of the apocalypse, or parts of the Book of Daniel, or even when prophets start talking about the “great and terrible day of the Lord” … well … I tend to cringe. So when I saw Jesus talking about wars and insurrections, nations rising up against nations, famines and plagues, “dreadful portents and signs from the heavens” … I thought, “Oh no, not that again” (which made me sound like Marvin the Manically Depressed Robot from Hitchhiker’s Guide to the Galaxy). I started looking at Isaiah because there’s some hope going on there. 2nd Thessalonians … nah … sounded like mom nagging about not being a slacker. Hmm … preach the collect … starting to sound good.

But as I was writing thank you notes last night, I kept getting this sense I was supposed to talk about this kind of literature … one of the items on my “10 things I detest” list: its right up there with polyester double-knit, spray cheese in a can, lutefisk aaaand apocalyptic literature. What kept coming to me is that the stuff that irritates me about apocalyptic writing might just be bugging you too. Or not … I’ll take my chance and hope the Spirit was right in moving me towards talking about this. So here goes nothing.

I think the real reason I don’t like this kind of writing is because it has been so terribly twisted and abused in certain sectors of Christianity. One danger is when folks look for “dreadful signs and portents” and start using apocalyptic literature as some sort of Redneck Comedy Tour “Here’s Your Sign” shtick. You know, hurricane hits the Philippines, that’s a dreadful sign and portent of God’s wrath … must be God’s punishment on … {your favorite marginalized group named here}. We hear that stuff from the likes of Pat Robertson who blamed the destruction wrought by Hurricane Katrina on gays. Yeah, and he used apocalyptic writings to “prove” it! If that’s true, I stand in total awe and wonder at the magnificent power of gay-ness to get God’s attention so much so as to impact weather patterns. We straights can’t seem to pull off that kind of awesome. But in fairness, Pat often will blame feminists too … and abortion providers … and liberals … you name it. But repeatedly Jesus tells us in the Gospels that we are not to know the times and dates that God has set. In today’s reading he warns against those who come trying to show signs of “I am he” and “the time is near.” Jesus in essence tells us not to be fooled by this.

Another problem is when it gets distorted by people trying to take it too literally who are also tempted to “know the day and the hour” of the second coming. It’s a twist on the “Here’s Your Sign” theme. Sometimes they reweave it into something strange and bizarre like John Nelson Darby’s dispensationalism which turned into rapture theology. You know, that Left Behind stuff? The idea that the Second Coming of Christ would be some sort of celestial evacuation plan for those deemed worthy to get zapped out of here and then the rest would be left behind to suffer. That’s not Scriptural at all. The movement of God throughout the biblical witness is coming towards us not us being snatched up and out of here. It also says that as God moves towards us there will be a new heaven and new earth – that’s what Isaiah is talking about!

The other thing that gets me is when people spend their time focused on the scary doom and gloom stuff. Earthquakes, famines, plagues, wars and insurrections … been happening since the beginning of time and still happening. Families turned against each other and fighting? Well … Thanksgiving is coming, isn’t it? Some of us live it at the holidays, don’t we? Dysfunctional families have been around since Adam and Eve’s first two kids. Persecutions and arrests? Well, not so much in this country but definitely in other places. For the record, people who abuse apocalyptic writings also tend to mistake being inconvenienced with being persecuted. You are not being persecuted if you are not allowed to pray in the name of Jesus before your kid’s high school sports event. You are being inconvenienced. Persecution is when you exit the Anglican Church in Peshawar Pakistan and a Taliban suicide bomber detonates his explosives … 95 people killed … THAT’S persecution. But I digress. When Jesus talks about this kind of doom and gloom stuff, he’s really telling us how things are: in essence, “It is what it is.”

So what’s good about this kind of literature? If we pay attention and don’t get sidetracked by the abuses, there is a message of hope here. Jesus tells us that no matter what happens to us, even if we are put to death, not a hair on our head will perish. What is eternal within us, stays eternally held secure in God. Period … no exceptions. It is a promise that when things get scary, and they will get scary at some point in your life, not … a … hair … on … your … head … will … perish. Absolutely nothing can take you out of God’s hands. As Henri Nouwen said in his book “Finding My Way Home,” we are God’s beloved before we were born, throughout our life, and through death – beloved all the way. Our time on earth is a mere brief moment where we are given the chance to say to God, “I love you too.” You are beloved, not a hair on your head will perish, so remember to tell God, "I love you too."

Arthur Dent found himself in an office building where he really wasn’t present but merely watching a recorded projection of a great event: The Day of the Answer. For seven and a half million years, the mega-computer Deep Thought had been pondering and calculating the answer to the great question of Life, the Universe and Everything. Loonquawl and Phouchg, two severely dressed men, were waiting upon the computer to come to life. They were the two anointed ones who would receive the answer to Life, the Universe and Everything and convey this answer to the expectant crowd gathered in the square below. There was a pause as the computer came to life and its lights settled into a business like pattern.

