We Are Risen

Sermon

There is a story of a woman who was given a seed to grow at her job. I’m not sure who I am supposed to credit it to, as I’ve been unsuccessful in finding its author, but I think it is worth sharing this morning. This woman worked in a department of about a dozen people, and their boss had given them each a seed, and told them to nurture it for one year and bring it back. See, the boss was getting old, and was looking for a replacement, but decided to go about choosing his replacement in a unique way. The boss told each of them that the most impressive plant in one year’s time would earn them the job.

So, this woman planted her seed, and did everything necessary to grow it. Direct sunlight, proper watering habits, fertile soil. It did not grow. One month, two months, three months, four. The seed did not sprout, but stayed under the soil. Five months, six months, seven months, eight. But the woman continued to feed it, and patiently wait. The year has passed and the time has come. The woman thought for certain that her job was done. For she had failed to grow a single sprout, and that was the test. So she sluggishly brought in her plant, and then saw the rest. Towering plants, full of flowers and leaves. This is it, she told herself, I’m through the minute the boss sees. The boss calls a meeting, gives a greeting, take a seat and says to the group, “Now let’s see who’s plant is the finest among you.” One by one, he stops and smells and pokes and prods, giving mixed responses, some shakes, some nods. Then the boss gets to the empty pot of the woman and stops.

“If everyone would take a seat, I am ready to announce my replacement.” The boss went on to name the woman as the replacement, to the shock and awe of the entire group. “You see,” the boss continued, “the seeds I gave each of you were boiled, and were not going to produce any plants. Each of you saw this and decided to replace it, in order to bring in these bountiful plants, hoping to earn my job. But only one of you had the humility and honor to stick it through. These are the qualities I’m looking for, so the most impressive seed is the one that was sown dead.”

I think this story, while not matching up exactly with Paul’s argument here, still has plenty of good things to say about our text this morning. Paul begins our section, “Someone will ask, ‘How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?’ Fool! What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed… But God gives it a body as God has chosen, and to each kind of seed its own body.”

The church in Corinth is understood to have begun to listen to poor theology regarding resurrection, which is the source of these rhetorical questions to begin the passage. We have reason to believe that resurrection was not a well-known concept in the Greco-Roman world, so it would not be a surprise that Paul would be expecting these kinds of questions in regards to the resurrection. For all we know, perhaps they thought that God would just reassemble our bodies from the decaying bits, and we would be walking around as a bunch of Frankenstein’s monsters. Or maybe we would be left in the same exact appearance as we were before we died, just a little, less fresh. For any sensible person, this idea does not sound appealing, and does not really bode well for a faith system.

It is likely, then, that Paul knew of some questionable doctrines being spread in the church at Corinth, hence the rhetorical questions followed by his interjection, FOOL! These other doctrines have some semblance to the replacement seeds that the others planted in the workplace story I told you. They were a means to an end that sounded so wonderful, and so they enticed the workers to bail on this potentially risky situation of having not grown a thing and instead cheat the system. I think in perhaps a similar way, some in Corinth were being led astray by what could have been considered more attractive understandings, because they made the end so much more attainable, at first glance. But, Paul makes a point here, that “what you sow does not come to life unless it dies.”

So now we have an understanding of dead bodies being raised, which is a good starting point, but this brings up more questions. Even today, a common question in the field of eschatology is, “what kind of body will we be in? What age will we be?” Some have said that just as we die, we will appear in the resurrection. Others have thought that we will be aged the same age of Jesus when he died, so about our early to mid-30s. Others still think that we will be aged at the physical peak of humanity, so somewhere between 21 and 25. Unless you’re Tom Brady, then perhaps you’ll be about 40, somehow. And yet even still others do not think that we will be in a physical form at all, that our earthly bodies are just prisons for our souls during our time here on earth, and that such dirty and broken vessels could not possibly have any implication or realization on our resurrected and heavenly bodies.

