Listening to Mysteries

Listening to Mysteries--September 19, 2017

"Listen, I will tell you a mystery! We will not all die, but we will all be changed, in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet.  For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised imperishable, and we will be changed.  For this perishable body must put on imperishability, and this mortal body must put on immortality.  When this perishable body puts on immortality, and this mortal body puts on immortality, then the saying that is written will be fulfilled:  'Death has been swallowed up in victory'." [1 Corinthians 15:50-54]

Here's a general rule of thumb, for navigating normal, polite human conversation: when someone goes to the trouble of saying, "Listen!", it is a not-so-subtle hint that the speaker believes what she or he is about to say is important. 

Now, whether you agree or not that the thing they have asked you to "listen!" to is actually vital and essential, you may have to decide for yourself--but you can only make that decision if you have listened in the first place.  And you know right off the bat that the person speaking thinks it is important enough to call your attention to it.  So, if the person speaking is either someone you greatly respect, or someone for whom you care deeply, it is advisable to listen when someone calls out, "Listen!" It might actually be important.

So that we are clear on this, nobody ever says, "Listen to this!" and then follows it up after an awkwardly long pause with, " I have nothing to tell you."  Nobody says, "Listen to this!  I'm eating soup!"  or "Hear ye, hear ye!  I am clipping my toenails!"  To explicitly call for someone else to "Listen up!" is to spend a certain amount of relationship capital... and you don't want to waste all your chips on something that isn't worth the pay-off.

In other words, when someone else says, "Listen!" there is good reason to err on the side of actually paying attention.

Saint Paul was not one to waste his "Listen!"s frivolously.  Paul, after all, was writing letters.  And written letters are by definition a visual medium.  He, or a friend with a pen as he dictated, would have spoken his words, had them put down on paper, carried to their destination, and then read out loud by his friends to the Christian community in whatever church assembly in whatever city to whom he was writing.  It's a little weird, isn't it, for a written document to have the exclamation, "Listen!"?  That means Paul gave that call to listen in one town, and then hundreds of miles away, someone read his words out loud, calling those ears in that room to pay attention.  That's a little like me sitting here at my dining room table as I write, issuing the command, "Stand up and clap your hands!" and actually expecting you to do it.  I wouldn't dare try that (at least not actually expecting the clapping and standing to happen) unless for some really important reason I was convinced that it was of vital importance, and that you would actually do it. 

But here is Paul calling out "Listen!" as a direction written hundreds--or more!--miles away from his audience, and how many weeks or months between his composition of the letter and their hearing it.  And yet, he really is convinced that they need to hear what he is about to say.  And he is convinced it is worth spending his chips on to get them to listen.

And interestingly enough the thing Paul dares his audience there in Corinth to stop and listen to is not a rule or an ethical teaching, not a liturgical direction or even a plea to his hearers to say the right prayer to accept Jesus as their personal savior...  but here, Paul spends his "Listen!" on an announcement of the power and promise of resurrection.  He spends it on hope.  Paul seems to be saying, "Look, I get it if your mind was wandering listening to some of this stuff.. maybe you're tired... or it was a long day... or you are preoccupied, I don't know.  But regardless of whether you could keep your attention and focus on what I said before, now, I need you to listen up! Death does not win in the end--Jesus does!"

That's it. Death doesn't win.  Jesus does.  Jesus has the power and authority to transform all of us... that is a wider circle of influence even than death itself, because Jesus will be able to transform even those who are living when he comes again in victory.  How about that.  Death doesn't win, but rather becomes like an old change of clothes.  The old gets taken off and left in the hamper, and the new is put on and, what do you know, but you and I are brand new people in our Easter outfits.  That's what's worth listening to.

Paul doesn't even try to explain or prove or dissect it.  He is willing to leave a mystery a mystery, which is to say, he knows better than to try and pretend to have all the answers.  Rather, Paul says that even if we don't understand how God can do it, or how it will intersect with these bodies of ours and this life we know now, or this world of ours in which everything seems to be slowing down, wearing out, or falling apart.  Paul doesn't know how God will raise me up to new life, how bodies that have turned to dust will rise to new breath, or how we will be "changed" in the new life and yet still be ourselves.  He doesn't pretend to have a way to explain it, chart it, or prove it.  He has a mystery... but it is a compelling one. 

And so all the apostle can say is, "Listen!  Here it is!"  It is the truth, but it is a mystery, like love.  Go ahead and prove to me that you are loved.  How do you know it?  How you prove it?  How do you know it is true when someone tells you, "I will be here for you... with you... and I will not give up on you... ever?"  How do you take the risk of counting on such a promise... except that sometimes all you can say is, "I trust the one who is telling me this, and I would stake my life on their say-so that this is the truth... even if I can't explain it."  Such is the case with mysteries like love and resurrection. 

And when it comes to mysteries like those, no diagram, no chart, no stack of Bible verses or geometric proofs are enough to explain them... but all you can say is, "Listen!" and then take it all in as the promise is spoken.

Death does not get the final victory--it cannot.  For every child who dies from hunger because there are not enough comfortable wealthy people who are willing to be bothered to share their abundance and help feed them... there is the promise of new life, where no one starves to death anymore.  For every victim of violence, every life snuffed out with a bullet, every person put to death or village burned for the purposes of "ethnic cleansing", every person killed by an angry mob because they were different, every life brutalized, beaten, or lynched because their very existence made someone else uncomfortable and squeamish, for every mother who has lost a daughter and every father who has wept to outlive a son, for every lingering grief from a loss long past... there is this promise, this unexplainable, irreducible promise, that death does not get the final victory.  How can I prove or demonstrate it?  I cannot.  I can testify to resurrection only the same way I can testify to the reality of love, or to the belief I have that I am beloved.  I trust the one who makes the promise and says I am beloved. 

There are realities that are so important you cannot help but call people's attention to it, and realities to far beyond our grasp that they resist and defy explanation, but can only be called "Mystery."  Regarding such things, all you can ever really say to introduce the promise, is: "Listen."

So, let us do just that.

Lord God, speak your resurrection promise to us, and let us live in light of the promised life beyond the grip of death to which you have called us.