The Twenty Second Sunday after Pentecost - The Rev. Lauren Byrd
Mrs. Saducee In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? (Luke 20:33) Last Sunday, leaning into the hope of the Resurrection, we prayed for those who died in the last year. Churches everywhere did the same, reciting by name those we love and see no more. And today, in the wake of those prayers, we meet up with a woman I’ve come to call Mrs. Sadducee, because if you’ll notice, though the Sadducees never give her a name, she is clearly useful to them as an idea. She is a figment of their imagination. It’s not love or neighborly concern or even marriage that shapes their question about what becomes of her when she dies. But rather their own certainty that, in the end, nothing will become of anyone because there is no resurrection from the dead. And yet, oddly enough, even though Mrs. Saducee arrives as an abstract figure, she nonetheless pulls on our heartstrings, mine anyway. After all, she’s not only a widow, but a widow with seven husb...