A message right to you

1 Corinthians 16 (all if it, but especially vs. 13-14)

Last weekend Andy got a bug to clean out the basement storage area, and he plunged right in. I didn’t realize it was happening until I heard the dragging, thumping and banging, and the occasional shout of an unintelligible swear word that comes when something gets pinched or whacked, a sure sign in my house that a construction job of sorts is well under way. By the time I came down to investigate, tubs of baby clothes and Easter baskets, a treestand and a typewriter, empty luggage and over a dozen full boxes of college and grad school notes were pulled out of storage and piled around the playroom, and he was dismantling the shelving piece by piece.  It’s been ten years since those walls have seen the light of day, and there was some work to do to get everything “back up to code.”

 In the midst of the chaos, I poked around in a box or two and found some old journals of mine, which I carried upstairs and spent some time reading this week.

These journals are funny and sad, boring and captivating. There are things I remember differently than I wrote about them and things I didn’t remember at all. I felt strongly about some things that don’t matter to me anymore, and some of my thoughts and beliefs that have changed a lot. There were dilemmas I was in the middle of that found resolution, and prayers written in great longing that I can look back on now and see clear answers to. Mostly, I marveled at how open and transparent I was with God.  Each entry is addressed to God because journaling was, for most of my life, my primary way of praying.  There is celebration and gratitude, anger and frustration, confusion and doubt, seeking, wondering, doing the best I could, failing and learning.  My life unfolding in connection to God.

Sometimes it’s easy to forget that the Bible is a kind of scrapbook of faith, the story of those who’ve gone before and their unfolding connection to God.  The Psalms are like journals written to God, honest and rejoicing, struggling and angry.  There are and letters and lists, poetry and prose, so many different and diverse individuals and communities and God’s relationship with humanity in the midst of their real life. All of it pointing us to: Who is this God? And what is God up to?

I love this closing chapter of 1 Corinthians that we have before us today simply because it’s so weird.  We don’t know what to do with it – it’s not in any lectionary; I have never heard any sermons or read any commentaries on 1 Corinthians 16. It’s just so darn ordinary. It’s the end of a letter, Tell so and so I said hi. Be nice to so and so when they come, they can be a little annoying. I keep trying to get so and so to visit but he is being stubborn about it.  I guess he’ll come when he’s good and ready. I really miss you. I am planning to come but want to stay a long time and not just pass through. All these other people say hi and hang in there, they’re praying for you.

It’s so obviously pedestrian that I get a little bit of awe - like finding a baby picture of your grandma, or pictures of ancient artifacts of dinner dishes buried in an Egyptian tomb – it makes me stop suddenly, struck with the awareness that we’re all just ordinary people. They were just living their life.  This chapter of 1 Corinthians says, This really is a letter; these people’s struggles and questions were real, their longings and their mistakes, their hopes and their dreams, their arguments and their bad habits – they were really wanting to follow Christ and live the faith alongside each other. And so they wrote and received letters.

And all that we’ve seen Paul talk to them about in this letter – scolding, encouraging, frustrated and joyful – had an impact in their community-  their actual lives were changed by this letter.

Paul blasting them for dividing themselves over who they first heard the gospel from – Has Christ been divided? Was Paul baptized for you? And admonishing them to be vigilant about rooting out division in all the insidious and subtle ways it creeps in… Someone received those words and felt convicted. Somebody thought, “He’s talking about me! What have I done?”  And then they had to talk about it and forgive each other, and new ways of relating were established because of what he wrote to them.

And when Paul talks about the true wisdom –that we all belong to God and we all belong to each other- that God came in weakness to share suffering and not in might to save the perfect and the powerful, it goes so radically against the world’s wisdom and logic that they needed to keep hearing it again and again and again. I wonder if that portion of the parchment was worn thin, read over and over, passed around and discussed in hushed tones and wonder.

Paul noted how – even perhaps accidentally – their meals together leading up to the Lord’s Supper were not reflecting the true communityof God. They were held in a rich person’s home and rich folks came first and sat in the best spot and ate their fill before the slaves got off work and the poor people made their way on foot.  And even though they said, and believed, they were all in this together, this meal in here looked a lot like the lies out there.  So he said, Don’t you dare sit down to this meal – don’t you lift that bread or cup -  without first seeing your brother and sister alongside you, really seeing them. And really seeing yourself- all of you, sinners in need of forgiveness, and saints sharing in the holy healing work of God.

