Rev. Kevin M. Pleas

First Corinthians 15:1-11 February 7, 2010

Now I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news that I proclaimed to you, which you in turn received, in which also you stand, through which also you are being saved, if you hold firmly to the message that I proclaimed to you - unless you have come to believe in vain. For I handed on to you as of first importance what I in turn had received: that Christ died for our sins in accordance with the scriptures, and that he was buried, and 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 brothers and sisters at one time, most of whom are still alive, though some have died. Then he appeared to James, then to all the apostles. Last of all, as to one untimely born, he appeared also to me. For I am the least of the apostles, unfit to be called an apostle, because I persecuted the church of God. But by the grace of God I am what I am, and his grace toward me has not been in vain. On the contrary, I worked harder than any of them - though it was not I, but the grace of God that is with me. Whether then it was I or they, so we proclaim and so you have come to believe.

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This morning I'd like to continue the train of thought I started a couple of weeks ago. On the 24th of January, motivated largely by our upcoming budget discussion, I talked about the need for us to begin a conversation about who we are and what the shape of our future might be. Last week, I talked about how our Christian faith can be seen as the language God has "placed in our mouths;" the spiritual story that is ours to tell. Today, what I'm thinking about is foundations; what's at the heart of it all.

When it comes to understanding the Christian faith, people often think the whole thing is pretty complicated. The truth is, it really can be about as complicated as you want it to be. In these days of digital books, a good theological library is getting a lot easier to carry around. But when I look at the library in my office, which is relatively small, even though I've been collecting it for about 25 years, I can see how it would be pretty easy to feel intimidated, if not completely overwhelmed. I occasionally have someone come to me who is interested in reading the Bible, but has absolutely no idea where to begin. I get that. When I first went to seminary I knew practically nothing about the Bible. It is not an easy book to get a handle on, and the practices of faith that have risen from it can be daunting. After all, we've been piling up doctrines, traditions, analysis and commentary for all of 2000 years.

Back in the days of the Pilgrims and Puritans, our forebears had some pretty strong feelings about what they called an educated clergy. They were very big on establishing seminaries and other college institutions. Harvard, Princeton, Yale and so on … most of our best known schools were started by the church, one branch or another. The feeling was that the church needed to be led by a professional class that had the best education available, and I am a typical product of that thinking. Our church's normal understanding of a minister includes being something of an in-house theological expert, if you will. Truly, I'm not all that much of an expert, although I can talk a good game. After all that training though, you can trust me when I say I know how incredibly easy it is to get lost in the swamp of theology.

The thing is, for most people, very little of all that education is really necessary, or even particularly useful. There's an old story Anthony de Mello tells in his book, More One Minute Nonsense. (page 32) It seems there was once a woman who hired a Latvian refugee as a housekeeper, then found to her dismay that the girl couldn't run a vacuum cleaner, operate a mixer, or cope with a washing machine. "What can you do?" she asked in desperation. "The girl smiled in quiet pride and said, "I can milk a reindeer."

I often think of that story when someone asks me what I did in the Coast Guard. "I was a high speed Morse Code operator." I actually am rather proud of that. It took a lot of work to learn and I was good at it, but there's hasn't been much call for it lately. Pam and I were watching an episode of House last night in which a man suffered from "Locked-In" syndrome. The only way he could communicate was by blinking his eyes: once for yes, twice for no. I told Pam that if that ever happened to me, she should remember that I know Morse Code. I could blink up whole paragraphs if I had to. Short of that however, I don't expect to be getting much use out of it.

Now folks, along these same lines, there is no question in my mind that most people can get along perfectly well without most of the more complicated theology of the church. There is no question that many people these days put the teachings of the church in the same category as Morse Code or milking reindeers, things that may once have been useful but aren't anymore. As I keep saying, we can't take for granted that the world outside these walls believes that what we do here is either valuable or necessary. Not so long ago, even the people who didn't go to church believed that church was important, but that isn't something we can count on anymore.

Let me ask you a question. Is that a bad thing? I think an awful lot of people would say yes, but I'm no so sure. Should it be that things don't ever change? Have we reached the full expression of what the church was always meant to be? If we have, then our job is to keep it that way at all costs; to be caretakers of a place that has reached it's full potential in faith and can only be damaged by change. I don't imagine any of us really believe that, but it's easy to fall into habits that make it look like we do. It's easy to go along and get along, to simply recycle the programs and committee assignments, line items and liturgies that have become comfortably familiar. It's just basic physics. The law of inertia says that it takes far less energy to keep something in the state it's in than to start or stop or change directions. But if all we're doing here is just keeping it going, after awhile, it's awfully easy to fall asleep at the switch. For my part, I can't believe Jesus ever really meant us to be Christians on autopilot.

So, at the risk of sounding clichéd, what we all seem to need is a bit of "back to basics." I don't see a lot of people caring about all our complicated theology. The question is, what is the still beating heart of it all? What are the still glowing coals out of which we might rekindle a fire? When I ask those questions, it is Paul's words that come to mind.

"I would remind you, brothers and sisters, of the good news … Christ died … he was buried, and … he was raised on the third day…"

This is the truth at the heart of Paul's message. It is the faith that changed his life. It is the proclamation that set the church on fire, and is still burning 2000 years later. Talk about resisting change, Paul was a famous persecutor of the church. He had done everything he could think of to stamp out that new Christian threat to his cherished understanding of faith. Then God threw him to the ground, blinded his eyes to what he had always taken for granted, and brought him to a whole new vision of grace.

Crucifixion and resurrection; that's the heart of it all, everything builds from there. Paul never talks about the parables of Jesus, the miracle stories, the healings. He simply says that the one who was crucified appeared to him alive, that the power of death was broken.

Why is that the heart of it all? Because it flies in the face of all of our conventional wisdom. All our normal rationalities tell us that death is the end. All of our self-interested certainties tell us to look out for number one, because no one else will. But in God's grace, there is always more; more life, more light, more freedom, more time, more than enough to share. In God's grace, sacrificing for the sake of others is not a pointless exercise but a pathway to joy. When we strip down our complicated theology to it's bare essentials, what we're left with can be said in a bumper sticker: Grace Happens.

But if all we need is a bumper sticker, why keep the church? The answer is, the church is the community that believes in the happening of grace. It is the people who strive to live the happening of grace. It is the shining beacon to an all too dark world that proclaims the happening of grace. And so long as grace keeps happening, there will be room in the world for a living, dynamic and faithful church.

One of the things I love about Paul is how real he is; how forthcoming he is about his own human frailties. He is completely honest about having resisted change, about having persecuted the church. But then he says, "I am what I am." "By the grace of God, I am what I am." Well folks, by the grace of God, we are what we are too. We're not always all that passionate about our faith. Our vision isn't always clear. We can resist change with the best of them. But, like Paul, by the grace of God, we are what we are. And what we are - when all the comfortable assumptions and theological complications are stripped away - what we are, is people of the resurrection.

Amen.