Roll for Initiative: 1 Corinthians 2:1-11
Second Sunday after Epiphany
Brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to be ignorant
about spiritual gifts. 2 You know that when you
were Gentiles you were often misled by false gods that can’t even speak. 3 So
I want to make it clear to you that no one says, “Jesus is cursed!” when
speaking by God’s Spirit, and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the
Holy Spirit. 4 There are
different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; 5 and
there are different ministries and the same Lord; 6 and
there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in
everyone. 7 A demonstration of the Spirit is
given to each person for the common good. 8 A word
of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another
according to the same Spirit, 9 faith to still
another by the same Spirit, gifts of healing to another in the one
Spirit, 10 performance of miracles to another,
prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different
kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to
another. 11 All these things are produced by the
one and same Spirit who gives what he wants to each person. (CEB)
In 1974, Gary
Gygax and Dave Arneson debuted a table-top role-playing game in the form of a
box set of three booklets. The booklets
invited players to develop their own characters from a set of determined
characteristics and go forth to save the world through swords and sorcery in spun
adventures with their fellow players.
The game was Dungeons and Dragons, a phenomenon that became so popular
it released its fifth edition in 2014, having been in continuous use for the
intervening 40 years.[1]
When creating
a character for the game, one must first choose race: are you human? Elf?
Dwarf? Halfling? Something else? The race will determine the temperament and
some of the interests of your character.[2] After you’ve chosen a race, you must choose a
class; will you be a warrior or wizard?
How about a cleric, or paladin, or rogue? Maybe a ranger. Each type comes with certain
abilities—certain gifts, shall we say.
Not every
Sunday that you get Paul’s letter to the Corinthians filtered through DnD, is
it.
Paul writes
this first letter to the church at Corinth with a deep emphasis on the
importance of community. The chapter
before today’s text was an explanation on the importance of communion done with
the community and with the awareness of the connection to Christ’s meal with
His disciples; it is a special and set-apart thing. Next week we will keep talking about
community as we discuss the use of gifts in the Body that is the Church. The chapter right after this is the famous
verses on love and the nature of love being a thing that binds together—yep,
you guessed it, the community. Paul’s
whole point is about the Church connecting to itself, which was an important
thing at a time when the Roman Empire was not all that pleased to have this new
faith driving apart the existing rules of who was a god and how one worshipped.
It is still an
important thing, this community idea, not least because we are not in a
particularly communal time of our lives.
I don’t need a television to know that our news and commercials and
shows drive an us-versus-them narrative, a “you don’t understand me” vibe. There are differences in the world, and many
of them are important, but we have made difference into weaponry and stand
behind our reinforced walls to yell at each other about how God could never
love someone who isn’t like me.
“There are
different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different
ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same
God who produces all of them in everyone.”
None of us are called to the life of faith in the same way to do the
same things; how completely useless that would be, and how many things would go
unfinished if that were so. I, who can
preach and delight in doing so, am absolute rubbish at cooking. It’s sad, but true. How different a church we would have if we
all preached lovely sermons but no one could make a meal to take to someone
after a funeral or surgery! I have the
gift of administration but not of hospitality—strange, but true. How different a church we would have if we
could all run meetings but no one had the courage to welcome a stranger
attending for the first time or to speak to a new person at a missional event. And how important it is that there are people
who can preach and people who can cook, people who can organize
paperwork and people who can remember someone’s name on the first
hearing of it; the gifts are many and all are part of being faithful, of using
what it is that God has given us in the service of the Body of Christ at work
in the world. We are called not only to
name that we have these gifts, but to use them wisely and devotedly as we move
through our daily lives.
Professor Yung
Suk Kim wrote, “Paul’s point is not that there is a separate work/domain of the
Spirit, Jesus, or of God, but that all gifts, works, and deeds in the church
are to be cross-examined in view of the Spirit’s purpose, God’s guidance, and
Jesus’ work. Whatever works the Corinthians do or whatever gifts they receive
from the Spirit, they must know that their works need guidance from God”.[3] Just before today’s verses, in 1 Corinthians
10, is the exhortation that “whether you eat or drink or whatever you do, do it
all for the glory of God.”[4] We, like the church in Corinth, are to use
the gifts that we have been given as they are—not to use someone else’s gifts
or to say that we have no sufficient gifts, because the Spirit has given us the
means to be at work in the world that cries out for kindness, mercy, and
justice. We cannot do that work alone, not just because I can’t cook and some
of you want nothing to do with preaching but because we are the
Church—together.
