Why Bodies Matter to God

1 Corinthians 15:20-26, 51-57

When I read texts like this, I remember why I do not gravitate to Paul and why I stay away from the epistles generally. I’d rather stick with Jesus. It’s a struggle sometimes, but What Would Jesus Do? works a lot better for me than What Would Paul Say? Because he says soooo much! In fact I cut out the beginning of the very long reading assigned, which began with a bunch of if-then logic which makes my brain get all twisted up. (but if you follow the scripture link in the chat you can read the whole thing and try to make sense of it yourself).

The fact is, though, the early church only had some oral histories of Jesus and stories like Paul’s of his appearances to the disciples. So they struggled in the same way that we do to understand what it means to be a disciple. That’s the reason Paul went on so long - trying to help them make sense of Jesus. In this passage he’s responding to questions we all have now more than ever: Why do these bodies of ours suffer? What do we do with chaos? How do we deal with death?

This week on a walk, Orie asked if we could look for the dead bird. We’d seen the carcass of a dead robin a couple days previous and he wanted to return to the scene. In fact we have also inspected the bodies of a dead mole and a dead rat on our walks. In our world, death is real. It surrounds us every day in every statistic. And for many of us - for many of you - it is more real and painful and wrenching than the bodies of creatures found in the grass and at the side of the road. It’s family. It’s fearful. Those questions that Paul and the Corinthians had - we have them too.

Paul’s lens of understanding death - and life - is Jesus. He takes the problem of death and remembers his experience of a resurrected Jesus, who appeared to him and so many in a resurrected and transformed body, and applies that understanding to the problem. As I read Pauls’s words over and over this week, at first it seemed to me as if he was trying to deny death, to spiritualize the reality of death: asking rhetorically where is it’s sting? and proclaiming victory through resurrection. Death swallowed up by life? That’s what is hard to swallow.

These verses in 1 Corinthians 15 are a boiling down of Paul’s theology: God cared enough about the stuff of creation - earth and flesh and plants and water - that God became a part of it. In a human body that suffered and died. And that lived again. We’ve all heard of the dad-bod. Jesus had a God-bod. And, in fact we are all God-bods. Cathryn Schifferdecker, a Lutheran Bible scholar, tells her students, “matter matters.” Our bodies and the stuff of this earth is important to God, our creator.

Bodies matter so much to Paul that it is essential to his theology that they not just disintegrate and disappear into the universe. That they don’t, like the mole and rat and robbin, return to the earth. Paul believes our bodies are important and beloved by God. We are not two easily separated halves - body and soul - but whole beings in which both are sacred. So in death, believes Paul, our bodies will be transformed, remaining whole in the presence of God.

We have zero proof of what happens to our bodies or our spirits after death. I expect that we in our congregation believe many different things about that - just like the Corinthian Christians did. But we all have bodies. We love people and creatures who are embodied beings. And if we do believe in a Creator God who was intimately involved in piecing together the cells of leaves and the atoms in microbes and the fur and feathers of rats and robbins, and our own selves and spirits, then we are matter that matters - we have and we are God-bods.

I believe that means where we put our bodies and how we treat our bodies and what we do with our bodies - and the bodies of others - matters to God. Jesus, the original God-bod was our model: beginning from his birth as a fragile infant body, which we can imagine because like little baby Jedidiah, we have been and we have held and cared for bodies like that. And to his teenage body, nurturing his spirit and feeding his intellect in the temple, which we also know through our experience of study and discernment in community. Jesus' body spent years in a ministry of healing and feeding bodies and we follow his example in our care for and relationships with all manner of folks whose bodies and spirits long for wholeness. Jesus allowed his body and spirit rest, and like him we seek solace and sabbath. And finally he submitted his body to a violent and painful death in his dedication to God’s reign over all. But finally finally his body was resurrected.

I do not know where my body will be after death, nor in that coming day, though I want to believe that somehow I will be joined with my creator. I do know where my body is now. It is on the path with the bodies of animals decomposing into soil, and also flying and scurrying and hopping through the grass. It is with my dear ones and it is being broadcast through mystery and science to be beheld by your bodies. Our bodies are beloved. May we love them. May we love the bodies of all God’s creatures.

Tantrums and Meltdowns and Grief

"She's having the tantrum you want to have."  This is the response of a grief specialist to parents who are trying to understand their preschooler's erratic behavior after a late-term miscarriage.  A death that they were grieving and coming to terms with as well as learning how to talk about with their living child.

This story is part an essay about children and grief in the book When Kids Ask Hard Questions: Faith Filled Answers for Tough Topics.*  I've been dipping in and out of this book for awhile, on topics ranging from bodies to money to race to relationships and a lot of ground in between.  I haven't finished it yet but the section on loss just seemed like the right thing to read after a long day and wakeful night.  A day and night after which I felt deeply the opening phrase.  Cause, yeah, I sure feel like hitting and screaming and I've done my share of crying.

