Exploring the Scripture

We find ourselves at the end of the first letter to the Corinthians amid Paul’s arguments on the nature of the resurrection. Within the community, there is confusion about the physicality of the resurrection. A perspective that is materialistic and literal can infer a reanimation of corpses.

Paul tries to suggest a deeper spiritual reality. His view takes the body seriously as intrinsic to life but also implies the importance of transformation in life that is yet to be. He uses “two kinds of analogies (seeds and kinds of bodies) to argue for both somatic continuity and transformation” (Stephen C. Barton, Eerdmans Commentary on the Bible, p. 1,348).

The first metaphor is of a seed. The substance of the seed both continues and changes as it is transformed in the dark of soil to become something new. “What you sow does not come to life unless it dies...you do not sow the body that is to be but a bare seed,” is a clear call to the continually transformative nature of life in Christ. When resurrection is considered a regular happening throughout the Christian life, people might ponder how the seed of who they are has broken open time and again for something new to emerge.

There is a cyclic, or spiraling, invitation to the deepening journey of life in Christ. This invitation bids disciples continually to plant the bare seeds of their lives in the soil of God’s love to be broken open into a new life. But the new life, too, is made of the substance of what has come before. This principle is true for individuals and communities.

We carry all the material from our personal and collective histories, our loves and losses, learning and thriving. It becomes part of what is to be even as we are transformed. A deep and personal continuity to resurrection honors the body and the essence of life while contributing to forming a new creation. Yet, the call to change also is unending and invites the death of one form to become another. Living the resurrection life is an embrace of this fundamental pattern of the Christian life.

Today’s text also echoes the protestor and activist’s chant, “they tried to bury us. They didn’t know we were seeds” (This quote is originally by the Greek poet, Dinos Christianopoulos, often credited as a Mexican saying). We also find resonance in the words of Rubem Alves:

Such disciplined love is what has given prophets, revolutionaries, and saints the courage to die for the future they envisaged. They make their own bodies the seed of their highest hope.

—“Tomorrow’s Children” from Hijos de Mañana,
Salamanca, Spain: Ediciones Sigueme, 1976

The image of the transformative power of the seed has become a call to action in circumstances of injustice. It is also a summons to co-create God’s preferred future of justice, wholeness, and peace. The resurrection life is experienced when oppression is transformed into movements of peace and hope for the future.

Those exploring this text in community might consider the powerful metaphor of the seed and the invitation to the spiraling journey of the resurrection life. As Paul highlights in today’s text, every resurrection act is about continuity and transformation. Something essential about who we are continues even as we become a new creation in Christ, personally and collectively.

Project Zion Podcast

Hosts Karin Peter and Blake Smith consider how this week's scripture connects to our lives today.

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Central Ideas

1. The resurrection life is about continuity and transformation. Something essential about who we are continues even as we become a new creation in Christ, personally and collectively. Living the resurrection life is an embrace of this fundamental pattern of Christian life.
2. The image of the seed is a powerful metaphor that teaches the need for the death of an existing form so another can emerge. We experience this reality in our personal and communal lives, spiritual journeys, and in co-creating God’s future of justice and peace.

Questions to Consider

1. How have you experienced both continuity and transformation during significant moments of change in your life?
2. What forms in your life, or your community’s life, might need to die so new life-giving forms might emerge?
3. How have you experienced the pattern of death and resurrection in your personal and communal life?
4. How might the seed of our lives and bodies become our highest hope for the future?
5. What is God’s resurrection call to us now?