In the DnD
game, the point of each story or adventure is for the players to work
together. Sure, you can wander off and
get your team into trouble or get people killed within the storyline, but it’s
fairly frowned upon to do so; it’s considered unhelpful to the playing of the
game. DnD is a cooperative thing, and
each person has something different to add.
There’s an image I have saved to my computer that I stumbled across at
some point that riffs off DnD and says, “You don’t have to be a social justice
warrior. Be a social justice wizard;
learn all you can, use what you know. Be
a social justice warlock; tap into powers greater than yourself. Be a social justice cleric; keep the faith,
heal with your words. Be a social justice
druid; respect nature, give voice to the unheard. Be a social justice bard; inspire hope, work
magic with your art. Be a social justice
rogue; move unseen, keep secrets safe.”
What gifts do
you have, sibling? How do you bring them
to the work of this faith—of bending the moral arc of the universe toward
justice, as Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. described? We speak every week of how God may be calling
you to give of your time, money, gifts, service, and witness, but how does that
transfer from your character sheet to your actual life?
This is not a
particularly involved church. I was told
that shortly after I arrived and I’ve found it to be true; there is a heart
here for helping, sure, and I’m delighted to be able to do things like our
current partnership for Epiphany with the Bay Area Women’s Shelter, collecting
pillows and pillowcases and financial donations to help with their ministries
of providing safety and education for those finding home by another way. But there isn’t much for action, here. I’m not saying that everyone should be the
staff-parish relations committee chair, not least because not everyone has the
gift for that. However, the prayer chain
stalled because only one person was willing to be the one to gather the prayers
and put them into a phone call. The
memorials committee is one person because folks did not want to put in the time
for marking how we remember those who have gone before. The nominations committee exists in name only
because there is such an attitude of “someone else will do it.” The church library has been faithfully kept and
now needs a new steward, but the response is that there is not enough time, not
enough interest.
I am aware
that many of you in this congregation have been in leadership for years and are
tired, and that is real. But there is a
difference between saying “I do not want to lead a committee” anymore and “I
will only come for Sunday worship and whatever fellowship events I decide are
important.” There is a difference
between wanting to take the true faithfulness of sabbath rest and not looking
for another way home to the lifelong service of this faith using the gifts
given by the Spirit.
This is not
intended as a guilt trip but an honest declaration that there are a great many
gifts in this congregation and not a great many givers of those gifts. Feel free to push back on that; tell me what
you are doing in the life of the faith because I would like to know. Tell me how you are a bard, bringing Christ
to the world through your art and creativity in design and form. Tell me how you are a rogue, using your
flexibility and problem-solving skills to bring the word of grace to the Church
and the spaces we have not yet gone. Tell me how you are a ranger, keeping watch
over the already-and-not-yet kingdom and protecting the least and the lost from
injustice.
And if you
cannot tell me these things, come and dream with me. Ask me how you could use your wizardry or
your quick wit, your patience or your strength.
Ask me where your gift can go, because there is always a place. The gift is of the Spirit and this is the
Spirit’s church; as Paul writes, all such things are for “the common good.” Professor James Boyce writes, “At the center [of
this text] stands a confidence in the grace of God that has been given to all
in Christ Jesus. This confidence is extended in the promise that God has called
believers into this fellowship in the name of Jesus their Lord, and that God is
faithful to his promise to hold and strengthen them until the day of Jesus
Christ. The sign and seal of this faithfulness is the assurance of the Spirit’s
active presence in their person and community and, no matter what their fears
and particular evidences to the contrary, as ones called into this community
they are not lacking in any gift that the Spirit has to offer…The guiding
principle, in the form of a Pauline mantra, is confidence that with the
Spirit’s gifts comes the wisdom to understand and the ability to work for that
which ‘builds up the community.’”[5]
St. Luke’s
does not have to exist—there is no fundamental universal truth that requires
this congregation. But St. Luke’s does
exist, does hold these particular three ribs of the Body of Christ, does
stand in the communities of Essexville and Bay City and all the other places we
go to say Christ is risen, God loves extravagantly, and the darkness shall not
overcome the light. How are your gifts
part of that message, Church? And how can
our faithful stewardship of these gifts continue always to bring glory to the
God we claim and Who claims us, each and every day?
May we have
the clarity to seek how the Spirit has gifted us. May we have the courage to use these
Spirit-filled gifts. And may we have the
grace to walk with each other on this new path home. Amen.
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