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June 18, 2006 ~ 2 Corinthians 5:1-11, 16-17 ~ "Finding The Best View"
(with references to 1 Samual 15:34-16:13, Psalm 20, and Mark 4:26-34)

Why does this life seem so hard at times? The melding together of the physical, the rational, and the spiritual sounds nice in theory, but it can be extraordinarily difficult in the actual practice of it! What was the almighty thinking when we were created with bodies that grow up and grow old at the very same time? Where was God headed when designing our minds in such a way that the more wisdom you gain, the more complex and uncertain the world becomes! And I’m certainly curious to know why the spiritual quest is fraught with more questions than answers, and the deepest truths are found in the most challenging places.

And then, just when it seems one of us gets it all figured out – body connected to mind connected to soul – poof! We’re gone. “Time, like an ever rolling stream, soon bears us all away; we fly forgotten, as a dream dies at the opening day.”

Hamlet, one of William Shakespeare’s most famous and introspective of characters, struggles with this dilemma of the complexity of life quite openly:
“To die, to sleep -- To sleep, perchance to dream, ay there's the rub, For in that sleep of death what dreams may come, When we have shuffled off this mortal coil, Must give us pause; there's the respect That makes calamity of so long life."

I’m somewhat reassured that in this quandary I am not alone. St. Paul struggled with this mind/body/soul – this being human business. Of course, being the kind of guy he was he didn’t let on that he was wrestling with life and he was always trying to sound confident and positive and all that, but he still lets us see a bit of his uncertainty shine through.

In today’s scripture text, the Apostle Paul talks about our bodies as “earthly tents,” and says that in our current tents, we are groaning, yearning for something more, something different. Here, he’s letting us know that he isn’t superhuman, and he’s had his own doubts about growing up and growing old. Remember, this is the same guy who is painfully honest about not being a “GQ type model” or even a “Mother Theresa type saint.” He’s your average Joe trying to figure out what God’s up to, just like you and me. So he uses the analogy of a tent.

Have you ever worked with a tent? I remember when I was a Church Camp staff person in Nebraska one summer. Groups had the choice of doing an overnight river canoeing trip. That was usually hard enough with several dozens of middle schoolers just trying to get them to paddle on the correct side of the canoe. But the height of absurdity, was setting up camp on a small island in the middle of the river with tents for all the kids and counselors. Tents were necessary, if not just for the mosquito factor, then for the ever present possibility of rain. Rain which, of course, came by the boatloads the very first one of these canoe trips I led. Tents are necessary evils, and they are as frustratingly limited as they are wondrously valuable. One drawback? If it is raining, and if you put your finger on the roof of the tent, you can actually wick the rain right through the fabric, and it keeps on dripping even when the finger is removed… a scientific experiment that every single child had to prove not once, but several times. We were almost as wet waking up the next morning as if there had been no tent at all.

So I’m in touch with seeing this body as a tent… as frustratingly limited as it is wondrously valuable. Paul doesn’t demean the body, and he certainly doesn’t see it as a pointless, worthless costume, as some accuse and as the Gnostics later theologized. God, in fact, created our bodies, our minds, our spirits, and all that we are are as gifts from God.

Neither does Paul does chastise us for having imperfect bodies. What he does remind us of is that we must never be fooled into thinking this is all there is to life from God’s view. There’s something more, which he calls our “heavenly dwelling.” I would guess that he would say the same thing for our minds and our spirits, as we now know them. There’s the rub for us flesh-and-body humans: we get so caught up into believing that all that we see and touch and taste and smell and hear and think and believe is all that there is. His advice to us comes in a bit of a humorous way: “If indeed, when we have taken [this earthly tent] off, we will not be found naked.” There is something more to what we now know.

Interestingly enough, if one steps back and looks at the entire lectionary for today, every scripture reading has this reminder: don’t be fooled into believing that everything you can experience is all that God has in store for us. The Hebrew Scripture Lesson from 1 Samuel 15 & 16 has Samuel, the so-called “seer of visions,” humbly reminded by God that the son of Jesse the Bethlehemite that he might choose as the king to replace Saul is not, in fact, the son God would choose. God has chosen David, who is on nobody’s list, so much so that he’s still out in the field herding the sheep. God tells Samuel, “The Lord does not see as mortals see; they look on the outward appearance, but the Lord looks on the heart.”

The Psalm for today questions our human reliance on the armaments for war “Some take pride in chariots, and some in horses, but our pride is in the name of the Lord our God.” God does not work according to human priorities and methods.

The Gospel Lesson is Mark’s telling of the farming parables. In one the farmer plants the seeds, but does not really know how it grows. In the second, Jesus compares the Commonwealth of God to a mustard seed, tiny by human standards, but perfectly capable to do God’s mighty will by divine standards.

