Make up the rules as you go along

Luke 20:27-38

We have certain rulebooks that we play by. No matter what sport, society, religion or faith, we hold these rules to be sacrosanct.  They can mark or faith or influence the laws of our culture, influence our laws. Many times we consider that these rules come directly from God, like the ten commandments. . Then again, Jesus himself was able to distill down those ten into the great two.  Jesus I presume thought we were of sufficient intelligence and development to discern, judge and use our consciences to determine how the two play into the ten. We can do that. Only people who claim the literal words as their guide fail to see that even those words are up for interpretation and mistranslation. Nothing is easy it seems. There are other times when the rules we play and live by are not of this variety. Rules sometimes come from rationalizations, from supposed higher realms of thought.

          So perhaps we can examine a few. How about meat on Fridays? Nah, that's too easy. How about Limbo? That is an interesting concept born of, well , lets just say over thinking something. It also shows  what happens when arrogance is allowed more sway that the limitless love of God. No matter how you rationalize it, would a loving God send an infant who died to "Limbo" because he/she was not baptised? Where is the love of God there? Where did the concept of Limbo come from? Errant thought? Limbo is probably a good example of a concept that fell into the realm of unbelievability long before the hierarchy had the sense to officially do away with it. It must have been humbling. That in itself may have been a good sign  of hope for the Roman Catholic church, that they found the strength to reject a previously sworn to concept.  Jesus did not mention Limbo and it certainly does not square with his loving presence or nature.

         How about the woman with seven husbands? Jesus sees through this facade.   It is supreme arrogance when we decide what God wants. It is supreme arrogance when we rationalize or conjure up a concept about God and then swear it is true. I wonder if God knows he's bound by the decisions of the church? I mean, how did God feel about abolishing Limbo that he supposedly created? 

         We are capable of all sorts of erroneous thoughts and decisions. I will be the first to admit I am guilty of that myself on several occasions. You can convince yourself you are straight for example. How does God feel about that when He created you gay?  There are boatloads of erroneous thought, lies and damn lies about being gay, many sworn to by the religious elite and knuckleheads. Often it is 'backed up' by interpretations, select verses and ignorance. Their certainty or lies however are not the truth and I would say highly disrespectful of the vision of the world God has given us. The world attests to homosexuality in every corner of the animal kingdom. The answers are there, what right do we have to come up with our own ideas that being gay is evil and deviant?

          In the name of religion seven men probably spent time wondering if their earthly wife would join them in heaven.  Religious intellectuals can argue over the head of a pin, it does not make it correct.  Using our judgements about God and swearing to it is never acceptable.  Most people get this concept, the people in the pews, the man on the street, moms and dads, lovers and friends.

           It is perhaps apropos that I saw a bumper stick that said "science sends man to the moon, religions fly jets into buildings". 

          Where is the love ?

Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, 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."