TAKE MY WIFE, PLEASE

This isn’t new material. I wrote it a few months ago, but so many people found it funny. I’m presenting it here slightly revised.

I ran into a friend of mine at the theatre last month. In the course of conversation she asked me if I knew John, an organist at a church in a neighboring city. I do indeed know him slightly. My friend then mentioned having met him this summer. John remarked to her that he had been talking with my wife recently. My friend made sure they were talking about the right person, “Yes, the pastor at Our Saviour Lutheran.” Now the news that my wife was talking to John startled me since I don’t recall having a wife. I know I have been getting forgetful, but I’m pretty sure I would remember something like that. And why was she talking to John anyway?

I assumed there had been some sort of misunderstanding. It has happened a few times before that some unfortunate woman has been misidentified as my wife. In a similar fashion I have occasionally acquired a few children, much to their amusement. (I note that not one of these children EVER sends dear old dad a card on Father’s Day, but I’ll let that slide.) I put all of this out of my mind until a week later when I received an envelope addressed to Mr. & Mrs. Kofink. I haven’t opened it. I am afraid to. You see it’s from an insurance company, and I worry about discovering that my mysterious spouse has taken out a million dollar life insurance policy on me. I am telling people about this just in case I don’t turn up at church some Sunday, but my “grieving widow” does. Hold on to her and call the police.

Actually there is a very tiny, minuscule, microscopic possibility that I do have a wife–somewhere. I don’t know her name or even what she looks like. About ten years ago a mother of one of the children in our church school asked for an appointment to see me which I naturally agreed to. Always want to help people if I can. She came to the church, but the subject of our conversation was a marriage proposal. She asked if I would marry her sister who was in danger of being deported if she didn’t marry an American citizen. As politely as possible I declined the offer trying to explain that I felt marriage was far too important to be entered into for such flimsy reasons. (Yes, I know C. S. Lewis married Joy Davidman so she could stay in England, but at least he had known her for many years.) Besides, marrying someone just to give them American citizenship is illegal. I assumed that was the end of that, but with all the stuff I read about identity theft, I wonder how hard it would be to come up with a faked marriage certificate, especially one from another country. What if one day the Immigration Officials want me to come down to their office to discuss my wife? This is the kind of thing you just can’t anticipate happening in the ministry.

Whatever mess I have gotten into here on earth, I am reminded of the question Jesus was asked by the Sadducees about the woman who had been married to seven husbands, each of whom died before her. Finally she died. “In the resurrection whose wife will she be?” they asked. And Jesus answered: “when they rise from the dead, they neither marry nor are given in marriage, but are like angels in heaven.”

There. You see, I’m just practicing being like the angels in heaven. Aren’t we supposed to be doing something like that?

May the Lord God bless you on your way and greet you on your arrival.

Wayne