And then they had to go have a communion together after reading this! They had to suddenly hold off the food until everyone got there. Stop the ones who started eating too soon. Figure out a new place to meet maybe, or a different time of day, that shifted the power dynamics.  Notice where they were sitting, who was being greeted first, and ask themselves if it reflected the kingdom of the world or the kingdom of God? They had to see their sin – their separation from God and each other-  to own it and repent for it, to see each other and try things a different way.

And then, when he talks all about them being all one body, all different – each with gifts just as valuable as each others – and that it is love that makes the whole thing move, what did that feel like to read?  Did it make them look inside at how they had discounted their own contributions, or look around and see for the first time the profound impact of the quiet ones, and the generous ones, and the hidden ones who don’t get noticed but, it turns out, hold the whole place together?

Did they find themselves growing in love for one another, when they realized love isn’t something they can muster or perfect; it can only be received and shared? How did it feel to acknowledge their weakness and celebrate each other’s strengths? How did look to own their blaming, boasting, critiquing and jealousy, and deliberately let love be the true guiding force within everything they did or said?

And then the death part- the part of the letter Paul saves for last – that part about how Jesus’ resurrection means that death no longer has the final say about life –and that death is not, in fact, the end. That the sting of death is sin – it’s power to separate us from God and each other, to degrade and destroy and stunt a hope and a future – that that power is taken up in Christ Jesus and defeated, so that one day there will be no more suffering, and all that is wrong will be made right.  And in the meantime, Christ has died, Christ has been raised, death’s say is temporary, and the conclusion of everything is God’s love.  How was that for them to hear? These people who were struggling to make sense of all this? To let this bizarre claim that Jesus was raised from the dead actually shape them? How did it impact their regular lives – their sleep, their waking hours, their work and their prayer, the way they treated each other, the way they saw their own bodies and futures, when they began to see that the final word over it all is not death, but life? Did it make them braver? More open? Did it give them a new lens to see the world around them - precious to God and being redeemed?

And beyond all this, the letter is filled with so many more particularities that we didn’t get into this summer- real world problems and questions these people struggled with, and in response to them all Paul keeps hammering home these truths –You belong to God and to each other, everyone is valuable, quit finding ways to separate yourselves from each other and from God, that is sin. The love of God endures forever and it claims you – you can live bravely instead of fearfully, you can use your gifts to contribute to the well-being of everyone, you can seek God, and be honest about your weakness and your need for forgiveness, you can celebrate with each other and grieve with each other because God’s love holds you, and now defines you, and you can trust in this love, because it will never ever end.

Imagine receiving that message by courier, and cracking it open! And not just in generalities, but in the very situations you had found yourself mired in! The very places you were doubting God’s love, breaking connection with each other, struggling to understand, wishing you were seen. Imagine what a gift, and a challenge, these words would be!

Right now this little diverse community, in all our quirks and oddities, is gathered here, and we come with all different burdens and worries, or own questions, struggles and situations.

We’re in the midst of transitions – and even good change is almost always both hopeful and fearful. We are so excited to be soon officially acknowledging Lisa’s calling as a pastor to this congregation, believing that by her sermons and visits, her teaching and her care, God will keep leading us to love each other more and seek Christ in all things. 

But also lots of people around the country have been waiting for Lisa to be ordained for a really long time, and suddenly, for a short time, a lot of attention will be on our little congregation. And I feel protective, a bit, of the gift that it is to be in this Jesus-following thing with each other, and the faithfulness with which we try to share each others’ burdens and joys, and seek God together. And I don’t want that to be overshadowed or swallowed by other people’s perceptions and noise.

Along with this, after eight years, my job is changing a bit to include writing. And some people here might feel anxious that it means I wont be as available, or that my focus or attention will drift away from this community. And I feel anxious that people feel anxious about that. Because I love this church, and I love being your pastor, and I am completely committed to you.  

And at the same time I feel both grateful, and nervous, that this calling to write about what God is doing in our lives, in my life, is being recognized by session as part of the ministry God is doing here. And in the middle of all that anxiety and hope, as one person said, “We will have to trust God and trust each other.”

And we all have questions we would ask Paul if we could. 

We wrestle with our voice and our role as Christians, and frankly, humans, in the midst of a vitriolic election season. 

