Sermon preached at St. John’s Church
Stamford, Connecticut
February 23, 2025 / Seventh Sunday after the Epiphany
1 Corinthians 15:35-38,42-50
Luke 6:27-38
In the Name of the Father, and the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
Our readings this morning present us with what might appear, at first glance, to be two very different messages. In St Luke's Gospel, we hear Jesus teaching what seems impossible – to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us. And then in St Paul's letter to the Corinthians, we hear what might sound like a rather esoteric and theoretical discussion about resurrection and the nature of the spiritual body. But I want to say to you this morning that these readings are intimately connected, that they speak to the same reality about the kingdom of God… and our transformation in Christ.
Let's begin with St Paul's first letter to the Corinthians. He's addressing a question that must have troubled many in the early church, just as it troubles many today: “How are the dead raised? With what kind of body do they come?”[1] It's a natural question for anyone, whether a believer or not. We look at our physical bodies, subject to decay and death, and we wonder – how can this old thing be made new?
St Paul answers with an image from nature: “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies. And as for what you sow, you do not sow the body that is to be, but a bare seed.”[2] Think of an acorn, which contains within itself the pattern for an oak tree. So when it falls to the ground and “dies,” as it perishes, it gives rise to something far more glorious than itself.
This is the pattern of the resurrection of the body that St Paul describes: “What is sown is perishable, what is raised is imperishable. It is sown in dishonor, it is raised in glory. It is sown in weakness, it is raised in power.”[3]
This is where Paul’s writing connects directly to our Lord’s own words. Because what Jesus describes in the Sermon on the Plain is nothing less than the behavior of the imperishable body, the patterns of life in God's kingdom. When Jesus tells us to love our enemies, to do good to those who hate us, to bless those who curse us, he is describing what life looks like when it is “raised in power.”
The human creature, by its very nature, tends to be obsessed with the behavior of others. It is second nature to us, especially when our own behavior is in question, to point to the misdeeds of others. We see effrontery in our own communities or in the news, and we can say to ourselves, well, at least I’m not like those people.[4] Sure, I’m not perfect, but I’m not that bad. Or we can jump on the bandwagon, even when we know it’s not the right thing to do. When I was a child, and I can hear the words now, my mother would say to me, “If everyone else jumped off the George Washington Bride, would you?” The observation of other people is our excuse to not mind our own backyards.
Our Lord – and St Paul, for that matter, want to put all of this decisively to bed. What is more characteristic of our perishable nature than the impulse to return hate for hate, curse for curse? When someone strikes us, our instinct is to strike back. When someone takes from us, we want to take from them. These reactions spring from our fear, our hunger and need, our need to protect ourselves and our nests – all characteristics of what Paul calls the “physical body.”
But Jesus demands something different, something that seems impossible to our physical nature. “Love your enemies, do good to those who hate you, bless those who curse you, pray for those who abuse you.”[5] These behaviors seem foolish, even dangerous, to the physical mind, just as Paul says “the natural person does not receive the things of the Spirit of God, for they are folly to him.”[6]
Yet these are precisely the characteristics of the spiritual body, of life raised in power. When we forgive instead of seeking revenge, when we give without expecting return, when we love those who hate us – we are living not according to the patterns of the perishable body, but according to the patterns of the imperishable. We are practicing the resurrection, the life in the Christ described by St Paul.[7]
“Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust,” he writes, “we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.”[8] And what is the image of the man of heaven? It is Christ himself, who loved his enemies even to the point of praying for those who crucified him, who blessed those who cursed him, who gave himself freely without counting the cost.
When Jesus tells us to "Be merciful, just as your Father is merciful," he is inviting us to participate in the divine nature, to begin living now according to the patterns of the resurrection body. Each act of undeserved forgiveness, each choice to bless rather than curse, each decision to give rather than take – these are moments when we practice bearing the image of the man of heaven.
"The first man was from the earth, a man of dust," Paul reminds us. And as long as we live according to the patterns of dust – eye for eye, tooth for tooth, hate for hate – we remain bound to dust. But we are called to bear the image of the man of heaven, to begin living now according to the patterns of the spiritual body.
This is not easy. It may seem as impossible as a dead body rising to new life. But remember Paul's seed – what seems impossible contains within it the pattern of its own transformation. When we choose to love our enemies, even when everything in our physical nature rebels against it, we are allowing the seed of the spiritual body to take root in us.
"Give, and it will be given to you," Jesus promises. "A good measure, pressed down, shaken together, running over, will be put into your lap." This is not just a promise about material generosity – it is a promise about the nature of life in God's kingdom, about the economy of salvation. When we give love, we receive love. When we give mercy, we receive mercy. When we give forgiveness, we receive forgiveness. Those gifts, if properly given, are given not to the person or people who may receive them, but to God, and it is God who returns them to us.[9] It’s not even we who give those gifts, but “God who is at work in you, enabling you both to will and to work for his good pleasure.”[10] This is the economy of the spiritual body, the pattern of life that is raised in power.
We live between what is sown and what is raised, between the physical body and the spiritual body. Every day, we have choices to make about which pattern we will follow. Will we live according to the dust of our first nature, or according to the glory of our final destiny?
The good news is that we don't have to wait for the resurrection to begin living this way. Through Christ's Spirit dwelling in us, we can begin, right here and right now, to practice the patterns of the imperishable body. We can choose to love our enemies, to bless those who curse us, to give without expecting return. And in doing so, we bear witness to the reality that what is sown in weakness is truly raised in power.
AMEN.