A Sermon Delivered on November 9, 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley

It was a hard day at the office, and I had come home and crashed in the first chair that greeted me when I walked in the door. I just wanted to enter my cave, be alone, and turn everything off for a while. John Gray, author of the famous 1992 book Men Are from Mars and Women Are from Venus, describes the need for men to decompress in those first moments after coming home from work, i.e., to refrain from talking, tasks, or anything that might disturb that time of letting the day settle. Gray asserted the men needed that time of transition from work-mode to home life.  It never dawned on me back then that my wife Kelly was ready to run into a cave of her own by the time I came home in the evening! She quickly reminded me that Gray’s thesis was flawed; both men and women need “cave time” after a long day.

So, there I was trying to sit in my quiet cave-space while our two girls and Golden Retriever puppy tore through the house. After a while, things grew quiet and I began to relax and soon slipped into a pre-dinner nap. No sooner had I closed my eyes when I felt a plop on my lap. My youngest, Katie, had joined me in my chair and was looking up at me. All of five or six at the time, she began chatting up a storm. Then it came out of the blue. From what wall this non sequitur emerged is still a mystery, but in retrospect, it was clearly a glimpse into her future as a Ph.D. in Medieval Historical Theology.

“Daddy, what is hell?”

I just kind of stared at her a few moments, trying to formulate an answer she might understand. I had no idea what images she had running around her little mind when she asked me this question. Here was this little human of five, looking at me with Cindy-Lou Who eyes, wanting an answer to a serious question. I took a breath, stroked her hair, and said, “Honey, that’s a good question. In fact, that’s a great question and it deserves a really good answer! I’ll tell you what: Hey Kelly! Katie has a question for you! Go ask your momma and let me know what she says, ok?”

Oh, those hard questions that come out of left field; we all have them, don’t we?

What’s heaven like?

Well, it’s more incredible than we have words to describe.

What’s hell like? 

Why do we ask that? Do we think we want to book a ticket?

Is there a heaven or hell at all?

Look at your life and the world around us. You tell me the answer.

Why is there suffering if there is a good God?  

God might look at all the good Christians in churches worldwide and dare to ask us the same question.

Why did this happen to me?

Because you and I live in a broken, fallen world right now. It could happen to any of us.

Say, Jesus, how many angels can dance on the head of a pin?  

Jesus cocks his head and sardonically says, “Oh come on! Really?”

What are your questions for God? If Jesus were taking a bus tour through town and stopped here this morning and you could ask him any question, what would it be?

Well, this is what’s happening in our scripture from Luke 20 today. Jesus has entered Jerusalem and has been fielding a barrage of questions from the religious leaders, the strict keepers of orthodoxy and moral purity, who are trying to trip him up in front of the people. They were trained by the greatest religious minds of their time, so who was this country bumpkin from backwater Nazareth to school them in theology?

In today’s text, we meet a group we haven’t encountered before in Luke’s Gospel: the Sadducees. They were the ones who took care of the Temple and ensured the Torah was kept. They were scholarly, ultra-conservative in their strict interpretation of Jewish Law, and live as wealthy religious aristocrats. The Sadducees did not believe in an afterlife; they believed this life was all we get, so we ought to live it well. They only held to the first five books of the Hebrew Bible, the Torah. The Pharisees, by contrast, embraced the Torah, the Prophets, the Wisdom writings, and loved the vibrant oral tradition passed down through generations. Compared to the Sadducees, the Pharisees almost looked like free spirits.

Now, the Sadducees come to Jesus with a question, not really wanting to learn anything but rather to mock him and stir the theological pot between Jesus and their rivals, the Pharisees. Listen to the Word of the Lord from Luke 20.

Luke 20:27–40 (NRSV)

            ²⁷ Some Sadducees, those who say there is no resurrection, came to him ²⁸ 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. ²⁹ Now there were seven brothers; the first married, and died childless; ³⁰ then the second ³¹ and the third married her, and so in the same way all seven died childless. ³² Finally the woman also died. ³³ In the resurrection, therefore, whose wife will the woman be? For the seven had married her.”

            ³⁴ Jesus said to them, “Those who belong to this age marry and are given in marriage; ³⁵ 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. ³⁶ Indeed they cannot die anymore, because they are like angels and are children of God, being children of the resurrection. ³⁷ 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. ³⁸ Now he is God not of the dead, but of the living; for to him all of them are alive.”

            ³⁹ Then some of the scribes answered, “Teacher, you have spoken well.” ⁴⁰ For they no longer dared to ask him another question.

This was their way of asking Jesus, “How many angels can dance on the head of a pin?” They didn’t care about resurrection because they didn’t believe in it! For the Sadducees, eternal life was simply about family lineage continuing through their descendants. It’s all about ancestry; resurrection for the Sadducees was nonsense.Yet, despite their ridiculous question, Jesus provides two profound lessons about eternal life.

Lesson One: We believe in eternal life, not immortal life. To be immortal means never dying at all; in other words, immortal life means heaven is just an upgraded continuation of life here, with better houses, better cars, and, in my case, maybe a few extra inches of height! But that’s not what Jesus teaches. Jesus the mortal man died. He took his last breath on the cross. The soldiers even pierced his side to make sure. What Jesus tells us is that though our bodies decay and life itself brings pain, loss, and loneliness, those things do not have the final word. God gives us new life as re-created children of the resurrection.

Lesson Two: In the life to come, things will be both familiar and radically new. Our earthly urges and needs will fall away. We will be like angels: whole, pure, radiant children of God. All those things we think matter now like college degrees, houses, money, health – none of that will matter then any more than knowing how many angels can dance on the head of a pin. When we live in the direct presence of God, the questions that trouble us now won’t even cross our minds then.

Remember what the Apostle Paul said about that day in 1 Corinthians 13:

Love never ends. But as for the gift prophecy, it will come to an end; as for the gift of speaking in tongues, they will cease; as for gift of knowledge, it will come to an end. At this moment, we know only in part… but when the complete comes i.e. the Day of the Lord, the partial will come to an end. At this moment, we see as in a mirror, dimly, but when the Day of the Lord comes, we will see face to face.^[1]

In other words, beloved, resurrection is when we finally become fully who God intended us to be eternally. The time for ridiculous questions will end. We will know, even as we have already been fully known. One day, we will see everything clearly, face to face – not with earthly eyes, but through the eyes of eternity.

So, here’s the takeaway: the moment we receive eternal life, which is the moment we ask for it, our questions will and should change. The saying is spot on: If you want to know different answers you must begin asking different questions. The questions we ask on this side of eternity come from our yearning to know and our curiosity. So, maybe our task isn’t to pepper God with unanswerable questions but rather it is our task to begin living into that eternal life now with lavish faith, courageous hope, and generous love for God and one another.

And who knows? When that day comes, we might finally learn just how many angels can dance on the head of a pin and we’ll respond, “Who cares?”

© 2025 by the Rev. Dr. Patrick H. Wrisley. Sermon manuscripts are available for the edification of members and friends of First Presbyterian Church of Glens Falls, 8 West Notre Dame Street, Glens Falls, NY 12801 and shall not be altered, re-purposed, published or preached without permission.   All rights reserved.

^[1] My personal paraphrase.