We struggle with how to parent our kids or support our grandkids in a break-neck paced world with competing voices everywhere. 

We’re faced with our own mortality and weakness in half a dozen different ways. 

We see violence and hatred around us, and fear seems like a more effective, or at least more prevalent, response than love.

Change is scary and life is hard, and it all makes us sometimes doubt what we trust in, and fall back on the wisdom of the world, the always available way of fear: hunker down and divide, compare and rank, hide your real self for fear of judgment, judge others, count your money, horde your resources, build up your boundaries, and let suspicion and apprehension speak louder than faith, hope and love.

I wish Paul’s letter was written right to us. That we could read it addressed right to our own circumstances…

But that’s the power of scripture, beloveds, because it is. 

We believe the Holy Spirit speaks right to us, through these words written in a letter long ago to an ordinary group of people who were learning how to live in the freedom of Christ.  What God wants us to know and trust and see and change comes to us through their experience, because we too are an ordinary group of people learning how to live in the freedom of Christ. God was with them. God is with us. These words are to them. These words are to us.

So after all these weeks we’ve lived with the messages of this book, watching how they interact with our lives, helping us ask, Who is this God, and what is God up to? In our world, in our hearts, in our homes, in our relationships and our questions, I love that in this last, rambling chapter, Paul leaves this nugget:

Keep alert, stand firm in your faith, be courageous, be strong. Let all that you do be done in love.

And so I will hold that in front of us today. Sisters and brothers:

Keep alert: Stay open, pay attention.

Stand firm in your faith: hold to what you know to be true.

Don’t back away from your trust in God.

Be courageous: Give it all you’ve got. Speak up, reach out.

Be strong: resolute, tenacious and steadfast.

And let all you do be done in love. Everything. Every word spoken, every action taken.  Love is meant to be what holds us together and propels us forward, it is the lifeblood of it all.

I am thankful to the Corinthians for all their screw-ups. I am thankful they had the courage to write and ask their questions. And that they really longed to love each other, and that they really sought to turn their whole lives toward God. Because their experience of God and life together shapes our experience of God and life together.

And I am thankful for the people in this room. I am thankful for all of our own questions and struggles, and our longing to love well and our seeking to turn our whole lives towards God. Because your experience of God and life shape my experience of God and life.

And so it continues.

Amen.

The Final Say

1 Corinthians 15:51-58 (but really the whole chapter)

Yesterday in the car I was theologically outmaneuvered by a 10 year old. It began with some offhanded, irreverent comments about death being bandied around the back seat, and me gently interjecting that death was serious, and not something to joke about.

One of them responded, “Why? What’s the big deal?”

And I said, “Because death is final; people don’t come back from that.”

At which point my doctrinally astute nephew piped up, “Not always. Sometimes people do come back from the dead. I mean, other than Jesus, even.”

He then went on to tell a detailed account of his preschool teacher, who, at one point in her life, had been a missionary in another country, teaching in a school, when a bomb went off, and she died. “And God brought her back from the dead. She even has scars on her head from it.” He cheerfully announced.

“Cool.” Owen declared.  

(And incidentally, I happen to know this was all true, having heard the same account from my sister years before, just after having met this very teacher at my nephew’s preschool). 

Before I could respond, they’d moved on to the kid from Heaven is for Real, who also came back from the dead, and from there things kind of barreled out of reach until the next thing I knew, my whole argument was pointless, and I sat helplessly listening as they reached some kind of comfortable conclusion about death’s non-finality because, Hey, sometimes people come back!

This letter to the Corinthians that we’ve been making our way through all summer is one of the earliest writings in the New Testament, dated a mere 25 years or so after Jesus’ death, and a good couple of decades before any of the gospels. But already, despite widely circulated letters and reports, established creedal statements, and shared hymns, and even despite still living people’s eye-witness accounts of the risen Jesus, this community of believers, in contrast to the kids in my car, were apparently already struggling with the idea of death’s non-finality.

What does it mean that Jesus came back from the dead? Was it “real?,” a physical resurrection of the physically dead Jesus? Or could it be some kind of spiritual resurrection? And what does that mean about us? What about our bodies and death and all that?

