Lay Your Package Down

On the surface this story appears to be nothing short of wacky and weird!  I call this story and numerous other stories about Jesus similar to it “iceberg stories,” not because they are so cold, but rather because they have a visible part and a hidden part.  As you may know only about 15% of an iceberg is visible above the water-line. The balance of the iceberg, 85% or more, is below the water-line. 

On the surface of things the story seems to be about the shape our earthly relationships are going to take in the resurrected life, or not take as the case may be.  Jesus indicates that the attachments and commitments of life in this present age will not necessarily apply to our resurrected life; that our life in the new age is going to be qualitatively and radically different from anything we know in this life – beyond our imaginations.  But this story is about so much more.  We must look at the part below the water-line that is subtle and hidden.  It is easy to miss the most significant and profound claim this story makes upon our lives – for right now in this life!  So, I will move on to the hidden and more subtle aspect of this story.

The Sadducees came to Jesus and posed a hypothetical situation and a question.  In the Old Testament, in the Mosaic Law, there was the practice of something called levirate marriage.  This practice specified that if a woman had no children and her husband died, she must marry her dead husband’s surviving brother in order to continue the family line of her husband.   Any child born as a result of this secondary union was considered to perpetuate the name of the deceased husband and brother.  Refusal by either, the widow or the surviving brother, resulted in public shame.  

The Sadducees’ motives for coming to Jesus were anything but authentic.  In fact, their motives were devious with a hidden agenda.  The Sadducees did not believe in resurrection, but their arch rivals the Pharisees did.  Their agenda was to trick Jesus into agreeing with their position that there was no resurrection. If Jesus did not agree with them, they could then in turn accuse Jesus of not honoring Mosaic Law and charge him with being a false prophet. So they came up with this hair-brained story (they must have stayed up all night thinking up this one) about seven brothers, dying like falling dominos, each one marrying the widow according to levirate law, and then finally the widow dying.  So with a smug smirk on their faces, “Which brother,” they asked Jesus, “would she be married to in heaven?”

Like he had done before when being handed a trick question, Jesus gave an ingenious answer.  He said such marriage practices only applied to this age, and that the new age, the resurrected life, would be qualitatively different from anything we ever known.  It was an unexpected answer that left the Sadducees with their jaws in their laps!  Jesus’ answer respected Mosaic Law, but at the same time held out the possibility that God’s will is ultimately about something radically different.  But this wasn’t the only time Jesus had refuted those who tried to trick him for their own advantage. 

Remember the time the Pharisees came to Jesus with the woman they caught in adultery.  With a smug smirk I’m sure, they said, “Mosaic Law demands that this woman be put to death.  So what do you say Jesus?”  They thought they had him. If Jesus agreed, then he could be charged with having no love and compassion.  If Jesus did not agree, he could be charged with not upholding the Mosaic Law and guilty of blasphemy.  You know his answer, “The one of you who has never sinned cast the first stone.”  They all left, one by one beginning with the eldest.

Then there was the time that the lawyer came to Jesus and asked what he must do to inherit eternal life.  They lawyer never would have dared ask if he had not thought that he had already accomplished the requirements for eternal life.  He never would have risked it.  He was looking for validation and a pat on the back.  When asked by Jesus, he rightly quoted the great commandment to “love God… and neighbor as self.,”  Up to that point the lawyer thought he had presented an open and shut case - a convincing defense - that is until Jesus completely redrew and radically expanded the boundaries of who our neighbors really are by telling the Parable of the Good Samaritan.

Repeatedly, the Sadducees, the Pharisees, the disciples and others came to Jesus with a personal package; packages packed with heavy agenda items looking for Jesus to validate them; agree with them; affirm them; pat them on the back; tell them they were on the right and righteous track; that they had this God-thing right.  And time after time, to their shock and dismay, Jesus handed their loaded package and whole lot more right back to them.  (at this point I picked up a large package and finished the sermon out of the pulpit in front of the altar)

Isn’t that what we do?  Don’t we too come to Jesus audaciously with our packages filled and over-stuffed with our heavy agenda items?  Don’t we come somewhat impudently to Jesus with our dreams and schemes; our politics and plots; our self-justifying rationales for our disdains and prejudices and violence; our designs for self-indulgence; all the time looking for validation? 

I will tell you this, we seldom, if ever receive the validation we desire unless we are living in a heightened state of self-delusion.  Instead, what we do get in return from Jesus is something altogether different from the contents of the package we came with.

As long as our arms are over-laden with our neatly packaged agendas we are not in a posture to receive what Jesus has to give.  We must lay our stuff down in order to be open to what Jesus has to give.  It’s risky to lay down my agenda because I am so invested in it; so tied in to it; my very identity and sense of personhood is invested in it.  By laying it down I risk opening myself to what God has to give me and what God desires to make me, and I will no longer be in control.       

Peter came to Jesus with the generous package to forgive as many as seven times, but Peter left with the incalculable new math of God’s grace that blew his mind.

The disciples came to Jesus with a packaged desire to sit at Jesus’ right and left hand because, after all they were in the inner circle; they were the privileged; and they left with a the startling truth that in the realm of God the “first would be last, and the last first!”

After the crucifixion, Peter was drowning in his own guilt for denying he ever knew Jesus when Jesus needed him the most.  All he had for Jesus was an over-stuffed package of guilt and he expected nothing short of condemnation.  But, on a Galilean beach, in exchange for his guilt and heavy-laden heart, he received the blessing and forgiveness of his Lord – a new heart – a whole new life! 

Some Saduccees came to Jesus with their package… some Pharisees came to Jesus with their package… the disciples came to Jesus with their package… Peter came to Jesus with his package… you and I come to Jesus with our packages…

What are you going to do?  What am I going to do?  We will hang to our packages no matter what?  Or lay them down and be open to receive what Jesus has to give?  (I laid down my package and picked up 2 foot cross that was laying on the altar)