The Spirit is part of the life of every person who confesses Jesus is Lord. For the apostle Paul it did not matter what a person’s background was, Jew or Gentile. In today’s church world, it doesn’t matter whether you are Presbyterian, Baptist, Pentecostal, Roman Catholic, Wesleyan, Orthodox, or non-denominational. It does not matter whether you have or don’t have a gift that some perceive as being fancier. What matters is your response to Jesus. The earliest and most basic Christian confession is “Jesus is Lord,” and to confess it is evidence of the Holy Spirit at work in your life.
This working of the Spirit in a person suggests an intimacy that we may not always associate with the church. We tend to be private individuals and to hold our spiritual matters as close to our being as we do our sexuality. None of us in full mental capacity would think about parading around in our Adam and Eve suits. And very few of us would think about overtly displaying our spiritual natures. “That’s between me and God,” we would say.
Yet that intimacy is there. Isaiah says that God flaunts it:
You will be a splendid garland in the Lord’s hand, a royal turban in the palm of God’s hand. You will no longer be called Abandoned, and your land will no longer be called Deserted. Instead, you will be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land, Married. Because the Lord delights in you, your land will be cared for once again. (Isaiah 62:3-4)Isaiah uses the image of marriage:
With the joy of a bridegroom because of his bride, so your God will rejoice because of you. (Isaiah 62:5)
God does not wish to be aloof from us. God wishes to be in an intimate relationship with each of us. How we respond to God’s suit for us? Do we swoon in God’s arms, so to speak? Or do we play the coquette, teasing God with playful glances but backing off every so often? Are we hard to get, icily rebuffing God at every turn? Or are we totally oblivious to the love that God offers us? Each of us is a beloved child of God. We can’t change that. And it is hard to ignore it, although some people do.
Intimacy with God is an underlying premise in John’s gospel. It cannot be ignored. “The Word became flesh and made his home among us” (John 1:14). John laid out his good news about Jesus in such a way as to say that God’s desire for intimacy with humanity was fulfilled in Jesus and that this new divine-human relation was going to redirect and reinterpret the tradition. Jeremiah had said as much:
“I will put my Instructions within them and engrave them on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.” (Jeremiah 31:33)The new intimate relationship with God will no longer require jars of water for purification. People will be purified once for all, and rather than standing aloof from God people will rejoice and share the wine of gladness of God’s love.
The early church understood this new closeness between divinity and humanity. But Paul found it necessary to counsel the Corinthian believers about how they were responding to God’s love. Paul observed that not everyone was loving God in appropriate ways. As in some human relationships, there were givers and there were takers. Some of the Corinthian believers were taking from God. They were claiming a kind of elitism, a spiritual privilege that was not part of the love that God was giving.
These believers claimed a special relationship with God through the Spirit. They had spiritual gifts which they claimed were better than other spiritual gifts. They were spiritually lording it over sisters and brothers whom they treated as inferior, less privileged, second class.
Paul weighed in strongly on this. This spiritual inequality was another symptom of the nagging dysfunction of the Corinthian church. Yet in his love for them, he didn’t discredit the authenticity of the gifts claimed by the ones demonstrating the spiritual elitism. Rather he responded to the disruption which the self-promotion was causing in the community.
First of all, said Paul, the source of spiritual gifts is the Holy Spirit. Spirituality is not a latent gift in a person which needs to have the on switch pressed. Our piety is not a natural endowment. John Calvin cited this passage in his polemic against all efforts to regard self-cultivated human capacities as the ground of growth in the Christian life. We can take no credit for our spiritual gifts. They cannot be used as rationale for high status in the church.
All Christians receive gifts, not just an elite few. The Christian life is not the personal property of an exclusive class of spiritual super-heroes. Paul’s extensive list of gifts – here and elsewhere – implies that all of them, not just the sensational ones that attract the most notoriety, are valuable. The specific nature of a gift has no grounds for a claim to superiority. Because all such gifts are rooted in the same Spirit and serve a common purpose, attempts to calculate the relative value of gifts goes against the will of God.
Another significant aspect of spiritual gifts is that they are intended to build up community rather than individuals. Genuine spirituality is not the cultivation of private emotional highs, mystical thrills, or an exclusively individual inner peace. Christianity is not a religion of spiritual loners. The spiritual gifts are bestowed in order to build up the church. They are intended to be publicly shared and publicly enjoyed.
Paul also suggests that the plural nature of these gifts is no coincidence. The church can never be monolithic or homogenous. The diversity of talents and experiences in the Christian community is absolutely necessary. The sanctifying work of God is so rich, so multidimensional, that it requires a variety of expressions.
And above all, the Spirit is not disconnected from the person of Christ. It is the Spirit who enables the confession that “Jesus is Lord.” Our Presbyterian theological tradition emphasizes the close connection between Jesus Christ and the Holy Spirit. We maintain that the Holy Spirit works to illumine the Word and to promote the union – intimate relationship – with Christ that results in faith and growth in the Lord. Because the work of Christ and the work of the Spirit cannot be separated, a christological confession such as “Jesus is Lord” serves as a criterion for authentic Christian spirituality.
So, each of you is beloved by God. Each of you is blessed with a spiritual gift. For some it is teaching; for others, hospitality; for others, care-giving; for others, one-on-one conversation; for others, praying; for others, writing notes of encouragement; for others, graphic design; for others, music. Each and every gift is important to this community of Christ. Without any one of these gifts our collective witness to Christ in the world is deficient.
When Christ urged his mountaintop listeners to put their light on a lamp stand rather than under a basket, but to put it on a lamp stand, he inferred that the spiritual gift that each of us possesses is to be used and shared, not held back or hidden.
During the coming week, I urge you to celebrate your loved child of God status by using your spiritual gift every day in some way. And if you aren’t sure about what your gift is, take some time to pray about it and some time to talk with others who know you and your faith. They can help you understand the gift that they see in you.
We cannot ask for gifts in order to feel more powerful, important, or significant. When we make it our goal to be available to God and to seek to serve others for Christ’s sake, our spiritual gifts will come to the surface. As you explore your spiritual gifts, consider these steps:
- Ask God to increase your usefulness.
- Seek opportunities of service.
- Observe how other believers serve.
- Ask those you've served and those who serve with you to help you discern your spiritual strengths.
- Practice your gift even more. (1)
And remember, as we grow and mature in our intimate relationship with Christ, our gifts will grow, expand, and change as the Spirit draws us toward the realm of God’s eternal rule.
May every one of your spiritual gifts bless this community of Christ, the universal church, and the world.
Amen.
General resource: Lee C. Barrett, “Second Sunday After Epiphany: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 – Theological Perspective,” Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary (Louisville; Westminster John Knox Press, 2009), Year C, Volume 1, 254-258.
(1) Life Application Bible Commentary – 1 and 2 Corinthians (Carol Stream IL: Tyndale House Publishers, 2001) 12:8.
Unless noted otherwise, all scripture references are from The Common English Bible, © 2011 www.commonenglishbible.com.
Copyright © 2016 First Presbyterian Church of Waverly, Ohio. Reprinted by permission.
No comments:
Post a Comment