Jerusalem Presbyterian Church

Today is an important day in the life of our congregation.  At our annual meeting today we will set the course for the upcoming year by electing officers and approving a budget.  These things are important not just because our Book of Order says we must do them; they are important because in doing these things we  make certain promises to God and to one another.  In exercising our privilege of church membership we say to God that we believe we have certain leaders who are called from among us by the Holy Spirit, through the voice of this congregation.  We also declare before God and each other that we will support the ministries of this church together through the apportioning of our money in the form of a church budget.

It’s an important day.  If you were hoping to skip the meeting and just hear about it later, I hope you reconsider.  I hope you avail yourself of the privilege that not every tradition affords its members.

We can imagine, reading the epistle lesson for today, what it might have been like for the church in Corinth to hold an Annual Meeting.  I wonder what that meeting would have looked like?   Would they serve brunch?  With that in mind, let’s turn our attention to the early church.

On thing I appreciate about reading Paul—he gets right to the point!  The reader can quickly figure out why Paul is writing exactly what he is writing, if you just look at his opening comments.  This is enormously helpful to those of us who are readers and especially those of us who are preachers.

“Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.”

Such a polite but direct way of beginning a discussion: “My dear brothers and sisters, clearly there has been some talk about this.  Let me set you straight.”

There are at least two sides to the question of membership in a church: what do you expect to get out of this? (In other words, what is it about this church that makes you want to be a member?) And, what do you bring to the party?  (In other words, why should we let you in?)

The world of the Ancient near east struggled with some of the same questions as 21 century denominations do.  But imagine if the barriers and the things that make us different from one another were considered in our day and time to be uncrossable, say like gender and race, and nationality.  Imagine if the uncrossable-ness of those boundaries was ingrained in to each of us from the day we were born.  It’s not so very hard to imagine, really.  We just have to go back about fifty years in our nation’s history, when restrooms, water fountains, lunch counters, and schools were segregated by skin color.

Now, imagine a church with all these different kinds of people, some not really trusting others, each wanting to know what the motives of the other one might be, every single one of them trying to figure out who does what.  Into that mix, Paul says this: “We need each other.”

We need each other, yes, like fingers need a thumb.  There are gifts each one of us bring to the body of Christ that no one else can bring.

It’s hard sometimes to admit that we need anybody or anything.  Our culture rewards  self-motivation, self-starters, self-reliance, self-containment.  Self, self, self.  We reward our children for doing something the first time all by themselves.  “Cooperation and collaboration and teamwork and partnership and reciprocity are for wimps.” That’s what the culture says.  All this emphasis on self seems sinful in some respects.  Sinful in the sense that it is not the way God designed us to be.  It’s no way for us to be church.  We need each other.

And just as difficult for us to admit that we need one another is the reciprocal idea that others need us. What makes it so hard for us to admit that we might have qualities and attributes that others might find valuable, useful, that might lighten someone else’s load?

 One time, many years ago I was sitting in a women’s study group and the pastor was talking about spiritual gifts.  She asked each one of us to list, by writing down, our gifts—those things that we bring to the table that no one else can bring in the same manner that we can..  After several painful moments of waiting, with no one moving, finally one woman bravely raised her hand and asked for clarification.  “I’m not sure I know what you mean by gifts.” she said. Other women nodded in agreement.  Finally the pastor said, “What are you good at?”  After a minute or so of thinking, women began to scribble down lists.  When the pastor asked us to share some of what we’d written, the women started by saying, “I like to cook, I like to knit, I like to read, I like to baby-sit my grandchildren.”

I looked in horror at my own list.  I had written down things like, “I am a good listener, I am a loyal friend.” I must have misunderstood altogether.  What now?  The pastor listened patiently to a couple of women read their lists out loud, then she interrupted. “Dears,” she very gently said, “what you are telling me are your hobbies.  I want to know not just what you like to do, but what you think God has given you the talents to do.”  The women just looked at each other uncomfortably.  Finally, the bravest one—the one who had asked for clarification in the first place—said, “I was taught not to brag.”

Well, that settled it! No way was my list going to see the light of day after that!  Bragging was not my style.  And to be found out to be the only woman in the room with the audacity—and apparently faulty upbringing—to brag?  Well, that would have been humiliating.

I remembered this encounter for a long time.  Later, after being forced—forced!—to take inventory of my gifts in order to be admitted to the care process for ordination, I regretted my actions that day.  I understood them better than I had in the moment, but I still regretted them.

The truth is, we do God no favors when we try to ignore/downplay/deny either our own giftedness or the reliance we have on the giftedness of others.  And it doesn’t work anyway, not in the way God intends for things to work together for the goodness of all.  In doing so, we deny the very inbreaking of the Spirit that we are promised in the gospel, and we attempt, albeit feebly, to subvert God’s plan for the church.  

So, what it is you offer?  What are the spiritual gifts you have to offer to the church that no one else can bring in quite the same way?  Nothing, you say?  Hmmm…I’d have to disagree.  But don’t take my word for it.  Hear what Eugene Peterson says in his paraphrase of this week’s lesson from Paul:  

“4-11God's various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various ministries are carried out everywhere; but they all originate in God's Spirit. God's various expressions of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all. Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! The variety is wonderful:  wise counsel, clear understanding, simple trust, healing the sick, miraculous acts, proclamation, distinguishing between spirits, tongues, and interpretation of tongues.

All these gifts have a common origin, but are handed out one by one by the one Spirit of God. God decides who gets what, and when.”

Brothers and sisters, we need each other.  Like fingers need a thumb, like we need the leading of the Holy Spirit.  I need you.  You need me.  We need the church.  Thanks be to God!