Last Sunday the beginning of the Fifteenth Chapter of Saint Paul’s First Epistle to the Corinthians was read to us.  Last Sunday we heard that Saint Paul has written,

Now I would remind you, brethren, in what terms I preached to you the gospel, which you received, in which you stand, by which you are saved, if you hold it fast . . . For I delivered to you as of first importance what I also received, that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, that he was buried, that he was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures, and that he appeared to Cephas, then to the twelve.  Then he appeared to more than five hundred brethren at one time, most of whom are still alive . . .

And today we have heard what Saint Paul is getting at in reminding the Church at Corinth of this first principle of the Faith:  “if Christ is preached as raised from the dead,” Paul says, “how can some of you say that there is no resurrection of the dead?”  . . . Today we have heard Saint Paul’s discussion of a persistent and recurring problem that hinders the faith of the Faithful:  the tendency of the Faithful to forget that the Christian Life is founded upon the fact that the dead are raised from death.

    Oh, I’m fairly certain that no one here preaches that there is no resurrection of the dead (as was done at Corinth), . . . and perhaps everyone here (I hope) believes that Christ “was raised on the third day in accordance with the scriptures”.  But while we may believe such a thing about Jesus, . . . I’m not entirely sure that all of us . . . or even any of us . . . habitually believes in such a thing for ourselves!  In other words, I’m not sure we all live as though the dead were raised.  . . . We live, instead, as if God were more of a resource for our lives than their content.  The real content of our lives . . . the real purpose to our living . . . seems to be a fairly vague happiness that mostly depends upon getting our own way, for which God might prove useful from time to time.  It shows up in our Protestant Episcopal tradition as a kind of Calvinism, . . . a kind of Calvinism which wants to understand Jesus so literally as to act insufferably.  And so, when we hear Jesus say,

“Blessed are you poor, . . . [and] Blessed are you that hunger now, . . . [and] Blessed are you that weep now, … [and] Blessed are you when men hate you, and when they exclude you and revile you, and cast out your name as evil, on account of the Son of man!”

. . . when we hear the Beatitudes . . . we hear the word “poor” and become anxious (after all, poor people aren’t all that happy); . . . we hear Jesus say the word “poor” and it makes us so anxious that we become “stingy”, so that when Holy Scripture implores us to tithe for the sake of the poor . . . we say we cannot afford it.  And we hear the word “hunger” and it makes us edgy (after all, hungry people aren’t very happy either); . . . we hear Jesus say the word “hunger” and it makes us “irritable”, so that when Holy Scripture urges us to fast for the sake of our soul . . . we call it superstition and say we’re too busy.  And when we hear the word “weep” we become “gloomy” . . . so that the combined effect of our stinginess and irritability and gloom . . . is that when we hear that the world might “hate” us or “exclude” us or “revile” us on account of the Son of man, . . . we don’t feel that we have much cause to advertise our Christian beliefs to anyone we don’t know.  And the cumulative effect of this Calvinistic severity is to produce a blighted Christian life that is shrunken and shriveled and cheerless and despondent and either annoying or exasperating to everyone else that has to endure it.  . . . It is a life which the Lord God describes to His prophet Jeremiah:

Cursed is the man who trusts in man and makes flesh his arm, whose heart turns away from the LORD.  He is like a shrub in the desert, and shall not see any good come.  He shall dwell in the parched places of the wilderness, in an uninhabited salt land.

Or, as Saint Paul puts it:  “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, we are of all men most to be pitied.”

    The life that does not look beyond the moment; . . . the life that is servant to itself . . . is a barren, twiggy, dried up; unfruitful sort of life.  . . . It is cursed, Jeremiah says.  It is cursed not because God despises it!  . . . It is cursed because, like Jeremiah’s shrub in the desert, it has no reliable source of water; . . . it has no reliable source of life.

    But the reality is, Saint Paul says; . . . the ineffable and lovely truth about us is that Christ Jesus is living Water; . . . Jesus is the source of our life:

Christ has been raised from the dead, [Saint Paul writes] the first fruits of those who have fallen asleep.   [And then Paul continues] For as by a man came death, by a man has come also the resurrection of the dead.  For as in Adam all die, so also in Christ shall all be made alive.

The life bestowed upon you at your baptism is a life which consists of God’s grace . . . and is impoverished apart from it; . . . the life bestowed upon you at your baptism is a life which hungers to be fed with the blessings of the bread of heaven which nourishes and gives hope; . . . it is a life which weeps without the laughter of God’s cheerfulness; . . . it is a life which founds all relationships upon the friendship and love of God given to us in Christ Jesus.  The life bestowed upon you at your baptism is a resurrection life.  . . . It is a life that serves heaven and not itself; . . . it is a life that serves the ineffable and eternal God; . . . it is a life that serves eternity eternally.  . . . The life bestowed upon you at your baptism is a life which so persistently looks beyond the moment . . . that it entices others to gaze in the direction of eternity as well . . . in order to catch a glimpse of God, . . . to catch a glimpse of the truth of the moment . . . to catch a glimpse of the worth of all things.

    Last Sunday I told you that the Gospel Lesson was a vocation narrative:  … your vocation narrative . . . in which we hear of Peter’s humiliation when he discovers that without Jesus his world is impoverished, barren, and sad.  . . . And today we discover that the Lord God Almighty has given us the blessing of Christ Jesus to die for our sins, to be buried, and to be raised on the third day . . . so that we might live in the blessedness of the Resurrection Life; . . . so that the wealth of any given moment might come from the wallet of God . . . and the need of the moment from Heaven’s stores . . . and the joy of the moment from the face of Jesus.  . . . The Lord God Almighty has given us the blessing of Christ to die for our sins, to be buried, and to be raised on the third day . . . so that we might have God’s ineffable life for our own . . . and manifest it to simply everyone; . . . so that we might be

like a tree planted by water, that sends out its roots by the stream, and does not fear when heat comes, for its leaves remain green, and is not anxious in the year of drought,  for it does not cease to bear fruit.

The Lord God Almighty has given us Christ Jesus to die for our sins, to be buried, and to be raised on the third day . . . so that we might be blest, just as the Beatitudes of Jesus promise; . . . so that we might live fearlessly and confidently.  … Power comes forth from such a life, the Gospel tells us.  Power comes forth from a life that is imbued with the life of Jesus.  . . . Power comes forth from such a life, the Gospel tells us, . . . and heals simply everyone.