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Last week, we had the pleasure of getting to hear Professor Cindy Rigby preach to us from verses that fall earlier in this chapter in First Corinthians. Because all of 1 Corinthians is about 1 Corinthians 15 is

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about resurrection. Cindy was talking about the importance of viewing resurrection as real and not just as a metaphor , and I thought, I hope she likes my sermon next week. Not because I don't think it's

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important to view the resurrection as real in terms of real bodies, but because it's also important to keep in mind the importance of resurrection as a metaphor because there are some things that die that we do want

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to talk about in terms of new life in terms of resurrection that will not. Not necessarily be raised on that final day at that last trumpet, for instance, the church or I should say churches when

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bodies are raised at that last trumpet, all who are dead will rise, but the churches with the lower case c, these congregations that we. and love, these will not also be raised, but

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yet they die. We know all the time that churches are closing, that places that people have grown to know and love are shutting their doors for the last time. So what does resurrection mean for dying

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churches? At Midwinters I had the pleasure of sitting at lunch with several of our alumni and other visitors . One of them was telling me that he had been serving the same congregation for 17 years. Now

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in the course of that time he'd seen a lot of changes. For instance, for many years they had a good solid 80 folks coming week after week for church. But after COVID, after people were

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stuck at home, there was a struggle to get people to come back to worship. Now they're lucky if they get 30, even 40. And he says that as he sits with his congregation, he

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worries, how am I going to shepherd this congregation when they can no longer afford a full-time pastor when they have to go to part time when they can no longer afford a pastor at all? What does

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resurrection mean for churches? I think we can turn to this text for some insight, both at the beginning and the last parts of this passage. In the beginning we hear all of Paul's rhetorical power.

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Listen, I tell you a mystery. He's been making this argument throughout chapter 15 about how and why bodies are raised, and now he takes it from theoretical to the visionary. Can you see it?

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In the twinkling of an eye at the last trumpet , the dead will rise. We will not all die, but we will be changed. Key to resurrection is change because if we just kept on keeping

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on in the same way that wouldn't be resurrection, it would just be a continuation but when things die things change, and then at the end of this particular passage we have this encouragement. Paul has started

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off encouraging the. Believers at Corinth and here in this last section before he does his final chapter of goodbyes and salutations he ends it again with this word of encouragement be steadfast, immovable, always excelling in

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the work of the Lord, for you know your work in the Lord is not in vain. So this final word about resurrection, hope is perseverance. So we have change and perseverance. But sometimes those

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two things can sound at odds with one another. Are you saying you want us to do something different , or are you saying we should keep on keeping on, which is it? Perseverance, first of

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all, is not doing necessarily the same thing that we've always done. Perseverance is to keep on doing the work of the Lord which many of you know may take many different forms. We get to celebrate

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Mary Wall at lunch, who has worn a number of different hats over the course of her ministry here at the seminary and those of you who have gone through being pastors to maybe being. Seminary professors,

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uh, to go on being deans, for instance , uh, know that there's a number of different ways that our ministry can take place. Our work in the Lord may change so perseverance isn't necessarily doing

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the same thing that we've always done, but neither are we changing just for the sake of. Change because change for the sake of just change is just fighting flitting around to new things rather change is for

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the sake of maintaining this faithfulness to this call that God is leading us on so how do we hold this together change and perseverance. We see this in new forms of ministry as well as in churches that

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are about to close their doors. For instance, at that table that I was sitting at next to me at Midwinners was someone who came to us from Kansas. She's not an alumni, but an alumni

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in her presbytery told her, you really should go to Midwinners. It's really fabulous, and she showed up. Uh, even though her colleague didn't make it, uh, themselves, and she told me

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that she's this 4 point charge pastor in Kansas, and each of our churches are in different counties, which apparently makes them very different culturally. So she pastors these 4 teeny tiny churches in Kansas and one

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of them is starting to talk about closing its doors , very small el elderly congregation. And so they decide they're gonna close and she says, OK, I'm gonna go on vacation and you know, we'll

