Memories of Camp, Dreams of Heaven

Genesis 2.4b-9
1 Corinthians 15.35-49

“It is not the spiritual that is first,” wrote Paul, “but the physical, and then the spiritual.”

This statement comes at the end of a long list of contrasts between the mortal body and the resurrected body: perishable vs. imperishable, dishonor vs. glory, weakness vs. power. It would be possible to read this as a kind of philosophical dualism of body and spirit: possible, but not a good idea.

Because these instructions—in response to a rhetorical question about how the dead could be raised—come at the end of a very dense letter to a church had been struggling to comport itself like followers of Jesus. And if there’s one message that runs throughout the correspondence to the congregation in Corinth, it’s that they actually have to be willing to change. God has triumphed over death—resurrection is for real—but they have to accept the transformation that eternal life in Christ makes possible.

Recall that just a chapter or two before the reading we just heard are the much beloved discourses spiritual gifts and on love, in which Paul directs his hearers to pursue the more excellent way. Which is another way of saying that discipleship to Jesus involves choice. It is a fork in the road.

Those of us who have traveled to St Dorothy’s know a thing or two about forks in the road. On the adventurous road up to camp from the Bohemian Highway, there are a series of charming hand painted signs—they kind of look like they were placed by leprechauns—to help us choose the right direction. Bet here’s my personal shorthand: choose the more uphill way—the harder way—and you’ll get to St. Dorothy’s. I have not hiked the woods to waves fundraiser—which coming up in just over two weeks—but I gather that involves a lot of uphill choice as well.

Which reminds me that campers and staff at St. Dorothy’s are making that choice every day. Yesterday St. Dorothy’s Rest Executive Director Katie Evenbeck was reminiscing about Annie Fencl, a camper and counselor at one of the hospital camps that, every summer, serve 100 young people who have had cancer, have sickle-cell anemia or major organ transplants. Annie made the choice to live fully, bravely—brashly, as Katie described it—for the few years she was given to live with her donated liver.

Annie was on intimate terms with what Paul called the perishable, the dishonorable and the weak that is part of our human nature. All of us who have undergone transplants are, and I can say this with some confidence as a kidney donor myself. Katie can say this with confidence, too, because it became her costly blessing to officiate at Annie’s memorial last fall. Think about this for a moment. A camp director should be worrying about how to manage her capital improvement program, not how to eulogize a 25-year-old.

But Katie, of all people, knows what it is to choose the harder way, the uphill path. For one thing, she does it every morning on her way to her office in the redwoods. And, as Katie reminded me, staff and campers do not return to St. Dorothy’s just because it is fun, they return because it is home. The kind of earthly home that is glimpse of God’s ultimate promise.

Which is how we know that Annie Fencl is home. Her journey led her from the Sonoma redwoods to the same God who created every tree that is pleasant to the sight and good for food. The physical home points us to the spiritual, if we’re just willing to notice the signs. Some of which have four-leaf clovers on them…

In his pastoral concern for the Corinthians, Paul is no dualist. We know this because he brings it together at the end: “Just as we have borne the image of the man of dust, we will also bear the image of the man of heaven.” The seed of the imperishable is already and inevitably growing within us. Which means our job is to cultivate the resurrection life by actually living together as Jesus called us to: rejoicing with those who rejoice and mourning with those who mourn, and—may I add—hiking in the redwoods every chance we get. For just as we have borne the memories of camp, so we will bear the dream of heaven.