Preached at First Presbyterian Church, Baldwin, NY, January 20th 2013
A printable PDF file can be found here
Our reading today, from Corinthians chapter 12, speaks about their being many gifts that are given to us as a church, but there being one Holy Spirit by whom they are given and whom should guide their use.
The church in Corinth were a very gifted group of people. Both in terms of natural talents and their ability to receive special abilities under God’s influence they showed great promise. But they had a problem, a problem that they had written to Paul about, and the section we read this morning was part of Paul’s answer to their concern.
Stated quite simply their problem was that although they were a very gifted people, they didn’t understand how they should use their gifts. Before they had come into the church some of them were already gifted people, and then it was obvious how they used their gifts and talents; for their personal gain and self-promotion.
Isn’t that how it is in the world? If people have a gift or a talent, they tend to use it for the benefit mostly of themselves. Our society positively encourages us to make the most of our selves, to use what we have to gain an advantage over others. This is considered a virtue.
Self-concern misguided the Corinthians about the Holy Spirit. So they used the Spirit’s gifts to compete and determine who was better, more loved and approved by God. That’s the way life had taught them to be. The one who had the most toys won the game. The one who worshiped the most powerful idol had an advantage over the one who worshiped a lesser god. This attitude of self concern so dominated their lives that they couldn’t think straight about the gifts they had been given.
So Paul starts laying down some basics. Let me paraphrase what the first part of the passage is saying. “You know” Paul says, “When it comes to spiritual gifts the last thing in the world I want is for you to be uninformed and ignorant. Some things you know already. For example you know that if somebody claims to be really spiritually gifted and is going around saying “Jesus? Who needs Jesus? Forget about Jesus, I’ve got my gifts from God, I don’t need Jesus” then they are not acting under the influence of God’s Spirit.”
“In a similar way if somebody is showing evidence of Jesus being in charge of their life, and demonstrating through the way they live that “Jesus is Lord” over them... that the way of Jesus has an influence on their thinking and doing... then you have the sense to figure out that God’s Spirit has been active in their life.”
In a round about way he reminds them that the way things worked in the world, wasn’t the way things were meant to go in the church; that Kingdom values were different to worldly values. They already knew this, because they already recognized that although there were a variety of different tasks that needed to be done, although there were different ways of doing the things that needed to be done and although everybody had different gifts to do the things that needed to be done, the motivating force behind it all was God the Father, Son and Holy Spirit - One God, One Lord, One Spirit.
What had happened was that the Holy Spirit had emptied out the gift box on that Corinthian Congregation and in their eagerness to use the gifts, they had lost sight of the difference, between using gifts for God and using gifts according to the way of the world.
Paul then talks about some of the gifts they had been given. He does something that is very 'Paul' and very clever. One of the things that was dividing the church in Corinth was the matter of speaking in tongues. Speaking in tongues was a form of ecstatic utterance, not unknown in pagan religions, manifested by the disciples on the day of Pentecost and a practice many Christians of different traditions today still view as having value.
The problem was that some of the Corinthians had this gift and others didn’t. And the ones who had it thought it meant that they were somehow more blessed and better than the rest. This attitude of ‘I’m better than you are’ was crippling their life and their witness. It was contrary to what God intended.
Although the matter of tongues and their interpretation was ‘The big concern’ to the Corinthians, when Paul makes his list of gifts, he puts the matter of ‘tongue speaking’ right at the bottom. At the top of his list, he inserts things that the Corinthian’s were in danger of losing sight of; ‘Wisdom’, ‘Knowledge’ and ‘Faith’.
In a later chapter, he says that even these gifts are dwarfed by something far more important. Love. The sort of love that Jesus was and that Jesus lived. If they didn’t have love, Paul will tell them, then everything else that they thought they had was actually completely worthless. Getting back to our passage, what sort of application should we make of this passage to our own lives? What can it speak to us in our time?
The first thing that the passage challenges us with is regarding the way we use our gifts. That we, like the Corinthians, need to recognize that if we are part of a Christian church or a Christian community we have to change the way we look at our lives and the gifts God has blessed us with in our lives.
We have to move from of position of thinking “How can my life be blessed by being a part of this church” to “How can my life bless others whom God is drawing to this community of faith”. For us, in such a self-aggrandizing and self-possessed society, that is a huge paradigm shift to make. To move from a ‘getting’ mentality to a ‘giving’ mentality.
Ever heard of Millard Fuller? By the time he was thirty years old Millard Fuller had made a million dollars. He had cars, house, and a fancy boat. Now I know some of you are thinking, “Wow, good going, what a guy!” Because that’s the way we are conditioned to think. That’s how similar our mind set is to that of the Corinthians. We have gifts and we use them to benefit ourselves. And well done, if we get rich doing it. That’s the way the world thinks.
But Millard Fuller was miserable. Money did not buy him happiness. So he decided to change his goals. His new goal became to build a million homes for people who had no decent place to live. He founded an organization called ‘Habitat for Humanity’. Now people all around the world are working with him to build thousands of homes every year. He says that he is happier now in his small house and building houses for others than he ever was in his fancy house.
Now here’s a no-brainer question. Which one sounds like the Kingdom way to you? The way of using his gifts to build his own house or the way of building homes for others unable to help themselves? This passage challenges us to use our gifts to make a kingdom kind of difference with our lives.
A second thing this passage reminds us is that we need our religion to be a matter of our heads as well as our hearts. When I served in West Virginia, I occasionally came across fellow pastors who told me that when they preached, they just got into the pulpit and let the Holy Spirit take over. They didn't need to spend time in study (or going through the discipline of attending Seminary). They just let the Spirit move.
Would you get on a plane whose pilot bragged about the fact that he had very little flight training but was allowing God to direct the controls? Would you be attracted to a dentist whose only claim to expertise in their field was that they knew a bit about drilling holes? Paul is quite clear that if we are to move towards spiritual maturity then it is not an either/or situation. That it is a matter of both the head and the heart, the human intellect and the Holy Spirit.
I am delighted when our Bible studies are well attended. I am encouraged by the fact that many of you are folk who want to go deeper in understanding your faith. Paul begins this section with the words 'I do not want you to be ignorant’. He challenges the Corinthians to ‘think through’ their actions and chastises them for not doing so. He lists the gifts of thought and intellect at the top of his list of Spiritual gifts. He gave himself heart soul and intellect to serving the gospel. We are invited to do the same.
A third thing that this passage challenges us to consider is that some of these gifts are strange and maybe uncomfortable to some of us. The Presbyterian Church has not historically been a church that has stressed such things as ‘working miracles’ ‘gifts of healing’ and ‘speaking in tongues’. Yet there are miracles that take place, there are some tremendous testimonies of healing, and there are folks, even Presbyterian folks, who use a whole variety of practices in prayer, as part of their regular devotional life.
We should not allow our stress upon everything being done ‘decently and in order’ to prevent us from experiencing God in unfamiliar ways, or in such a way as we restrain the genuine workings of God’s Spirit in our midst. Sometimes that may even mean receiving gifts from God that we hadn’t expected or or have yet to experience.
But to conclude - We are a gifted people. There are many gifts, but One Spirit. The question is; 'How will we use the gifts God has blessed us with in the service of the communities in which we live and move and have our being?'
- Will we use our gifts to serve self or serve God?
- Will we apply our mind as well as our heart to discipleship?
- Are we prepared to receive from God gifts we hadn’t considered and make life changes in the light of those gifts?
Many Gifts, One Spirit. AMEN.
Rev. Adrian J. Pratt B.D.
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