All of these scriptures are different ways of helping us to live more fully as embodied, rational, spirit-filled people, but to do so with a constant awareness that there is more to life than what we can experience in any given moment. These texts are about what should be our primary human aim of living fully in the moment, but never becoming too attached to it. This is truly where the Buddhist aspiration towards detachment parallels Jewish and Christian theology. Paul sounds positively Zen when he writes, “For we walk by faith, not by sight. Yes, we do have confidence, and we would rather be away from the body and at home with the Lord. So whether we are at home or away, we make it our aim to please him.”

All this talk about living fully with our bodies, our minds, and our souls while never becoming too attached to them, got me thinking about one of the films I think best raises spiritual questions for us: the 1985 movie, “Cocoon,” with Don Ameche, Jessica Tandy, Hume Cronyn, Gwen Verdon, Maureen Stapleton, Wilfred Brimley, and Steve Guttenburg. In it, a number of senior citizens have stumbled upon an alien race who live forever, never die. These fumbling, bumbling, fun-loving elders are presented with the sobering choice at the end to either stay here on earth and face the ails of being human, with a certain death in store for them, or to accompany the aliens back to the planet Anterea, where they will live eternally. In one exchange, one of the aliens, called “Walter”, is speaking with Ben, one of the seniors:
 

“I want you all to consider what I am about to suggest to you. You people seem to want what we've got. Well, we have room for you. We have room for you and about 30 of your friends. You would be students of course, but you'd also be teachers. And the new civilizations you would be traveling to would be unlike anything you've ever seen before. But I promise you, you will all lead productive lives.” Ben asks, “Forever?” Walter responds, “We don't know what forever is.”
 

Now, one might make the connection that what Paul is talking about, getting rid of this “earthly tent,” and living in “a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal and in the heavens,” is all about having the kind of faith that when we die we are assured we will live with God forever, eternally. And yes, I do think this is certainly what is in Paul’s mind and is part-and-parcel of the promise of Jesus to his disciples and to us when he says, “Do not let your hearts be troubled,… In my Father’s house there are many dwelling places… I go to prepare a place for you.”

But I think there is even more to what Paul is trying to teach us. I believe this because Paul does not talk to us simply in future tense, but in present tense. “And he died for all, so that those who might live no longer live for themselves, but for him who died and was raised for them. From now on, therefore, we regard no one from a human point of view; even though we once knew Christ from a human point of view, we know him no longer in that way. So if anyone is in Christ, there is a new creation: everything old has passed away; see, everything has become new.”

This is present tense newness! This isn’t just biding our time until we die and then Christ comes to unzip the tent, open it up, and welcome us out and into God’s marvelous mansions. This is the here and now! This “new creation” is here! Now! Me! You! But how do we reconcile the immediacy of the new creation of Christ with the “slings and arrows of outrageous fortunes” as Hamlet would say?

How do we live with bodies that are aging, minds that are filled with more and more complex dilemmas, and souls that are winding their ways through the maze of “spiritual growth experiences,” AND live as a new creation of Christ? We live the best we can, and we try our best to not become attached to it. To live the pain and suffering and joy and happiness of it all… and then let it go and move on. To seek the truth and question the confusion and ponder the depths… and then let it go and move on. To pray our prayers and read our scriptures and live our faith… and then let it go and move on.

I was always taken the most by the characters played by Hume Cronyn and Jessica Tandy, partners in the film and in life, as they struggled with their decision to stay or to go, to live longer – who knows how much longer – in this earthly tent or to shed the “mortal coils” and live forever in Anterea. Joseph says to Alma:
“They say if we go with them, we'll live forever. And that's good. It's probably going to take you an eternity to forgive me... Alma, I'm sorry. I guess I was being ridiculous. I'm sorry. I love you. You're my whole life. I wanna go. But if it's a choice of only six more months here with you or living forever all by myself, well I'll take the six more months here with you. I don't want to live forever if you're not going to be with me.”
 

Joseph and Alma have it figured out. Through this experience, they have come to accept all the information their senses give them about life, they are aware of their physical, mental, and spiritual possibilities as well as limitations, and yet they are not dependent upon them. They have found that by letting go of their need to be in control of life, they have more control. They have learned that by not clinging to life, but to eternal truths such as honesty, forgiveness, loyalty, love… they can become new creations, and are bound to live forever, if not in this earthly tent, but in their heavenly dwelling. We are assured, whether we live or whether we die, we are God’s Beloved. This enables us to say to God, “I don’t want to live forever, if you are not going to be with me.” We live as best we can, we let go as best as we are able, and God receives us lovingly. Therefore we can live and die in peace. May it be so.

Amen.
 

Copyright 2006 -- The Rev. Allen V. Harris

Franklin Circle Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)

1688 Fulton Rd., Cleveland, OH 44113-3096