Biblical Reading:
Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want
you to be uninformed. 2You know that when you were pagans,
you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not
speak. 3Therefore I want you to understand that no one
speaking by the Spirit of God ever says Let Jesus be cursed!
and no one can say Jesus is Lord
except by the Holy
Spirit.
4Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same
Spirit; 5and there are varieties of services, but the same
Lord; 6and there are varieties of activities, but it is the
same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7To each is
given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common
good. 8To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of
wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the
same Spirit, 9to another faith by the same Spirit, to
another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10to another
the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the
discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to
another the interpretation of tongues. 11All these are
activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one
individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12For just as the body is one and has many members, and all
the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with
Christ. 13For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body — Jews or Greeks, slaves or free — and we were
all made to drink of one Spirit.
14Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of
many. 15If the foot would say, Because I am not a hand,
I do not belong to the body,
that would not make it any less a
part of the body. 16And if the ear would say, Because I
am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,
that would not make it
any less a part of the body. 17If the whole body were an
eye, where would the hearing be? If the whole body were hearing, where
would the sense of smell be? 18But as it is, God arranged
the members in the body, each one of them, as he
chose. 19If all were a single member, where would the body
be? 20As it is, there are many members, yet one
body. 21The eye cannot say to the hand, I have no need
of you,
nor again the head to the feet, I have no need of
you.
22On the contrary, the members of the body that
seem to be weaker are indispensable, 23and those members of
the body that we think less honorable we clothe with greater honor,
and our less respectable members are treated with greater
respect; 24whereas our more respectable members do not need
this. But God has so arranged the body, giving the greater honor to
the inferior member, 25that there may be no dissension
within the body, but the members may have the same care for one
another. 26If one member suffers, all suffer together with
it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it.
27Now you are the body of Christ and individually members
of it.28And God has appointed in the church first apostles,
second prophets, third teachers; then deeds of power, then gifts of
healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, various kinds of
tongues. 29Are all apostles? Are all prophets? Are all
teachers? Do all work miracles? 30Do all possess gifts of
healing? Do all speak in tongues? Do all interpret? 31But
strive for the greater gifts. And I will show you a still more
excellent way.
I want our church to be an inviting church. I want people to walk through the door and feel like they're welcomed here just as they are… Whether they're black or white, male or female, gay or straight… whether they come from Davidsonville or Bowie, whether they come from Congo or Afghanistan, whether they come from the Ukraine or Chile, I want people to feel welcomed here. Whether they're rich or poor, whether they have a Ph.D. or never graduated high school… whether they're Redskins fans or Raven's fans, or even if they're Cowboys fans, I want people to feel welcome here, I want everyone to feel like they belong at the United Parish of Bowie.
People walk through the doors of a church for a whole bunch of different reasons. Some are looking for meaning in a life filled with questions. Others are looking for spiritual growth, some are looking for opportunities to serve in the world. But I think at least to some extent everyone who walks through the door whether it's the first time or whether it's the hundred and first time or even if they've been away from church for ten years and have just ventured back… I think people come hoping to belong. And if we listen to what Paul has to say in today's scripture reading, when people come hoping to belong — when we come hoping to belong — we can be sure that we've come to the right place!
Sometimes we talk about joining a church or being part of a faith community, sometimes we talk about being baptized into a family… But for Paul, those don't go quite far enough… In his message to the church at Corinth, he says that the church isn't a building, it's not a group of people that come together a few times a month… it's even closer than a family… it's more intimate than any of those. He calls the church a body and he says that as followers of Christ, we are members of one another. We have a responsibility to each other.
Now an adult human has 206 bones, somewhere between 650 and 850 muscles depending on which expert you talk to. There are hundreds of different kinds of tissues and organs, there are countless parts of the body we could name and even more parts of parts that come together to make up the average human being… Of course Paul isn't giving a biology lesson, he's talking about people in relationship, but if we tease out this metaphor, it is revealing… I know that our bodies are different from one another, some of us like our bodies, some of us have had various issues with our bodies all of our lives, some of us have felt limited or even betrayed by our bodies… but everything about them works together to make our life what it is: to sustain life as we know it. The foot, the hand, the eye, the ear, they're amazingly different; and yet as different as they are they all matter to how our bodies work. Paul says, if one member of the body suffers, all suffer together with it… physically you only have to be sick a day or two to recognize at least some of the truth in his statement… When I'm sick, it's not just that my cough hurts my chest… it's that my back hurts and my head hurts and my sinuses pulse, and things don't taste as good as usual and my feet get cold and according to Rebecca I moan in my sleep… and that's just when I have a little cold… if something was really wrong, I can barely begin to imagine how it would affect everything in my life… my family and friends, my sense of time and finances. In a body, nothing happens in isolation. Nothing affects just one thing. Everything is interconnected and everything works together.
