January 14, 2001
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Sermon in Two Parts Part
One offered by Marshall H. Barnes (President of the Congregation) Part
Two: It is appropriate on this day as we talk about gifts of the spirit that I take a moment and thank Marshall Barnes for accepting the nomination and the opportunity to use his gifts as President of our congregation. And I thank him for sharing his gifts and his vision with our congregation today. I am pleased to thank Eric Crenshaw, the immediate past President of the congregation as well as all of you who have served us so well as officers, ministry team leaders, and members of our board. You have all shared your gifts well, and we have been honored by your service. We are blessed in this congregation to have Connie Johnson Long with us as our Pastoral Intern. Her many spiritual gifts are being shaped as we share our gifts with her, and as she shares hers with us.Paul declares to the Corinthians that God has given all of us spiritual gifts. How we receive those gifts and the use we make of those gifts will help to determine the health of our congregation, and the integrity of our witness to this community and to the world. Paul wants the Corinthians and us to understand that first among the spiritual gifts God has given to us is the willingness to proclaim that Jesus Christ is Lord. There was a time, he says when the Corinthians were pagans; they worshiped idols that could neither hear nor speak. Now I know that sounds like a harsh word from Paul; and it is true that Paul is capable of using severe language, but here he is the victim of the inability of the English language to adequately and fairly translate his words. The word pagan, when used here, is more accurately translated, simply Gentiles. Paul is drawing a contrast between those of Jewish ancestry who are part of the church, and those who grew up in other traditions but who have now put on Christ. His point is that in their former lives, they served gods that could neither hear or speak to them. Some of us have had that same experience. When we served the gods of money, we still felt unfulfilled, when we worshiped at the altar of popularity, we still found ourselves feeling lonely sometimes. In those days long ago when the existence of God depended on how good we felt, we nevertheless felt a gnawing emptiness in our souls. When life was not working out for us the way we believed we thought that
it should, we might have been tempted, in the old days to say, there is no God,
and Jesus be cursed. But all that changed when we joined the church in confessing Jesus Christ
as Lord. If we are part of the body of Christ, there is no other word we can say
about him than by the great gift of God’s spirit, Jesus is Lord. Paul is just warming up. Now he is ready to make his big point: each one of us has some spiritual gift. We all have something in us, placed their by God that is our passion, our drive, that is the evidence in us that we belong to God and to Jesus Christ. The gifts are given to everyone, but they are not the same. That should come as no surprise to us, after all we can look at members of a biological family and see there that while the children share the same genetic material, they will develop different personalities. The grace is that the different personalities make the family, or the church an interesting and inviting place to be. The problem comes when we are not content to appreciate differences, but insist that different means better or worse. A group had emerged in Corinth, that had the gift of speaking in tongues. They were so proud that God had given them the gift of tongues that they were like the first kids on the block to get PlayStation 2. “My gift is better than your gift. What? You don’t have this gift? Too bad.” We can understand why some in the church wrote to Paul asking for help in dealing with people whose gifts were in danger of being lost to arrogance and insensitivity. Notice how Paul deals with them. Paul never tells them that theirs is an illegitimate gift, he does not say that their gift has no place in the church, nor does he try to banish them.Listen he says, understand that (Interpretation, I Corinthians, p.208) “those who exalt themselves in the possession of spiritual gifts such as tongues or words of wisdom and knowledge should not suppose that others in the church who lack such [gifts] are thereby strangers to the Spirit. All who are in Christ have entered the realm of the Spirit, and no one should be despised.” In other words, no one gift is better than the other, and those who possess one have no business treating their gift as the only gift God gives. Well, we do not despise the people who do not have our same gifts, it is not their fault that they have not had the experiences we’ve had. If they do not quite have our same history, our same sophistication, our abilities, our way with words, our set of gifts, what can we do? All the while we secretly believe that we are a little bit superior. Hold up Paul says. Look, just as the members of a family have different gifts, so it is in the church that we have different gifts, freely given by God to every one. Don’t you know that there are varieties of gifts (charismata), but one Spirit, and there are varieties of services (diakonia), but one Lord, and there are varieties of activities (energemata), but the same God who sets them all in motion? In other words, the gifts of God are God’s to give. Besides anyone who would claim these gifts for themselves has missed the point entirely. They are not given