When given the chance to explain the rules of the great hereafter, Jesus instead says the here and the after are supposed to share a lot in common. But not in the rules which keep us thinking of ourselves, but in the shape of God’s Kin-dom which invites us to share in a vibrant life together.

So no, it isn’t about the marriages and the ordering of family — and we can extend this even further, to the way we raise our children or draw up our borders or run our carceral systems — as the strict adherents of some framework we claim has been provided for us from on high. It’s about living like God is God anyway.

And still we seek to separate them: the here and the after.

This is a constant challenge for many of us, who want the future to be better than the present. That the promise helps us make it to the end of the line, as it were. That is important! And also (that should be our favorite phrase, friends: and also!) it reflects the promise of the present. That we can live a life here that is more vibrant, joyful, and embodying the hope, grace, and love of Christ.

This isn’t to say we shouldn’t get married (too many Christians have made too many doctrines about such things), because, heck, I’m married. But too many people treat marriage and the other rules of order and governance as the vehicle of God’s love more than the reflection of it. That God cares more for the marriage itself than for our equity in grace. In other words, we get the sweet hereafter wrong. And because of that, we get the here wrong, too.

We are children of the resurrection. We recognize that death isn’t the end — which means how we live matters even more.