Epiphany 2B 2013
January 20, 2013, St.
John’s, Sharon
The Rev. Adam T.
Trambley
Over the past few months, most of us have received any
number of gifts. Some may have been the
perfect gift, and have been worn, played with, gazed upon or otherwise heavily
used already. Some gifts may have been
useful for the time and season, and were eaten and drunk shorty after being
received. Some may have been quirky or
odd, calling to mind the interesting personality that gave it. And some may still be sitting on a table
somewhere until we can figure out what exactly to do with them.
We also are too well aware of how the loving generosity of
gift-giving can turn into something not-so-loving. We feel entitled. We want the biggest and best. We want what someone else, or what we think
everyone else, is getting. We show
off. We decide not to share. We exhibit all the qualities of a spoiled
child, or at least the feelings creep into the back of our hearts, even if we
are too polite, most of the time, to exhibit or act on those more selfish
feelings.
In our second reading, Saint Paul is talking to some people
who have been acting rather selfish and spoiled about their gifts from God. We don’t know what all the issues might have
been, but we can tell by what Paul says that there were a number of them. People decided that their gifts were the most
important. People decided that their
gifts made them the most important.
People decided that their gifts were due to their own holiness or
specialness or hard work. People decided
that they didn’t need to use their gifts if they didn’t want to. People in Corinth two thousand years ago
acted the way people still act today, which is why we are still reading this
letter. Paul is so delicately
straightforward: “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do
not want you to be uniformed,” which is so much more helpful then screaming “If
you don’t play nice, Santa will never bring you another Christmas present again.”
From what Paul says here and in other places, we should keep
in mind a number of things about our spiritual gifts.
First, Paul says that there are many different spiritual
gifts. So many different kinds, in fact,
that some churches don’t recognize them all.
Hear how he starts by saying that no one can say “Jesus is Lord” except
by the Holy Spirit. His point is not
that there is some sort of verbal test to prove you are Christian. His point is that if people are making a real
confession of faith and following Jesus as Lord the best they can, then they
are Christian, and the Holy Spirit is active in their lives, and their
spiritual gifts count. Some hard-core
Calvinist churches don’t see the ability to make beautiful liturgical items out
of gold or brocade velvet or to play an organ as a spiritual gift. They see it as some kind of popish
idolatry. Similarly, some intellectual
churches see speaking in tongues or prophecy or supernatural healing ministries
as contrived entertainment. But Paul
wants us to know that even though we don’t have a gift, or we don’t use it in
our church, all spiritual gifts are manifestations of the Holy Spirit.
Second, in all the varieties of gifts, services and
activities, it is the same God who activates all of them. The gifts of the Spirit are, well,
gifts. God gives them to us. God lets us use them. God gives them freely. Gifts aren’t given on the bases of pious
merit or spiritual work. Then they would
be wages. But God gives gifts. We have no room for pride or envy, but only
gratitude for whatever gifts we find given to us.
Third, God activates them in everyone. Every member of the body of Christ has
spiritual gifts from God. We may not all
know what they are. We may not all
choose to use them. But God has given
every member of the body a particular mix of gifts to carry out the purpose he
has called and created us for. Not
everybody has the same gifts, in fact almost everyone has a different set of
gifts. From the smallest infant on up,
everyone in the household of God is able to help build up their brothers and
sisters in some way.
Finally, the gifts are the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good. Spiritual gifts are
designed to help us build up the body of Christ. Spiritual gifts aren’t intended primarily for
our own sanctification. They aren’t meant to draw us to God, except through
obediently using them. They are meant
to allow other people to draw closer to God, either directly or indirectly as
the Body of Christ grows. Spiritual
gifts are only effective as they are used for others.
So if there are many spiritual gifts, they come from God, we
all have them, and we are meant to use them for each other, the main question
for us is how do we find out what ours are and how do we use them?
We can start by asking God to show us what he has given us
and how to use them. Since we are his
and his gifts are his, he’s the best guy to ask. We can also work with other Christians to
learn about different spiritual gifts and discern which ones we may have. Hopefully, we will be putting together a
spiritual gifts group in Lent to focus on discovering our spiritual gifts for
those who haven’t looked at them before.
One of the ways we can identify our gifts is by recognizing
where our joy is. When we are using our
spiritual gifts, what we do seems to come naturally and can be fun. For people with a gift of hospitality,
putting together table decorations is almost intuitive. Getting everything set up may take work, but to
people with those gifts, the work is joyful and fulfilling, and people who come
feel welcome in a strong way. People
with gifts of healing want to be praying for people to get better. They feel blessed when they can lift others
up to God. Even when the prayer is
tiring, they feel part of an important purpose.
People with a gift of administration can actually organize files and go
through numbers in a way others can’t, and when they get their figures balanced
at the end of a month, they haven’t just checked a duty off the list, but have built
up the Kingdom of God in a fulfilling way.
Sometimes, people have a sense that we are only doing God’s
work if we are really suffering. The
less we want to do something, then the better it must be for our soul. As if God is pleased when we make a list of
unpleasant jobs, then guilt people around the church into signing up for
them. But we know that isn’t really what
God wants. In fact, one of our guiding
principles says that we enjoy our work together and have fun doing it. That statement speaks to our love for one
another, but also to our desire to allow people to use their gifts in their
ministries. If we are doing what God has
made us to do, then we are going to love doing it. If we have gifts that aren’t being used
currently, then those gifts will probably tell us a direction God is calling us
to move in. The more we all use our gifts
for the common good, the more joy and the more growth we are going to find in
our common life.
I want to end with what we might consider a parable, but
from an unlikely source. Some years ago,
Tom Hanks was in a movie called Castaway.
He played a FedEx executive who crashes with a load of packages on a
deserted island. After years on the
island with only a volleyball for a conversation partner, he manages to make a
raft and is picked up by a passing cruise ship.
When he returns home, he delivers the final package he kept over all
these years.
Now during the height of Castaway’s success, there was a
Saturday Night Live skit depicting what happened after the movie’s final
scene. The package recipient opened the
box and found water purification tablets, a radio transmitter and other items
that would have been very helpful to the castaway.
I mention this because too often we have refused to open and
use our spiritual gifts. We could come
up with any number of good, pious, noble-sounding reasons why we need to keep
our gifts from God sealed up, either permanently or until the right future
time. But refusing to explore the
spiritual gifts God has given us only makes our lives harder, keeps us from
feeling the joyful fulfillment God wants for us, and might end up with us
talking to a volleyball.
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