As Paul writes them a letter dealing with all manner of instructions and corrections about their faith and daily life together, he saves this part for last, as though to say, if you remember anything, you guys, remember this. This part is super important; the whole thing falls apart without it: Resurrection is real.  And it matters a lot that it’s real.

A few years back, a religious website, Patheos, would run a “100 word or less” feature around Easter. They’d ask a few people to answer something related to the Resurrection, in 100 words or less.

One year it was “Why do you need the Resurrection?” the next year it was, “Is the Resurrection for real?”

I’m not going to lie; Paul would have really struggled with the 100 words or less thing.  But these two questions are the very questions he spends this whole chapter of 1 Corinthians 15 answering.

So, to get us started with the second question first, I’ve taken the liberty of distilling Paul’s answer down to exactly 100 words – (all of them Paul’s). Here is Paul, from 1 Cor. 15:12-26, on the question, “Is the Resurrection for Real?”

If Christ has not been raised;

then our proclamation, and your faith, have been in vain.

If for this life only we have hoped in Christ,

we are, of all people, most to be pitied.

If Christ has not been raised,

your faith is futile,

you’re still in your sins,

and those who’ve died in Christ have perished. 

For since death came through a human being,

the resurrection of the dead has also come through a human being;

for as all die in Adam, so all will be made alive in Christ.

The last enemy to be destroyed is death.

It matters that Jesus was raised from the dead, Paul says.

It means something that he was really raised, because he really died. 

His death was not figurative or conceptual; it was real. And that matters because we really die, more than a “spiritual” death.

Death also has a hold on us that is something beyond simply breathing our last. It has the power to separate, to destroy, to end. There is, indeed, a finality to it.

If I had been prepared to press the argument with my philosophical passengers I might have said, ‘Hey kids, guess what is the one thing all those resurrected people you were talking about have in common? You know, the ones who come back from the dead like Lazarus, and your preschool teacher, and the kid from Heaven is for Real… other than dying and coming back, I mean? Can you guess? They die again. Because we all do. That’s how it ends. Death gets us all eventually.’

Boom. Final word. (Who’s the smart one now, huh)?

We all die. And because we die, because death has such a hold over us, a figurative resurrection simply is not enough. Is the Resurrection for real?

Here, in 100 words, is my answer:

It had better be real.

As real as the contractions that ripped new life from my body.

As real as the rattle that strangled life out of his.

I’ve no use for a spiritual resurrection.

If Hope

for the drowned, damaged, disfigured, disowned,

is emotional ease,

if the pain of flesh and bones

is answered with mystical comfort,

if Guns are stronger than god,

then count me out.

But tell me that Death Loses,

tell me that Life Prevails,

and not in the abstract,

but in pulsing blood, flowing tears, thumping heart,

then the Resurrection

is Hope

for us all.

The Bible, and our Christian faith, is full of paradoxes – Jesus is both completely human and completely God, God is One God who is at the same time simultaneously Father, Son and Spirit. We are a vast variety of uncontrollably different people, and yet we are also somehow one body, suffering and rejoicing with each other.  And this biggie, that the Corinthians were having a hard time getting their head around: we die – our lives end, but also, death is not the end.

The paradox starts with something Paul wants us to recognize about death: Death is two different things at the same time. On the one hand, it is the inevitable and natural end of earthly life, the cessation of breathing and heartbeat and brain activity. Part of living on the earth means we die – this reality is shared by all creatures, plants animals and humans. That is one meaning of death.

But that is not the sting of death. The sting of death is sin. It is separation. Separation from God, separation from those we love, separation from our true connection and fullness, from all the beauty and joy of living, from the ongoing creativity and unfolding projects we are just in the middle of, from the time that isn’t long enough, and the relationships that are just getting going.  Separation, division, destruction.  

Sin means death reaches into all of life, wreaking havoc on the earth, inside us, between us. Death as separation brings anguish, despair and torment. It lurks in our weak and perishable bodies, clinging to our mortality and frailty, feeding our shame and judgment.

It preys on our fears, whispering that these things can keep us from one another, can keep us from God, can keep us from love, prevent us from being worthy of receiving love, or capable of giving love. From all that is real and good and true and essential to our being, sin gives death the authority to regularly, ultimately and permanently separate us.

But here is the good news, Paul says (in many, many words): Jesus Christ defeated death.

Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.

And then he says,

For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality…then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:

‘Death has been swallowed up in victory.’