for you and for me to hold up like a fancy present and say, “see what God gave me? Sit back, look, but don’t touch.” They are given to us to be given away, and to be shared the way so many of you share your gifts, with the whole church. The phrase Paul uses is “for the common good.” The term, common good (Texts for Preaching, Year C, page.109) “carries the notion of usefulness, of profitability for others. The gifts given to individual believers are not intended for their private benefit, nor are they to be reserved for an inner circle that may take particular delight in the exercise of a friend’s gift.” It is the sharing of the gifts God has given us: our histories, our racial backgrounds, our cultural traditions, in all of their diversity that makes the church of Jesus Christ special. Remember the first gift we have is our faith in Jesus Christ. Beyond that gift comes this great variety that lets us affirm with Paul that God has created a wonderfully diverse community of faith in which the gifts of God are used for the people of God. You say you’re not quite sure what your gift is? Be patient, trust God to show your gift to you. Later this year, we will enter into a process that will help us to discover our spiritual gifts. In the meantime know that God has put some gifts into your spirit and the time is coming when they will burst forth and help to empower us all. So I have a vision of a church full of energetic and inviting ministries filled with people of faithfulness who use their speech to build up and to criticize when they must, gently. I see a church whose members offer hand and heart to help those in need. When our gifts are used for the common good, remarkable things can happen. What would our witness be if we formed a group of men and women who used their gifts of design and repair, and their gifts for landscaping and building and then offered themselves to make minor household repairs, or housecleaning, or planted flowers, or raked leaves or shoveled snow for our members who could not do such things for themselves? I can see a church in which those who have knowledge and experience share their gifts with joy, and when they do the miracles and the healing that can take place here may be physical to be sure, but may also be of a kind that makes the heart soar and the spirit strong. The special music offered today by Elizabeth and Charlie, two people God has blessed with the gift of song, and who share their gift with us in a way that makes our hearts soar and our spirit’s strong has reminded us of the life and work of Martin Luther King, Jr. who I think of as a man blessed by God with gifts and who used them well.Peter Gomes is dean of the chapel at Harvard University, and the author of The Good Book: Reading the Bible With Mind and Heart. Several of you were part of a book group that read that book. In a book of Peter Gomes’ sermons there is one dedicated to the memory of Martin Luther King, Jr. which says in part, (In Sermons p. 48): “We are led to remember Martin Luther King, Jr. not because the liberal press says we should, or self-serving organizations and individuals hold us moral hostage to do so. We hold him in remembrance because he was in our time a part of that great company of witnesses from before our time whom God has raised up to raise us up from our bondage to the things that are, to the liberty of the things that can and ought to be. If we look for him to be the burden-bearer of our times, our race, our nation, we will find that he is unable to bear that burden, for he was in the struggle fully as much as we. If we look for him to serve as our moral substitute and to “cash in” on his virtue, we will find the supply insufficient, for in that each must bear his own price; but if we look to see in him what God is trying to do and say, if we look beyond the cult and the deeds, if in fact we look where he was looking, we may begin to see just what it was that sustained him that is freely available to sustain us as well, pilgrims and saints, people always in process, always moving.”What sustained Martin Luther King, Jr. was a community in which people shared the variety of gifts and offered them to God, Jesus Christ, and the Holy Spirit and each other. It was in the church that he found the strength and integrity to risk and finally give his life on order to bring a high measure of freedom to every citizen of this nation.
When we share the variety of gifts God has given to us, we are freed to
praise God in all of God’s fullness, and we are freed to use our considerable
gifts of compassion, and generosity, hospitality, faith, curiosity and love to
celebrate the rich diversity of who we are. We are freed to find the strength
and integrity to celebrate, to share, support, and serve people in this
congregation and in the communities around us. Indeed our ministry will extend
from our doorstep to the end of the earth. When we offer the richness of our
gifts to the body of Christ and to those who need what we have, we will be the
church God has called us to be, and we can sing with joy and confidence the last
verse of “Take My Gifts”: "Take
whatever I can offer, gifts that I have yet to find; skills that I am slow to
sharpen, talents of the heart and mind, things made beautiful for others in the
place where I must be, take my gifts and let me love you, God who first of all
loved me.” Thanks be to God, for all that God has given to us. Amen.
Dr.
LaTaunya M. Bynum |
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Broad
Street Christian Church
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