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we'll talk about this when we get back. Well , when she gets back from vacation, they tell her, you know, we've been thinking we were able to find a little bit of extra money and

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we've decided to pray. And we're just gonna hold off closing for another 6 months, so she says , OK, just praying can be continuing on in the work of the Lord. So I want all

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of you to hear that even if you're changing, even if you feel like as a congregation you can't do much, you can still persevere through. Prayer , even if as an individual all you can do

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is lay in bed and pray, your presence can be a blessing to others and continuing on the work of the Lord. This church was continuing in the work of the Lord and you know what? A

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family started showing up to their church in the midst of those 6 months. A couple of kids needed to be baptized. A couple more families started showing up. So now this tiny congregation of less than

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10 people has maybe 15 people again, they're not huge, but they're continuing on in the work of the Lord. Even close to death, we can excel at doing the work of the Lord. And

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I love that also about this particular passage where we hear that death has been swallowed up in victory. We may know this text, uh, most poignantly when it's read at at funerals when it gives people

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the ability to shake our fists at the grave, to say no you do not get to. Have the last word where oh death is your victory where oh death is your sting? Paul is citing here

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earlier passages in the Hebrew Bible which we're making this play on words because death in ancient many ancient religions was seen as this giant mouth able to just devour everything. And so this passage is turning that on

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its head, saying, no, it's not death that devours everything, but life, life is what gets the final say. And so as churches that are dying as we serve these congregations, it's important

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for us too to be able to have that sense of shaking our fist to say no death, you do not get the final say of how this particular congregation is going to be a witness to this resurrection

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. You do not get the final say of how this. Church is going to do its work in the Lord. Oh God, you alone know how each of us will live out our days you alone

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, oh God, know how we will be faithful in this call and so we change, we persevere , we do these things as we continue to live out this call. I wanted to share also some

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stories from this past January because while changing and persevering may look like some of the churches that we know it may also look like non-traditional forms of ministry. I got to take some students on a travel seminar

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where we toured the country looking at non-traditional ministry examples and along the way students got to create their own pitches for a non-traditional ministry idea. Uh, and along the way we saw things like raw tools in

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in Colorado Springs and raw tools raw is war spelled backwards because that's what it's doing it's inverting those powers of death and destruction. They take guns that have been used in violent crimes and using the tools of

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blacksmithing they pound those guns into tools that can be used for good. Garden tools, pieces of art , and in many cases the victims' families, those who have been impacted by these tools of destruction,

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are able to beat that weapon on the anvil themselves , pounding out that sense of grief and letting it be transformed. We also went to a place in Alabama where an organization called Manufactured Good hires young men

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who have been in prison and hires them for a series of 3 months in which they apprentice them helping them learn how to build cow. and tables along the way being mentored by other men who have also

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gone through troubled times and at the end of this period they're able to give a good job reference and job experience so that they can go on and get long term employment elsewhere. Just a few of the

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faculty that were part of this experience got to go to a restaurant in Louis in New New Orleans, Louisiana called Melba's that was both a laundromat and a po'boy restaurant. And here in this laundromat and restaurant

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they emphasize literacy. You go in and right at the front door there's a vending machine that only takes a special token you can get from the cashier, and the vending machine doesn't sell, you know,

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Coke or sodas or anything like that. It sells books and with a free token you go in and you can pick. Your range of all of these different various books that you get for free and they're

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constantly emphasizing literacy. You go into the laundromat and they have have writings over each of the machines about famous New Orleans people who have come from uh the town and who have gone on to do inspiring things

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so it's a place that inspires people to do good and to read. Now Malba's is not a church , neither is manufactured goods or uh raw tools. They're not churches, but they're doing the work of

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the Lord. So as we think about continuing on in this new life that we've been given in Christ , how are our churches called to change? how are we being called to change to live into a

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new vision of this work of the Lord that we ourselves are being invited to participate in so that we ourselves can shake our fist at the powers of death and say no you do not have the final word

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. Because death has been swallowed up in victory because no our labor in the Lord is not in vain . Behold, I tell you a mystery we will not all die, but we will be changed.