There have been many times in the past couple of months (we're coming up on months already!) when I have watched my child melt down, and wanted to respond with empathy but could only offer my version of the tantrum which is to snap, or yell or issue an ultimatum.  And there have been times when I have been able to hold him and listen and take deep breaths together and move through it.  I can see how little control he has over anything - even less than usual - and how small his world has become.  He's grieving.  We all are.

"She's having the temper tantrum you want to have," we both took deep breaths. She was so right, and we had missed it.  Through her clinginess, outbursts, tears and emotion our daughter was exposing the emotional instability within out entire family. We all wanted to scream, we each needed to hold tight to one another in the middle of the night, and we - individually and collectively - felt compelled to cry out to anyone who would listen that life simply was not fair." 

The authors of the essays in this book are about the loss of people in their lives. Loss of a parent or spouse is a traumatic event for a family and it's not like what we're experiencing in this time of pandemic.  But we are experiencing loss: loss of friends, loss of activities we love, loss of control, expectation and hope.  And even if our children aren't feeling all those losses for themselves, they certainly can sense their parents and other adult's grief and anxiety.

Even though these essays were about grieving the loss of persons, there were a few pearls I found helpful.  Top of the heap was, it's okay to show your kids that you're grieving and to talk about why.  And the companion to this is to make sure you're taking care of yourself and your own emotions, have someone to talk to and process your own feelings.  That processing (not with your child!) might also help give you the language that will develop your child's vocabulary of emotions, which both they and you need to be able to communicate what you're feeling.

There are probably scores of books out there that deal with kids and loss - I actually have several picture books on my shelf - but I found it helpful the specifically faith-oriented way that I was continually reassured of that God's love endures.  That God too grieves with us.  That faith doesn't demand that we put on a happy face.  Thank God!

Parents, friends to children, you're doing a great job! Even when you feel like you're not.  This is a hard thing that we're doing.  Keep breathing and know your belovedness, your children's belovedness.  We're in it together somehow.
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* Handily, when I went to the link above for the book, I found out it's currently on sale. Just sayin' :)

Comfort Y'all, My People

The following was my brief reflection in response to the theme question of our Advent season at SMC: "What are we waiting for?" and the theme word, "Comfort" drawn from the the text, Isaiah 40:1-11.  It wasn't quite the sermon, but it has a lot of sermon qualities.

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Like, me, I’m sure that many of you, when you hear the text of Isaiah 40, “Comfort, O Comfort my people” hear music in their heads, whether that’s, "Comfort, comfort O my people, speak of peace now says our God,” or the much more tricky, “Comfort ye, my people” from Handel's messiah, followed by the warble of “every va-a-lley sha-all be exa-alted” I’m sure we hear and sing this text more than we read the scripture from prophet Isaiah. Especially at this time of year. Especially if you, like me, have ever spent any time in a choir.

But these words were prophecy before they were set to music for Christmas, long before there was a Christ or Christmas to celebrate. These were words spoken to a people who had been in exile for a generation or more. People who had been through some stuff - seen their city and homes destroyed, been taken into exile, wondered if God cared for them - whether God was even there any more.

And here comes the prophet with the words of God. Not, “Take comfort” not, “I comfort you,” but, “Comfort my people.” Or, as the tenor sings, “Comfort ye my people.” (Not, as apparently some people grew up hearing, “Come for tea, my people.”) In any case, these are instructions. Plural instructions. So who is God talking to? There’s some consensus in the academic community that God is speaking to the divine counsel. Speaking to the community of heaven to get out there and let the people of Israel know that this is it. Their wait is over, their deliverance is at hand.

Indeed we see later in the writings of Isaiah that the Persian king Cyrus will restore the exile to home and land and temple. Making a way through the hills and valleys of the wilderness. But at the moment of this prophecy that is still to come and God is speaking - possibly to other divine beings. But maybe God’s instructions to be comforters are for the very people who are in need of comfort.

As a Canadian I grew up thinking of the word/phrase “y’all” as a very American, very southern expression. Maybe still (?) that’s the impression. Certainly it’s not Canadian in usage - some Ontarians say ‘yous’ in a similar way. But I’ve started to find y’all handy. As I try to be at least somewhat more gender neutral in my language, I’m using “y’all” instead of “you guys” to indicate a plural “you.” Also, now that I’m a passport-carrying American citizen I feel I can rightfully adopt it as the language of my new people.

I think this right here is a “y’all” situation. God is saying, not “Comfort ye,” (or even "Come for tea") but “Comfort y’all, my people.” You, God is saying, you all are a people who have been through some stuff and you are in need of comforting. You have experienced loss and trauma and you need to be consoled. But also, y’all, you’ve seen and experienced some stuff so you know how to offer comfort to each other. Be comfort and consolation for your kindred. Offer care where you know care is needed. You know better than anyone how to do it.

I believe these instructions might be the encouragement to God’s people to keep on keeping on as a community who supports and consoles each other through trauma and loss. We can receive it as encouragement as well. Any community that experiences loss and goes through some stuff - which is to say basically every community, y’all be there for each other. Show up for each other. Care for each other. Pray for each other and hold each other. What are you waiting for? Comfort y’all, my people.
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Photo by Rosie Fraser on Unsplash