Year C Fifth Sunday after the Epiphany February 4th, 2001
Lord of the Lake Lutheran Church
Web page http://lordofthelake.org
By The Rev. Jerry Morrissey, Esq., Pastor
E-mail pastor@southshore.com
Heavenly Father, thank you for the Wonder of your presence in earthly things and circumstances. Amen.
1Corinthians: 15: 1-11
Title: “He works through wonder.”
Before Paul closes his letter in chapter 16, he takes up questions about “the resurrection of the body,” as preached and believed in the early Church. The discussion takes up chapter 15. We will be reading from this chapter for the next four weeks. It is not clear what questions the Corinthians asked Paul or exactly what situation he was responding to. We have to surmise all that from what he says, as was the case with the spiritual “gifts.” They seem to be related, however. The best guess is that certain Corinthian Christians were “spirit-people,” people who denied the importance of the human body. They would have still been influenced by the Hellenistic idea that the body and soul were entirely separate entities, joined at birth or conception and un-joined at death. The soul would go to God and be absorbed into him and the body would just rot in the ground, unimportant and unredeemed. On one end these folks would argue that the body could sin and it would not matter. On the other end, they would say that there was no bodily resurrection for Christians because there was no bodily resurrection for Christ. He “rose” in their minds or spiritual consciousness, but not in physical fact.
Paul first establishes that Jesus, in fact rose from the dead as a whole human person. He cites eyewitnesses, not to his actual resurrection, for which there were none, but to his appearing to people still alive at his writing, including himself. This lays the foundation for the rest of the chapter where he applies that factual truth to all Christians.
In verse one, now I am reminding you, brothers, of the gospel I preached to you: Paul’s solution to all questions and problems is to go “back to basics.” He will not answer their complex theological and philosophical questions, muddled by human speculation, until everyone is at the same starting point: the gospel. Their problems arise from straying too far from that safe and solid ground.
In verse two, through it you are being saved: The sense of this is the futuristic present: you are saved now and will be fully so in the future. Apparently, some “spirit-people” thought they had completely arrived at salvation. There was no more to come. They had fully transcended into the next realm, the kingdom, and could not be un-saved because of any sin they commit. Their bodies do the sinning, not them.
In verse three, I handed on…what I also received: The gospel is not Paul’s. It is not for him to make up as he goes. What he passed on is authentic. It comes from Christ. He has the responsibility according to the spiritual “gifts” he has been given to apply the truth to new conditions, but not to change the truth to fit those conditions or his own pre-conditioned prejudices.
In verses three b and four: He quotes the fundamental Christian creed: Christ died, was buried, was raised. That he died “according to the scriptures” goes all the way back to Jesus who identified with the Suffering Servant of Deutero-Isaiah, innocently suffering to atone for the sins of his “family .” That he was raised “according to the scriptures” can only refer to Hosea 6:2, which reads, “He will revive us after two days; He will raise us up on the third day, That we may live before Him.” That he was buried clinches the argument that he truly died and did not just pretend to. People saw Jesus die and be buried. That is undeniable and belongs to the world of physical fact. Why he did so belongs to faith. But people did not see him actually rise. Hence, the importance of witnesses who saw him after he rose.
In verses five to seven: Paul lists some of the witnesses, leaving out the women, to the appearance of the bodily-risen Lord. The reference to the more than 500 is found only here in the New Testament. It is not explained.
In verse eight, last of all…to me: Paul’s apostleship is as valid as that of the other apostles and on the same grounds: an appearance and a commission by the Lord himself. This would be the last of the Lord’s post-resurrection appearances on earth.
As one born abnormally: It is impossible to know what Paul means by this remark. The word used here, Gk ektromati, can mean an untimely or premature birth. This meaning would hardly fit the context, since Paul is claiming to be not only the least but the last to whom Jesus appeared. The word also can mean “abortion,” either spontaneous and, hence “premature,” but born dead or induced. If “induced” it is even harder to know what he could mean. Some take it to be metaphorical, referring to a “name” his opponents called him or a reference to the fact that he was uncomely according to 2Corinthians 10:10. This is sheer speculation. In the end, we just do not and cannot know. In any event, it is not “revelation” or essential to his point. The notion of an “unformed, undeveloped, repulsive possibly lifeless fetus does not seem to be complimentary, unless he is referring to the notion of “All things are possible with God.”
