"As Good As It Gets?"  San Williams

1 Corinthians 15:19-28

Jack Nicholson, in the movie “As Good As It Gets,” tries to badger his psychiatrist into seeing him without an appointment.  An argument ensues, but the psychiatrist refuses to see him, saying, “We are going to stay on task, and on schedule.”  Nicholson stomps out of the office into the waiting room, which is full of patients waiting to see the doctor.  He pauses as he gets to the door, turns slowly, and in that voice that only Nicolson can deliver, asks, “What if this is as good as it gets?"   Well, in our reading from I Corinthians, Paul is putting that question to the Corinthians—and to us. Paul’s exact words are:  “If for this life only we have hoped in Christ, then we of all people are to be pitied.” Is our hope in Christ confined to this life only?  Or put another way, “Is this as good as it gets?”

Apparently there were some in the congregation in Corinth who answered “Yes.” In today’s reading, Paul is speaking to those Corinthians who say that there is no resurrection of the dead.  It’s not that these Corinthians denied the resurrection of Christ, but rather that they didn’t connect Christ’s resurrection with a future resurrection of their own. They tended to believe that their present life in Christ was complete—as good as it gets. After all, the Corinthians were already very spiritual. They boasted of their ecstatic experiences such as speaking in tongues, being caught up in visions and trances. What more is there to hope for?   Our life in Christ now, some believed, is as good as it gets.  

Now, for different reasons, many of us today share the Corinthians’ disbelief, or at least lack of enthusiasm, for a future in which the dead are raised, the enemies of God defeated and God becomes all in all. Honestly, Paul’s vision of life as it will unfold at the end of history will surely strike many today as remote and incomprehensible.  That’s partly because we can’t imagine how such a thing could happen, and partly because we are so obsessed with the present. With our electronic gadgets clustered on our sofas, we can instantaneously glean information from anywhere in the world and make it present to us now.  Distances have collapsed. So much life and information, so many ideas and friends are just a click away.  As I speak, it’s conceivable that someone in the congregation is carrying on a virtual conversation with a friend in Dallas or New Delhi. Facebook, Skype, texting and Twitter capture our attention, consume much of our time and stifle our imaginations.  Contemplating the far horizon of history—as our reading today asks us to do—is just too off-line and thus out of mind. With so much technology at our fingertips, why look for something more? Isn’t this is as good as it gets?

And it’s also the case that our spiritual inclinations today tend to emphasize the present moment.  The contemporary spiritual teacher, Ram Doss, struck a spiritual chord among many Americans with the mantra “Be Here Now.”  I received a book from a friend this week called The Magic Bridge:  Crossing Over from Achievement to Surrender by Herbert Barks.  It’s a fine book of essays, full of insight and wisdom gleaned mostly from the East.  Barks writes about his surrender from a scattered, achievement-oriented life to one in which he is learning to be fully present in the moment.  He writes in his introduction: “This magical journey we call life winds down into gratitude. Gratitude for the vast beauty of what is, and for the flowing present moment, which is always enough, completely enough.” Few would argue with the importance of gratitude, or with the wisdom of becoming less scattered and more mindful in the present.  But here’s the question today’s scripture raises for us on this Easter Sunday:  Is the present moment always enough, completely enough?  Is this as good as it gets? 

Well, lots of people today are nervously wondering this very thing.  We’re living in interesting times—a troubled economy, global upheavals, continued joblessness, the threat of climate change, terrorism, unyielding poverty.  Young people, especially, have reason to be anxious about the future they are inheriting.  They are not just asking "Is this as good as it gets?" but "Is it going to get far worse?"  Historian Tony Judt was interviewed this week on National Public Radio.  He’s written a book titled, Ill Fares the Land.  In it he wrote:  “The last time a cohort of young people expressed comparable frustration at the emptiness of their lives and the dispiriting purposelessness for their world was in the 1920s. It’s not by chance that historians speak of a ‘lost’ generation.”

Listen: Easter comes with a word of hope for a ‘lost’ generation. No, the good news of Easter can’t create jobs or fix the economy, but it can address the present emptiness and the dispiriting purposelessness which is so pervasive in our lives.  In a time when many ask what is to become of us, the Easter story provides a final answer, a vision to counter cynicism, fear and despair. Paul envisions the significance of Jesus’ resurrection extending from the present and shaping the future all the way to a glorious end. For Paul, the resurrection of Jesus has set in motion a cosmic reversal. The death that came into the world through Adam no longer controls the future. “If in Adam all have died,” declares Paul, “so all will be made alive in Christ.” Paul is talking about the birthing of a new creation-in which all the enemies of God will be defeated, including the last enemy: death itself. We don’t always think of death as an enemy, but it is in this sense:  God created us in God’s image, but death has intruded and disrupted our life with God. Now, in the cross and resurrection of Jesus, God has opened the pathway back into the very life of God.  Yes, death is still a reality, but with Christ’s resurrection—and the promise of our own--it no longer carries a sting.  Theologian Jurgen Moltman found words to express the magnitude of Christ’s resurrection for all of history when he said, “Death will die, not being will be no longer, hell will go to hell.”   Easter jolts us out of our present reality—virtual or otherwise—and catches us up in a vision of the future in which love ultimately prevails, death is destroyed and we are raised with Christ into a glorious new creation.  This is not pie-in-the-sky, not an escape from the present, but way to live fully, joyfully and freely in the present knowing that we will inherit a glorious future.

So friends, lift up your hearts.  Regardless of how troubling the present moment, Easter is the assurance that all the Gethsemanes and Good Fridays of human existence are not the final shape of our lives or of our world.  Christ has risen as the first fruits of a new creation. So sing, rejoice and say with confidence:  This is not as good as it gets.  God has something more for us…much more!

“Now to him who by the power at work within us is able to accomplish abundantly far more than all we can ask or imagine, to him be glory in the church and in Christ Jesus to all generations, forever and ever. Amen.”