Spiritual Gifts

Robert E. Hall
Tarrytown United Methodist Church

January 14, 2007

Text: I Corinthians 12:1-11

SAILING

Many years ago I learned to sail. I learned the terms of sailing: port, bow, mainsail, jibe-ho, coming about. I almost knocked my instructor out of the boat by coming about and then around too far. In the process, I learned to pay attention to the breeze---which way the wind was blowing. I learned that there was always more of a breeze than I thought and to catch the wind in the sail was the key to going anywhere.

It is no accident that the New Testament word for wind and spirit are identical. “The Spirit/wind blows or breathes where it wills,” Jesus says, “and you hear the sound of it, but you don’t know where it comes from or where it is going. So it is with those who are born of the Spirit.” (John 3:8) It is another way of saying that God is sovereign, free of our control, invisible----and yet actively involved in our lives as God chooses to be. Similar to sailing, we, however, have to set our hearts and minds to receive and cooperate with the Spirit of God.

Thomas John Carlisle expresses the power of the spirit this way:

“Constantly I live/ expecting daily/ minute-ly/ his Spirit blowing/ me over/ and over me to the next target of love. I try to stand/ on my own whatevers/ but they shiver/ in that wind/ and disintegrate before that gust of grace.” (Thomas John Carlisle, Celebration, “That Gust,”1970)

The Holy Spirit is God’s gift to the Church: energizing, enlightening, consoling, purifying. It is the Triune God infused into life, individual and corporate.

CHURCH IN SPIRITUAL TURMOIL

The apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian Church, which has prided itself on being spirit-filled. “You are not lacking in any gift,” Paul says early in the letter (1:7). And yet the church is coming apart at the seams. They are divided into factions, each claiming the high ground. And their giftedness has turned into a contest of spiritual one-upmanship.

Paul sent his letter to call them back to his vision of the church as a diverse but spiritually unified community. Notice how much he uses the words “one” and “same.” There is one spirit who blesses each of us with differing gifts.

It was Paul’s belief that “God was at work through the Spirit to create churches that prefigure and embody reconciliation and healing of the world.” They are being saved and shaped to live in koinonia (shared communal life), “embodying the presence of the Spirit of God.” (Richard B. Hays, “Ecclesiology and Ethics in First Corinthians”)

They can hardly do this if they are bickering among themselves about which gifted person ranks higher.

How did the Corinthians get so far off course? How did they receive such rich gifts from God and wander into such strange territory?

For one thing, the Holy Spirit’s presence had been identified with ecstatic experiences in themselves. Enthusiasm itself was regarded as the sign of the presence of the Holy Spirit. If someone was speaking in tongues, for example, the Holy Spirit must be the cause, it was supposed. But Paul knew that many different religions included the practice of glossalalia. Someone speaking in an unknown language was not by itself evidence of the Holy Spirit.

So how can one tell the difference? The difference is Jesus. The Corinthians have forgotten that the Spirit is the power that connects us to God’s saving work in Christ. The Spirit is not an independent divine agent. If we live “in Christ,” we will know that mutual upbuilding of others in the community of faith is the clearest evidence of God’s spirit---for this is Christ’s ministry---as shown by Jesus’ washing of the disciples feet and telling them to do likewise. The test is this: Are brothers and sisters in the church being nurtured and healed and made stronger by the exercise of one’s gifts? Even tongues, miracles and healing are tested, not by their supernatural appearance, but by the effect over time that such gifts have on the effectiveness of the church in its mission of making disciples. One may be “carried away” for many different causes, including to “non-responsive idols.”

You may have read the essay by Deion Sanders in the Austin Statesman on November 11, 2006. The former Cowboys wide receiver said that it took a while for him to understand that he should not expect more from football than it can give. “Never love something that doesn’t have the capacity to love you back….The game can’t love you back.” He could have said, football is a dumb idol----it cannot embrace you or speak words of mercy and forgiveness. The same may be said of many other devotions which catch our attention and seem to promise ecstasy. Too many “things” promise so much, then disappoint us. There are many so-called gods who can get us excited for a time.

