Hold Firmly - 1 Corinthians 15:1-11 (Epiphany 5C)

 

Ah... the good old days... back when everything was more simple, am I right? I’m sure each of you has a story or two about “back in my day...” that you could tell me about. It may even involve being thrown in a snowbank (my uncle’s favorite threat), or walking to school, uphill both ways in waist-high snow, barefoot. We have gained so much in the 60-odd years since this church was built, yet I believe its best days are still in front of us. Technologies have changed, improved, and re-evaluated modern life, but not everything can be the way it was when we began. 

In 1959, when this church was started, a few other things were: the middle of the Cold War - that probably wasn’t difficult for anyone... Vice President Nixon met on LIVE TELEVISION with the Russian President and debated on the merits of each of their systems. Could you imagine something like that today? The Pioneer 4 unmanned spacecraft was supposed to do a fly-by of the Moon and photograph it. It failed to take any picture, but it did leave Earth’s orbit, but we know a bit more about space in a different direction because of it. Closer to home, the St. Lawrence Seaway opened for freighter ships to make it all the way through the Great Lakes to the rest of the world, opening Chicago and other ports to become competitive shipping lanes. Here are some other things for you to think about: Jackie Robinson had retired from baseball three years prior. This is five years after the Supreme Court case Brown v. Board of Education, claiming that separate but equal education was not happening and that schools needed to be integrated. Central High School in Little Rock, Arkansas, was integrated under National Guard watch just two years before this church was opened. The Civil Rights movement was beginning but was still in its infancy. But where were you? Does that make you think of what that world would have been like? I wasn’t even a thought in my parents’ minds. My mom was 11, and my dad was 14. It’s kind of weird to think about it like that.

Sometimes it’s good to think about where we come from, even in our spiritual lives. Remembering how our faith started is a great way to connect to other people, no matter their journey. My faith development started as a child. I was baptized, not as an infant, but as a six-year-old in a Lutheran church in Minnesota. I was confirmed in the Methodist Church at 13 and was very active in the youth group at my church. I attended church camp five times in the four years of high school. At one of those church camps, I knew that I wanted to live out my faith and go deeper in my walk with Christ. At camp, it’s a fantastic week because you are taken out of your typical environment and given space to explore the depth of faith before “the real world” would greet you when you return at the end of the week. This is just a tiny part of what I would say is my Christian “origin story.” 

Paul is also exploring his own “origin story.” He wants to connect with the Corinthians to see where they agree and what they can build on. But, Let me stop there real quick because I may have introduced some of you to a new phrase - origin story. An origin story is usually used in comic books or novels of how they became who or what they are in the present. For example, Peter Parker was just an average high school student who happened to come across a radioactive spider on a field trip which bit him, and to make a long story short - he becomes your friendly neighborhood Spider-Man. This superhero helps rid New York of criminals, and other ne’er do wells. 

Anyway - so Paul is reflecting on his own origin story. He starts with… (and I may be paraphrasing a bit)… “let me remind you of when you learned the gospel… I hope you have kept this moment of transformation close in your heart… when I learned about Christ dying for my sins… and it became REAL”. Paul is trying to encourage those Corinthians to remember what it was like to have Christ enter their lives for the first time. To open their eyes, emerging from the water of baptism with a whole new CLEAN spirit… 

And this is why - it was known in the Corinthian church among some that the resurrection of Christ was a sham; fake news; that the belief that it happened is not central to their faith. Woohoo - and conspiracy theories were supposed to be a new thing?? PLEASE. This letter was written only about 30 years after the death and resurrection of Christ, so about a generation (or two) in time. And yet those who have no practical experience with the event were doubting. Yet they so many people to talk to. What are they thinking? Didn’t they know the truth? I’m glad we are so much more refined today…. That we don’t lack these naysayers. NOOOO, are you serious? There is so much doubt and faithlessness in our world today that people feel lost, and given the church’s witness, we are not helping at all.

