& i'm not tryin to play it down

but it's all gonna turn around

A "graduation" sermon from 1 Corinthians 15:1-26, 51-57

Well, we’re on the cusp of graduation season. And what a strange one we’re in for. 

All you graduating seniors out there, our hearts go out to you. They really do. We wish you your walk across the stage as your name is said over the loudspeaker. We even wish you the boredom of sitting there while everyone else gets their moment, too.

*In fact, if you’re feeling especially short-changed, which is a reasonable way to feel, just get ahold of me. We’ll have a zoom against an audience backdrop. You can sit in your gown in either blistering heat or steady rain, while I give a speech full of cliches, and read names out of the phone book. 

You can even give the student-body address! “Class of 2020 forever!”

…Now, I’m being a little silly here, but the truth is, when you graduated, you crossed a threshold. And that strange, little public ceremony helps you and the rest of us too, to acknowledge that. 

We need the help, too! Because you look the same before and after graduation, but your life has changed nonetheless. This ceremony helps us reckon with this new stage you’re living in. 

In fact, not having this ceremony may make transitioning into this next stage of life a little more difficult.

So let me let you in on a little secret; it’s always difficult, ceremony or not… Welcome to the real world! …Woof. 

…In the grand scheme of things, graduation season is not be biggest of our seasons, but it is a big one. I wonder how many copies of  “Oh, The Places You’ll Go,” move around this time of the year.

*And, dear senior, if you don’t get a copy, let me know. I’ll get you one. Complete with a saccharine note on the inside.

But graduation is a big deal to people like us. It’s a big deal because if there ever was a ceremony that encapsulated our highest aspirations, it’d be graduation. 

As a people we are outcome oriented. We set our sights on a goal, and grind it out until we get there. Graduation, then, is the ceremony celebrating what this blessed drive of ours can accomplish… 

The thing, though, and I’d hate to say this if I were the first one but this is a standard convention of the graduation speech, to make the observation that this ceremony hallows no conclusion. 

No, on the contrary, this is only the beginning. This is oft noted by the name of the ceremony, commencement. A beginning. 

Dear seniors, this is only the beginning. Be it a career or college.

…I know! For four long years the promise of graduation dangled in front of you. Now that you’re here, though, all you get is the the old bait and switch! No graduation, just another beginning!

Well, welcome to the rest of your life! …Woof.

Hold on to those who are willing to deal with you honestly, though. Because those who want to pull the wooly over your eyes with comfortable lies are a dime a dozen. 

No, friends, family and teachers who are willing to be honest enough with you to acknowledge that what you’ve completed is just the hard work of  beginning what comes next, are the ones you can trust. 

Keep them close. 

…However, this misled desire for a definitive and final graduation date is nothing new. In fact, it was the delusion the Corinthians were living under nearly two-thousand years ago. 

The Corinthians were go-getters. They graduated manga cum laude. They were looking to enter a profession with plenty of room to climb the ladder. And they had more than enough potential to make it happen, too. 

Their problem, though, was they thought, as it is with life so it must be with God. 

But this delusion only led them to fail in both area of their lives…

I know! Telling you graduates who are only about to begin the next stage of your life that a relentless drive is not necessarily a good idea isn’t what the religious official is supposed to say! But this is the counter-intuitive, and completely accurate by the way, wisdom of the cross!

The Corinthians were no slouches in life, and they weren’t about to be in church, either. They showed up each week, and on time, too. They rehearsed their prayers, and studied the scripture. 

In fact, they even reviewed the credentials of the clergy to suss out who was the real deal.

On the outside, they looked like they had it all together. The strange thing, though, was that their congregation was a mess! 

There was constant bickering. Even some pretty salty behavior. 

The folks at Corinth couldn’t figure it out! They were doing everything right. Yet, they had no progress to show for it. In fact, all they had to show for it was another a new fiasco each day.

It’s all these dilemmas that occasions this address Paul gives, which we call First Corinthians.

Now, for most of his speech Paul just cycles through the laundry list of problems plaguing the congregation. Here at the end, though, he brings it all home. Observing that all these disparate conflicts are really just presenting symptoms of one deeper issue; they’re denying the resurrection!