So Paul is calling the church back to this basic affirmation: the manifestations of the Holy Spirit----gifts, services and activities----are all given for the common good. Every person who confesses Jesus as Lord, out of God’s treasury of love is given gifts for building up the body of Christ. A “spirituality that stands under the cross does not waste its enthusiasm into the air but harnesses it in service for the common good.” (Fred Craddock)

GIFTS NOW?

If God continues to bless us each with gifts, how are to understand better what our God-given gifts and how these mesh with the “givens” of our personalities and abilities? Is the language about gifts hopelessly antiquated? If we emphasize gifts, don’t we run the same risk as the Corinthian church----some people taking off on tangents?

Going back to the analogy of the spirit as being like the wind in sailing, I believe that the Holy Spirit is even now at work in equipping the baptized with abilities which can make the body of Christ healthy and strong. We may identify some of these abilities by the names Paul gives to them in his letter----wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, tongues, interpretation of tongues, helping, administration, apostleship.

Other abilities used in the church nowadays may not have a New Testament equivalent; the church in our time is much different and has many different needs which were not obvious in the first century AD.

SELF-KNOWLEDGE

We have many methods at our disposal to sort out our talents, gifts, personalities, traits and aptitude. Through the years, I have used many of these methods to try to discover the way I am “wired.” I have been classified into one of eight types, then one of sixteen types in terms of my personality and gifts. I have done surveys which indicate my interests and have I pondered where I would fit vocationally based on abilities and proclivities. I have done a “geneogram” to sort through my family of origin (a frightening experience if ever there was one.) I, along with many of you I suspect, have been on a journey of self-discovery.

Paul did not have the advantage (or disadvantage) of all of these inventories. More than likely, Paul observed people serving in certain ways, engaging in certain activities and displaying abilities by which the church was being built up: made into a healthy, effective and faithful community for manifesting the presence of Jesus Christ to others. The gifts and roles he identifies are extrapolated from these observations

SPIRIT IS AT WORK NOW, TOO

From all of the above, and from careful study and prayer, we can see that he church now is still blessed with gifts, activities, services which come from God to individual members. The Church is always blessed with the gifts it needs to carry out the mission God has given us.

If we set our sails, we can be more aware of them and be able to receive the ones which are meant for us. Self-discovery in all of the ways available to us now---including those methods which help us understand our personality traits---can be consecrated to God’s use within the church. Gifts are what you and I have to offer out of the person we are and can be, with God’s help.

Out of this relationship with God and the community called church (big or little groupings), God can guide you to discover, affirm and celebrate your gifts. And you will learn that you are living out of a gracious power not your own.

Another way to look at it is that your gifts are all intertwined with your personality and your experiences in life. “To surrender to what is written in the fabric of our lives is the surrender to the will of God.” (Elizabeth O’Connor, Journey Inward, Journey Outward)

A cautionary word: We can be deceived into thinking that we have no gifts at all; or convinced that we are God’s gift to everyone. I have been around people who would tell me that they were behind the door when spiritual gifts were passed out. I have often, myself, envied others their gifts because mine seem so prosaic.

And, the Tempter can also persuade us that our gifts do not require any work or learning or practice. (Just because we have a musical gift, for example, does not mean that we can jump right in and bless others without learning to read music or practice. Example: Famous concert pianist, when asked why, in his nineties, he still continued to practice 4 hours a day: “Well, one can always improve.”)

Most often, the Spirit of God works in community, scripture and prayer, shared with trusted friends who will speak the truth in love. Some gifts may lay dormant for years because of the needs of those around us to exercise abilities that are not the most gratifying.

I believe that every person baptized into the death of Jesus has been raised to new life freed from captivity to sins of pride and concupiscence (being puffed up and being deflated.) Cooperating with God’s grace at work, we can grow in this freedom. We can believe in ourselves, not in a selfish way, but in believing that we can make a difference in advancing the love of God and neighbor.

You matter to God. You matter to the church. Can you catch the elusive, enticing breeze of the Spirit? There is one God, differing gifts.

We are in this together, thank God.