What we have to remember here is that, in our context, some of these options might not sound too bad. How many of you would not mind having your younger physique right now? So much more energy, so much more sprightly, so much more vitality. If we take good enough care of ourselves, maybe even the body we die in can still be a pretty comfortable life, considering we understand there to be no pain in the resurrection. But these people in Corinth see it much differently. These people don’t have access to health care systems (even a broken one) or advanced medical technology or even sanitary surroundings. They would have a much harder time accepting an eternity of any form of physically resurrected body. It should come as no surprise that Gnostic ideas that denigrated flesh and blood would run rampant throughout Corinth, as well as the large sum of the ANE.

But what Paul is advocating for here is not some kind of zombie apocalypse akin to the AMC hit show The Walking Dead. This is not resurrection of a body wrought with maladies. This is a transformation into a body that has not been stricken by sin or death or decay or unholiness. He uses the imagery of a seed here for what I think are two very important reasons.

First, the seed/sower/soil parables of Jesus are ones that are easy to remember in the context of Ancient Israel, a largely agricultural nation apart from the city of Jerusalem. Even today, these are the more well-remembered parables, but now for the opposite effect, where farming is such a minority occupation in the West, that it starkly contrasts our lives. Jesus spoke in these kinds of ways, and so if Paul leans on them as well, not only does he provide them with a tangible concept, but he can also indirectly lean on the authority of Jesus, as well.

Second, and perhaps more importantly, Paul utilizing a seed image here mirrors his understanding of this newness of life in this transformed and pure vessel. If you have ever once seen a seed of any kind, literally any kind, you will know what it looks like, roughly. Seeds of an apple do not look like an apple. Pumpkin seeds are, shockingly, not just little bitty pumpkin-shaped morsels of fun. They transform completely as they as raised up from beneath the soil. In a similar way, our body acts like a seed. What we will germinate into bears little to no resemblance to what we will look like when we are raised up from beneath the soil of our mortal existence. Just as the seeds die to germinate, so must our physical forms die to resurrect.

“So it is with the resurrection of the dead,” Paul continues. “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raise in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power. It is sown a physical body, it is raised a spiritual body. If there is a physical body, there is also a spiritual body.” Paul’s rhetoric here is determined to show us the stark contrast between what is sown and what is raised. But what is the thing that Paul refers to here? What is the “it”?

Does “it” refer to just the physical form? Perhaps, as Paul does make mention to a body both physical and spiritual here. But what if Paul is actually referring to the human being who experiences this death, this sowing and raising? If that is more the case, then, what is being raised is not just a body, but a body with all the qualities of its living existence. Qualities that include perishability, dishonor, weakness, things that hold us back from living a holy life. But this human is not raised in those qualities, but in the powerful and transformative qualities promised to us in salvation: imperishability, honor and glory, and power. We become spiritual beings not because we are no longer physical, but because we are no longer hindered by the maladies of the physical, which are sin and death. The work of sanctification meets its end, and holiness is realized in its full form in the human.

“Thus it is written, ‘The first human, Adam, became a living being’; that last Adam became a life-giving spirit. But it is not the spiritual that is first, but the physical, and then the spiritual. The first human was from the earth, a human of dust; the second man is from heaven. As was the human of dust, so are those who are of the dust; and as is the man of heaven, so are those who are of heaven. Just as we have borne the image of the human of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.”

For Paul, this man from the dust is Adam, and this man from the heavens is Christ. Adam brought death into the world through disobedience in Eden. Christ brought life back to the world through perfect obedience in Jerusalem. As long as we bear the nature of Adam, having been formed from the dust, we too are subject to sin and death. But in our raising, we will be made new with Christ, transformed for eternity, and completely free from sin and death.

As we have seen, Paul has corrected some of the wrong doctrines being followed in the church of Corinth, but still has not given to us a concrete answer as to what exactly we should expect. And Paul never does. Paul claims it as a mystery to be seen. What Paul does do later in the chapter, however, is exhort the Corinthians to continue to be steadfast, immovable, and always excelling in the work of the Lord, because they should now know that in God their labor is not in vain, without fruit. In this way Paul echoes the theme of Epiphany. God has been made known on earth. Incarnate in Jesus, the one and only son. We have been giving the fulfillment of the promises made to Abraham, Jacob, and David, and our hope is eternal, anchored to Jesus. As we continue in Epiphany, we celebrate this revelation as we continue to wait upon the mysteries of the faith, the life-eternal and the resurrection.