The Corinthians trouble, as Paul diagnoses it, is that all their efforts to live their, “hashtag best life,” is in effect denying that Jesus’ death and resurrection makes any difference in their lives whatsoever!

…See, the thing about our desire to reach graduation, to check off every box, and rest on our laurels on our own, and we all have this regardless of whether we’re seniors or not, is two-fold. 

First, it betrays the belief that deep down we think we’re in this alone. That we think it’s up to us to make the, at least, present come our a’right. And more than likely the future, too. 

Secondly, though, it’s also chasing after an illusion! 

You don’t graduate life! And, you don’t graduate faith, either!

In fact, anything in life worth pursuing is like that. 

Education, too. Learning is a life-long pursuit. I know that sounds corny, but it’s true. If you stay curious, your life will stay that much more interesting. 

As well and good as the desire to race to the finish line appears, it’s really a betrayal of the faith. An action disclosing the inward belief that it’s our job to do what God has promised to. 

The thing about this desire of ours though, is not just that it’s bad theology. It’s also just a plain, bad way to live!

For as laudable as our impulse to check off all the boxes looks, it’s actually pitiable. It’s pathetic! 

As many of you seniors are about to learn, graduation is really only a commencement. The beginning of what’s about to come next. 

Well, the rest of life is like that, too! Welcome to the rest of your life! …Woof.

Living as if there is a graduation date to life, or faith for that matter, is the height of foolishness! It doesn’t work that way! And the wisest thing to do in such circumstances, isn’t to try and bend reality to your illusion, but hang on and enjoy the ride!

Not only is it more fun, it’s more faithful, too! And not in any pious way. But in a way that is true to the way things actually are.

Here’s the thing about the way things really are; Jesus for real people! Real people living real lives! Real lives as they actually are! 

Jesus isn’t for that time in life you finally graduate to the point where everything is settled and everything comes out the way you plan. Jesus isn’t for that, because it doesn’t exist! And Jesus is for real people who live real lives!

Real people who really bear the grief that their graduation was marred by a ragged edges of life. 

Real people really who worry there’s something wrong with them, because they could care less if there’s a graduation. 

Real people who graduated at the top of their class, but on the inside really feel like they’re at the bottom of the heap. 

Real people who barely made it across the graduation stage. 

Real people who didn’t make it across the stage this year.

So if that’s you, and in a way it’s all of us, that means Jesus is for you!

You graduating seniors, in a way, not getting the dream ceremony is actually better preparation for the real life! And God, too.

Now you don’t have any illusions anymore. You’re not pretending. 

And what’s more, you’re not trying to tidy up your life before Jesus shows up, that’s not an option anymore! 

Which just means your life is perfectly prepared for the Lord who’s right at home in the thick of it.

…Now, we’re so sorry you don’t get to make that choice. We wish you could. We really do. But, here’s what you can do; make the choice to learn the lesson life’s offering you right now. 

Being deprived of the ceremony commences how life actually is.

Commences how faith really works, the trust that God’s not too good to show up in the rough edges of your life, and the life of the world, too.

Your life is perfectly ready for God! You don’t have to graduate to some imaginary level before God’s going to meet you in the thick of it, and mix it up with you! 

No, in Jesus Christ God commenced that a long time ago! From the foundation of the universe.

Incomplete and imperfect lives are perfectly ideal for God!

Seniors, and everyone else too, welcome to the rest of your life. Welcome to the God who’s loved you all along. Welcome to the God isn’t about to stop now, either. 

Welcome to the God who’s going to go on meeting you regardless of whatever else life may throw at you. Welcome to the God who holds all these incomplete and ragged edges together, and in so doing creates a wonderfully counter-intuitive completion. A completion we will all finally stand in awe of on that great last day when we will see face-to-face!

And that day, by the way, is not a day you get to by any merit of your own. It is a day that comes by the good will of your redeemer who’s dying to meet you. Even now.

Until then, though, here you go. It’s all your’s. It’s just getting started, too. Congratulations. Have fun with it. Get going.