In verse nine, I am the least…because I persecuted: Like Peter and his denial of Jesus, Paul never forgot or let others forget, even though he was forgiven, that he once was death-dealing rather than life-producing when it came to the Church.
In verse ten, by the grace of God I am what I am: It was not by the grace of God, but in opposition, albeit sincere, to grace that he persecuted the Church. Now, however, he stands as a witness to what God can do, how a person can be changed completely under his grace.
I have toiled harder: He is not bragging, only stating a fact and giving credit where it is due, to God’s grace.
In verse eleven, whether it be I or they: The preacher does not matter. What matters is faith, but authentic faith, the faith handed down, and not faith concocted to fit human sensibilities or preferences or prejudices. If the resurrection of Jesus cannot be fit into any rational system of thought, it still happened. It is to be believed. There were witnesses. Change the system or discard it. Do not deny or ignore the fact.
Christianity’s beliefs are based on facts, history, especially the life, death and resurrection of a human person, Jesus. The interpretation of those facts, mystery, is more important than the facts themselves, since the interpretation involves anyone who wants and accepts salvation from Jesus. However, the basis for it all is still found in history. The resurrection of Jesus is a fact of history, even though its meaning for Christians goes far beyond that. Some Corinthian Christians fell into the trap of trying to fit Jesus into their Hellenistic philosophy instead of the other way around. It got them into trouble. They erroneously thought that the factual resurrection of Jesus was irrelevant. Paul will straighten them out by first reminding them of what Christians are sure of and then answer questions in the light of that. It is the Christian way. We do not revise the Bible; we interpret reality in the light of it.
The world-view the Corinthian Christians grew up with had little regard for things material, including the human body. They believed that the human spirit or soul originally emanated from Pure Spirit at its creation. Depending on whom you read, thinkers would calculate several emanations of this “created spirit,” each emanation causing a diminution of its resemblance to the pure form. Human beings are the unfortunate result of “spirit” emanating once too many times and falling right into matter, the principle of change and therefore evil. This union of matter or evil or change into body and spirit or good or constant, soul, is the cause of human misery. The goal is for the soul to get unattached from this body and free the soul. Some will do this by asceticism, starving body and senses to arrive at a state of apathy or uncaring about worldly matters and pleasures. Others go to the opposite extreme and indulge the bodily pleasures, claiming it has nothing to do with morality and live in a state of frenzy or recovery from it. Both these extremes proceed from the same point. In this sense they do not differ from many modern philosophies of life that can justify just about anything the emotions announce as desirable. It is interesting to note that neither of these extremes- asceticism or hedonism- really honors the body as part of God’s creation or redemption. The hedonist, in the end, is just as dismissive and disrespectful of matter and body as the ascetic.
After achieving apathy through asceticism or ecstasy through frenzy, the next phase is total disconnection with the material world. The Greek word for it is “anesthesia,” one is totally out of it and thus ready to be re-absorbed into Pure Spirit. There is immortality, but not a personal life with God. The person ceases to exist when the body and soul are separated and the soul only joins the One.
How different is it with Christ! The body of our earthly existence will share in redemption. That does not mean that it will be exactly the same or exactly different, but a combination of these two. Like a caterpillar becoming a butterfly by transformation or a seed becoming a plant or an acorn an oak, there is something similar and something different about it. Our bodies will be equipped to live in the atmosphere of eternity, but they will be our bodies nonetheless. We were saved as humans by a human and always will remain human, which means embodied spirits, not pure souls. The appearances of Jesus who revealed himself as both the same, his wounds, his ability to eat, and different, his ability to enter a room without opening the door, give us a clue, only a clue, to the glorified body we will have.