I am a millennial, or on the tail end of Gen X. We have divisions in our denomination and church, just like the Corinthians. But we have no Paul. According to polling from the Barna Group, my generation CRAVES connections; some of us find it harder to cultivate relationships. It’s a tension that some of us can’t reconcile. My generation took some of the distrust of connections from the rogue individualism and the disdain for large institutions. We are lonelier and more isolated than any other generation. But yet, beyond that, the church has not always been a supportive place for many of us or our friends. 

So what does this mean for Bethany? We have some hurdles to get over. Connections will not be easily made, as in the past, and just because the church exists doesn’t mean that anyone wants to participate. We are no longer in a world where if you build it, people will come. There is no expectation of stopping all you’re doing and having an hour on Sunday morning to reflect. We are in the middle of a technological shift not seen on this scale since the invention of the printing press. We can’t address modern problems with decades-old approaches. And yet… there is more tension. How can we hold firmly in faith while trying to reach those who may find the church a foreign or even hostile place? It’s more than we can’t love our neighbors enough, but the church has been, and some argue that it continues to be, not so much in the people business, but in the power business, the control business, or the business of trying to stay relevant. 

I hope I’m not bringing anyone down about the state of the church. Don’t get me wrong - it’s going to take work. Coming into this role, I knew it would be hard, and I’ve had my days. But we are also the people of hope. We take heart that death is not the end of the story, just like Paul is talking about. It’s through the LIFE, DEATH, AND resurrection of Jesus that the Good News can be brought.  

Without the resurrection, how can anyone have hope? Without the resurrection, how can we believe God is one of the miracles? We don’t need signs… we’ve already got one. Jesus took His place on the cross, died like any other mortal, but yet he was also God, and he conquered death, resurrecting for the final victory! It’s hard for us to believe that there were some in Corinth who doubted the actual resurrection, and here we are two thousand plus years later, still proclaiming the glory of the one who defeated death! 

But… let’s revisit the idea of dying for us on the cross… there’s probably a good idea of what someone might mean when they say that “Jesus died for you and your sins,”… but is this the good news part? NOOOOO… the good news is that friends, Easter is coming! We know that death is not a significant part. This is also a phrase that the evangelical church and those who may be more aggressive like to twist and appeal to fear and shame to get people to join their churches. But what does that mean for a more mainline church, like ours? We need to remember that Jesus was not part of a transaction with God, that he just traded one for the other. That makes the whole thing cheap, grace… Don’t you think restoring the creation to the Creator is more than that? We separated ourselves from God through Adam and Eve. Jesus was more than just the second Adam. Jesus was also wholly God amongst humanity. God endured the pain of the cross to know what that separation felt like and forgave our broken relationship. God wanted to restore the intimacy of walking with creation just as they had in the Garden. Death could not be contained, and that, friends, is what the Good News is all about. 

But what does the resurrection mean to you? Is it important? In what ways have you found rebirth in your own life? Are there things you needed to let die or still need to let die to be transformed and purified for God’s glory? Because if Christ was not resurrected, which we will talk about next week, then death is the end; what was the significance of Jesus’ life? The life of Jesus is as important, if not more so than the way he died. To paraphrase the words of Nadia Bolz-Weber, a Lutheran priest, “I don’t think the martyrs were interested in just a good story, or for the good feeling that Jesus passed along.”

Resurrection was the gift of mercy that we all can receive. There are no merits where we can earn it. This is more of who God is and what God did than anything we can strive for or achieve. But what is it that is expected of us when we receive that resurrection? We are to share that with everyone, to share our transformation to help the community heal and come together for the benefit of the whole. 

This is why we need to sometimes reflect on our origin stories. To hold fast to the moments of transformation, we have been through are the moments that we can use as our testimony for others to God’s grace, hope, and love. Since our lives are not static, it also helps to remind ourselves of where we’ve been and see the growth we’ve accomplished in our faith life. This process is daily, moment by moment, seeing, believing, and doing the Good News. 

Amen.