Now Paul's metaphor of the church as a body suggests that it's right for us to feel for others and care about them the same way we feel about and care about ourselves because we're connected with one another. I know that many of you have experienced that kind of functioning, because you've told me stories about how this congregation has pulled together when someone you loved was sick or hurting or in need. In some senses that's the church is working at its best. It's wonderful that that kind of thing happens here at the United Parish and it's also wonderful that it doesn't only happen here. I was amazed and also pleasantly surprised when I learned that as of Tuesday, between our two denominations, nearly half a million dollars had already been sent to Haiti, and another half million has been pledged… nearly all of it donated by people across the country in churches similar to ours. The efforts can't undo the damage that's already been done by the earthquake, but we give in hope that it might help to make the lives of the survivors more livable, and giving our resources globally and giving ourselves locally are expressions of being part of the body of Christ.
Thank goodness that most of us haven't ever experienced tragedy like the devastation in Haiti… I pray and I hope that we never will… But the unity that Paul speaks of in the letter to the Corinthians doesn't necessarily have anything to do with sharing similar life experiences. It doesn't have anything to do with sharing social status or anything else... We may or may not like doing the same things, we may or may not have voted the same way in the last election. But those aren't the things that unite us. According to Paul, there are two things that unite us as a body.
First is the source of the gifts we've received. In verse 7 Paul says
to each is given a manifestation of the spirit.
It's not just
some people… He says everyone has been given something…
As different as the eye or the hand or the ear or the foot are, they
all come together to make the body function and everyone plays their
part. Paul lists off 18 or 19 gifts in our passage… and that's
just the starting point. God's pretty creative, and if you think
about it, it makes sense that God gives a plethora of different gifts
to a whole bunch of different people who come together to make up the
body that is the church… Just about everything in our tradition
is a combination of diversity and unity. The God we worship we
proclaim as trinity, three in one… the book that's our
foundation as a witness to God's work in the world is made up of 66
books: 4 gospels that tell us different things about the one we know
as Lord. In fact when we recognize the diversity of creation and
celebrate the gifts God has given, it's hard not to be amazed. Even
if we narrow it down and we only consider the gifts that have been
given to people who make up this particular congregation… it's
still amazing. Music, art, compassion, hospitality, caring, teaching,
service, responsibility, gratitude, initiative… that's just a
few that come to mind, the list could go on. As different as the
gifts are, and as different as the people who receive those
gifts… they all come from the same place: one Spirit, one God
one Lord. So the first thing that unites us as a body is the source
of the gifts we've received.
And the second according to Paul is the purpose those gifts are to be
used for. As far as Paul's concerned, when we say Jesus is
Lord
it means something for how we live our lives. It means that
we not only recognize our gifts, but that we'll use them to serve the
living God… which at least in part means serving other people.
So often in our culture if we say someone's gifted, it means that they
have some special talent or ability that lifts them above the
rest… above the crowd… that makes them better in some
way than other people. And if we take a quick look around our
community we can see which gifts are most affirmed and most valued by
our culture… the three that stood out to me are intellect,
athleticism and leadership (there maybe others that would stand out to
you). But when I looked around, I noticed that the ones in our
cultural line of reasoning who are considered really gifted
make tons of money in professional sports or business ventures or
because they're on the cutting edge of technology. Not that there's
anything necessarily wrong with that in and of itself. I mean in one
sense, whether it's acknowledged or not those talents are gifts
because they were given by God… But Paul has a different
understanding of gifts. If a gift only benefits one's self, it's
hardly a gift at all. The whole metaphor of the body reminds us that
nothing happens in isolation. Everything affects everything else so
the second thing that unites us as a body is that we realize our gifts
are to be used to benefit the common good.
I started out today by saying that when people come looking to belong they've come to the right place because the church at its best isn't some sort of loose knit community it's a body… and when it comes right down to it, we're not just any body… We're the body of Christ alive in the world. And it's because of Christ that we have our reason for existing. We recognize that diversity is by design. God created all of us. Each of us, and everyone has been given gifts and enabled to use them for the common good. So whether you see yourself as an eye or a hand or a foot or an ear or even if you see yourself as a pinkie toe everyone has a place, everyone has a function, everyone has a purpose in the body of Christ… and everyone, everyone belongs.
Thanks be to God. Amen.
The foregoing sermon was given by Rev. Dan Holland at the United Parish of Bowie on January 24, 2010.
© 2010 Daniel Holland