All this was not for speculation purposes for Paul. Leave that to the Greeks. He drew moral implications and applications from these facts. The glorified body exists in some sense now. What we do in and through our bodies matters. The person expresses him or herself through the body, now and in eternity. Motives and commitments become real only when embodied in a pattern of behavior modeled on Christ. The body cannot be separated from the person, except intellectually and for the purpose of analysis, thus the body will both be redeemed and have a role in redeeming the world, material and social. The person sins, not the body, but the person sins through the body. Hence, the body matters. So does Jesus’ bodily resurrection. He saved us body, soul, spirit, mind and matter. He rose as a person and saved us as persons, complete and entire. Thus, our bodies are as redeemed as our spirits and what we do in and with our bodies and anyone else’s is a moral matter.
Moral questions and dilemmas are resolved by going back to the basics of the gospel.
We apply gospel truth to new conditions; we do not change the truth to fit those conditions.
We are saved now and will be fully saved in the future.
Too many people saw the risen Christ in the flesh to deny that the resurrection actually, factually happened.
When the Lord appeared to people he gave them more than a thrill; he gave them a mission.
We are what we are by the grace of God who knows what he is doing and who is generous with bestowing grace.
Wonder: When Paul experienced the risen Lord on the road to Damascus, he had a unique experience, to be sure, but he also had what we would call an “experience of wonder.” Like Isaiah in the first reading for today and Peter in the gospel for today, Paul experienced the curtain of ordinary perception drawn back and he was privileged to enter into the really real world of God’s realm. It was a life-changing event for him and he was never the same after that. The experience changed the way he looked at everything and everyone. True, it was a thrilling experience or should we say both chilling and thrilling at the same time. The experience of wonder can scare us at first. As Rudolph Otto in his book, The Idea of the Holy, puts it: it (the experience of wonder) is a mystery both fear-inspiring and fascinating. At first, we are put off by the newness of the event. We ask, “Why does that the rose I passed on Monday and Tuesday, all of a sudden on Wednesday explode in my awareness with the miracle of its redness?” It can be frightening to be jolted out of our ordinary way of perceiving reality by something so placid as a rose. Well, Paul was knocked to the ground. He does not say he was on a horse or knocked off his high horse. Maybe he was, maybe he was not. More than likely he was on foot. Nonetheless, the fact remains that he was overcome by the experience that enveloped him. He entered into a realm not ordinarily open to humans and he saw Jesus, the risen Lord. He saw him with his physical eyes, though he saw him also with his faith eyes. He was not transported to heaven, but heaven came to him. He remained physically on the ground on the road, but he also simultaneously entered into another dimension of the one reality of God. For a time it blinded Paul physically, all the while opening up his faith eyes to a vista of redemption exceeded only by Jesus. Jesus appeared to Paul not to give Paul a thrill, though it had to be thrilling once he got past the chilling, fearful part, but to give him a mission, a commission, to spread the truth in Jesus’ name to all the world. That one experience of wonder, although we presume Paul had more subsequently, was enough to change Paul who changed the history of the world. That one moment of mystery changed history in a profound way, exceeded only by the mystery of Christ himself. We look in vain for the trumpet to sound calling our attention to a great event or announcement. God does not work that way. He works through wonder, revealing himself to those open to him in the ordinary moments of their lives. From that “mustard seed” of an event God can work in such a way that it becomes the “largest” of trees. Paul’s experience of wonder is a paradigm for us, reminding us that God works the same way in our lives. It all begins in wonder.
Mission: One day we will end our journey on earth and be in eternity forever. The experience of wonder and the realm in which wonder is a constant quality of life will one day be a constant for us, not a “come and go” event. Until that day, we are called to remember experiences of wonder, keep them alive in our hearts, be open to more such experiences, and identify them as divine, as holy, as revealing the kingdom of God. Until that day, we are also called to spread this message, the message that wonder contains, the message that God is friendly to us, wants to embrace us, brings us his peace and joy for living. We have a mission to communicate God to others and to one another. We have a mission to remind those who have had such experiences, to bolster them when they falter and to let those who have not yet identified those experiences as holy that they are indeed holy. This world and this life is all about God, not about us. Amen.