“Good morning,” said Deep Thought.

“Er … good morning, O Deep Thought,” said Loonquawl nervously, “do you have … er … that is …”

“An answer for you?” interrupted Deep Thought majestically. “Yes. I have.”

“There really is one?” breathed Phouchg.

“There really is one,” confirmed Deep Thought.

“To Everything? To the great Question of Life, the Universe and Everything?”

“Yes.”

“And you’re ready to give it to us?” urged Loonquawl.

“I am.”

“Now?”

“Now,” said Deep Thought. “Though I don’t think you are going to like it.”

“Doesn’t matter!” said Phouchg. “We must know it! Now!”

“Now?” inquired Deep Thought.

“Yes! Now …”

“All right,” said the computer and it settled into silence again.

“You’re really not going to like it,” observed Deep Thought.

“Tell us!”

“All right,” said Deep Thought. “The Answer to the great Question …”

“Yes!”

“Of Life, the Universe and Everything …” said Deep Thought.

“Yes!”

“Is …” said Deep Thought, and paused.

“Yes …!”

“Is …”

“Yes …!!! …?”

“Forty-two,” said Deep Thought, with infinite majesty and calm.

It was a long time before anyone spoke. Out of the corner of his eye Phouchg could see the sea of expectant faces down in the square outside.

“We’re going to get lynched, aren’t we?” he whispered.

“It was a tough assignment,” said Deep Thought mildly.

“Forty-two!” yelled Loonquawl. “Is that all you’ve got to show for seven and a half million years’ work?”

“I checked it very thoroughly,” said the computer, “and that quite definitely is the answer. I think the problem is, to be quite honest with you, is that you’ve never actually known what the question is.” [The Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy, Douglas Adams: p. 168-172]

Hmmm … you’ve never actually known what the question is! I couldn’t help but think of Douglas Adams’ Hitchhiker’s Guide To The Galaxy when I saw the gospel reading today. We’ve entered Holy Week once again – in the fall it’s kind of like sneaking in the back door. We focus in the spring on what happened to Jesus in his last week on earth. In the fall we focus on the teachings Jesus gave during Holy Week – the kind of things a guy might get crucified for saying. Today he is being tested by the Sadducees about the resurrection and its application in a levirate marriage. Now two things are in this story that we have a tough time dealing with: Sadducees and levirate marriage. Let me unpack both of them.

The Sadducees were a theo-political party (remember temple and state were one in the same back then). They didn’t believe in a resurrection of the righteous after death and largely served as scribes in the Temple in Jerusalem. The Pharisees were the rival theo-political party who believed in the resurrection of the dead and largely led the worship in the many synagogues dispersed throughout the Roman Empire. After the Temple was destroyed in 70AD, the Sadducees ceased to exist. Judaism today is a descendent of Pharisaic Judaism – and in his teaching, Jesus was more aligned with the Pharisees in their resurrection theology. Now these two parties didn’t get along but, in a case of politics making strange bedfellows, they could both agree they didn’t like Jesus and both were out to trap him.

The Sadducees set up a question about seven brothers for one bride (not to be confused with Seven Brides for Seven Brothers – that’s a musical). The illustration they use is of a levirate marriage law where, if a man dies childless, his widow is to marry the next brother and raise up children for the dead brother. Sounds weird in our culture (and it is in our culture) but back then when children were your social security, it was a way to guarantee some economic security. So they set up the question where the woman keeps marrying all these brothers and they all die childless and then the woman dies. Now if they had stopped there, I would have been all over this story! I mean “Hallelujah It’s Raining Men!” right?? I get to heaven and get seven husbands … and its heaven so I don’t have to do their laundry! That’s awesome!!

But then the buzzkill part comes: “In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.” The underlying question is “Whose property will she be, Jesus?” After all, women were considered the property of their husbands in that day.

Jesus’ response was much like Deep Thought’s – “You all don’t even know the question!” It isn’t about whose property she is and marriage is something of this world that doesn’t exist in the next. You’re paying attention to the wrong thing!

Notice what Jesus doesn’t do: he doesn’t give us a fully fleshed out answer as to what heaven looks like. He does say we will be different and that earthly institutions like marriage are irrelevant. And then he points out that the voice which came from the burning bush spoke to Moses of his ancestors Abraham, Isaac and Jacob saying “I am” their God. But the verb form of “I AM” is infinitive – which is to say “I WAS” their God, “I AM” their God, and “I ALWAYS WILL BE” their God. Jesus points out that the tense of the verb matters – God will always be our God and we will always live in the present moment with God in the resurrected life.

The good news of this encounter with the Sadducees is that we don’t have to get the questions right in order for God to save us in Christ. In fact, we may get the questions all wrong. God can handle that. The key is to keep searching and reaching out for our loving God who has promised us that nothing, absolutely nothing, can separate us from God’s love. We probably never really will know what the question is, let alone the answer. But in the resurrected life in God, our questions matter not … what matters is how well we love.