‘Where, O death, is your victory?

   Where, O death, is your sting?’

Death doesn’t have the power to separate us forever – and the separation we experience now with death is frightening and real, but temporary and restricted, because resurrection exists in Christ’s body, and one day will in us too.

Christ has come from outside death, from the time when all will live, into this time when all will die. God has broken through that barrier of immortality and imperishability and taken onto Godself mortality and weakness, joining us inside this whole dying kind of living thing.

And now that that Christ has died, with us and for us, and has risen, bodily, from the dead, he brings us with him out of this time that all die, into the time when all live, the time of resurrection and new life. We perishable beings will put on imperishability; we mortal beings will put on immortality.

In the very, very end, life - unbroken connection to God and love and each other - is what triumphs. Death’s reign is broken, and our kids’ baptism mantra, that guarded them from nightmares in their younger years, is powerful and true, “Death can’t get me because Jesus has got me.”

And it also means death as the natural part of living, when we wear out and stop breathing and being, in the way we understand being to be, while the end of our human journey here on earth, is simply a transition from one chapter to the next, a shift to the new way of being, moving us from the time that all die to the time when all live. Death dies, Life lasts. 

And this life after death is not hypothetical or spiritual, it is real and bodily and true, and it embraces and transforms the whole of us, not just some disembodied soul part that separates from the rest of us and floats off. And this eternal life is for more than just us; it is for the whole earth, the ravaged oceans and decimated mountains and flooded valleys.  It is for the stolen children and the grieving parents, and the abused generations and war-torn nations, the broken promises and broken hearts. In the very, very end all things will be redeemed and made new.

Biblical scholar Richard Carlson describes “…the ultimate theological question for Paul is not: “What happens to us when we die?” Rather, the ultimate theological question is, “Who has final say regarding the existence of everything in the cosmos, Death or God?” Paul’s answer is clear: At Christ’s [second coming] the final victory will belong to God as humanity marked by Christ will be raised; Christ will destroy all that stands in opposition to God; and Christ will hand over everything he has liberated back to God so that God will be the everything in everything (1 Corinthians 15:24-28). 

God has the final say.  Not death; Life.  And if that is true, and we are banking it all on the trust that it is, then thanks be to God, who gives us the victory through our Lord Jesus Christ!

Because nothing is futile or wasted, nothing is hopeless or lost. 

All the things that separate and divide, degrade and destroy, their power is temporary; their end is ensured. But every act, and word, and prayer, and thought, that comes from love, returns to love. It is part of what endures forever.  Every moment of forgiveness and connection, every building up and reaching out, each experience of devotion and care remains eternally, because love never fails.

So Paul’s words to the Corinthians are to us too: Therefore, my beloved, be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in the work of the Lord, because you know that in the Lord your labor is not in vain.

The true hope of death’s non-finality, is not that some people here and there might escape death to come back for a few more years before succumbing again. (sorry, kids).

And it’s not that we have cracked the mystery of what happens after each of us dies, or have been given a spiritual comfort in figurative ideas to get us through life. 

The hope of the resurrection is that the question of who has the final say over the whole cosmos has been settled, once and for all.  And nothing matters more than that.

So, why do I need the resurrection? Here’s my 100-word answer:

I need the Resurrection

because this week

my foster niece came back with a broken arm,

and last night my daughter learned

that not all Amber Alerts have happy endings.

I need the Resurrection

because Marty’s on his way and we can’t stop it,

and little Omran’s brother didn’t survive the blast after all.

Because I’ve detonated rage

and watched their sweet faces harden and close to me. 

Because evil is pervasive

and I participate.

I need the Resurrection

because it promises

that in the end

all wrongs are made right.

Death loses.

Hope triumphs.

And Life and Love

Prevail.

And here, in 100 words, from his letter to the Romans (8:31-40), is Paul’s answer:

What then are we to say about these things?

If God is for us, who’s against us?

Who will separate us from the love of Christ?

Will hardship, distress, persecution?

Will famine, or nakedness, or peril, or sword?

No, in all these things

we are more than conquerors

through him who loved us.

For I’m convinced

that neither death, nor life,

nor angels, nor rulers,

nor things present, nor things to come,

nor powers,

nor height, nor depth,

nor anything else in all creation,

will be able to separate us

from the love of God in Christ Jesus our Lord. 

Amen.