Pentecost
1 Corinthians
12:4-13 June 8, 2014
Elizabeth M. Deibert
I was a child in the Presbyterian Church in small town North
Carolina. It was the 70’s as I was
growing up, but our service was classic 1950’s Protestantism-- intellectual sermon
at the end of the service, and sacrament only four times/year. My parents, having been raised Baptist, missed
the more personal, pietistic experience of that tradition. So when the charismatic movement began in
our area when I was an adolescent, I spent Sunday nights worshiping with praise
choruses, occasionally people speaking in tongues, highly energized sermons and
emotional prayers, which invited a close and personal relationship with
Jesus. All the while Sunday mornings
and Wednesday nights were at the very staid Presbyterian Church where I was
loved and taught a much calmer version of loving Jesus that involved my mind as
much as my heart. In high school each
summer my parents took me and a few others to a week long youth conference not
in Montreat, but led by a guy named Bill Gothard who taught a very literal
interpretation of scripture. It was
there that I heard that the Bible taught me to be submissive to my father until
I was married, at which time I could submit to my husband. It wasn’t long before I realized I did not
have to read the Bible that way, but that I could understand the extremely
patriarchal cultural context in which the scripture came to us. What I appreciated about that conference was
its clear invitation to make living for Christ my number one priority, and to
make scripture reading a joyful, faith-building practice.
In college, I was engaged in dorm Bible studies and worship and services
experiences through Intervarsity Christian Fellowship. I attended
a Presbyterian Church for half of my college years, and then a Bible Church,
one of the earliest of the fast-growing non-denominational guitar and piano
contemporary churches that were springing up in the 1980’s.
Then I began seminary, and came to a new awareness of people who loved
Jesus just as much as I did, but came to seminary from a radically different experience
of Christian faith. The words they used
to pray were different from mine. They
were so liberal, compared to twenty-three year old me, but they loved Jesus
too.
I was invited to consider that God was not just a grandfather figure in the
sky, but so much more, including images that were feminine. I was challenged to see that God calls all
women and men into ministry, that worship and service belong together, just as Word
and Sacrament belong together. Richard
and I affiliated with a church that was predominantly African American and
learned just a touch of how it feels to be in the minority and among people
whose cultural self-image has been damaged by years of racism. We learned that loving God without loving
humanity, all of humanity, is impossible.
Then in a first call as pastor, I developed close friendships with
homosexual persons, church members, who loved Jesus as much as I did, some of
them in long-term relationships, loving their partners as much as I loved
Richard. I found through study and reflection with
these brothers and sisters that my mind was changed about what the Bible was
really teaching us about that – cultural context of the scriptures again. This was the 90’s. Then we moved to England and worshiped
with Anglicans in Cambridge, and I came
to a new appreciation for what it means to be Christian in a culture that was
post-Christian, only 3% of the population being church-goers there. I learned in that context that to be
evangelical was to live out my faith long before trying to speak about it with
friends who were not part of the church and had serious misgivings about all
Christians.
For the first time in my life, I began to appreciate the power of a common
prayer book, where repeated prayers come to life, through the repetition of
them, with careful attention to the movement of God’s Spirit. How lighting candles and smelling incense and
hearing chants and meditating with icons can help us to pray. Having circled back to my childhood church
for a couple of years of interim pastoring, we came here to help shape the
early life of Peace, and I think I’ve learned even more what it means to be a
diverse people, from different parts of the Uni4ted States and the world, with
different experiences of the Church, different attitudes about politics and the
social issues of our day, with different expectations of who this church should
be. And I’m still learning what it
means to be unified in Christ, yet diverse in perspective, such that authentic
community, even communion in the Spirit is not only possible but indeed our
reality most of the time.
We are learning at Peace and at the presbytery how to listen to one
another, without saying “yes but.” We
are learning that relationships are more important than being right or agreeing
about everything.
Paul tried to help the Corinthians see that loving relationships were more
important than being right. The
Corinthians struggled with this. In the
opening of the letter, we hear Paul telling them that it not about which leader
they follow – Paul or Apollos or Cephas – but that they are united in
Christ. It is not about being wise in
the eyes of the world, but being foolish for Christ’s sake. He goes on to explain that how you live
does in fact matter. It does. We should glorify God in our
relationships. It is not anything
goes, with God, because God’s love will always be there. All things are lawful because of our freedom
in Christ, but not all things build up.
We are to seek that which builds up the other. We are not to judge the other, not to do
things that offend another, but seek always to build up the church. Paul addressed conflict over leadership, conflict
over marriage, conflict over foods, conflict over appropriate clothing,
conflict over how to celebrate communion, conflict over circumcision, conflict
over lawsuits, conflict which gifts are most important in the church. Hear now what he says about gifts:
1 Corinthians 12:4-13
Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5
and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there
are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them
in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for
the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance
of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same
Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of
healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to
another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various
kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All
these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually
just as the Spirit chooses. 12 For just as the body is one and has
many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it
is with Christ. 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into
one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of
one Spirit. (NRSV)
The same Spirit. The same
Lord. The same God. Of the Spirit, through the Spirit,
according to the same Spirit, by the same Spirit, by the one Spirit.
By one and the same Spirit, just as the Spirit chooses. One body, one Spirit, one body, of the one
Spirit. Varieties of gifts, varieties
of services, variesties of activities.
Many members. Wisdom, knowledge,
faith, healing powers, miracles, vision or prophecy, discernment, tongues and
interpretation of tongues.
We must not confuse unity with uniformity. We are different in gifts as we are in
appearance. God speaks to us, and gifts
us differently. But God puts in us a
desire for unity, so we are always looking for ways to connect with other
people. But that desire to find unity
should never be forced by trying to be identical to other people or trying to insist
that other people be identical to us.
Have you ever noticed how when someone starts telling a story and you find
a connecting point, you are often in such a hurry to interrupt and say how your
story connects with theirs? Slow down,
my friends. Slow down. In trying to rush to unity, you are not
hearing their whole story, and the nuaces that make their story unique. DO NOT rush in with your story. Hear theirs, all the way. Ask questions to keep them talking. Dominant voices crowd out quiet ones, but
quiet voices have something to say.
The other thing we do that is even worse that interrupting with our point
of unity, is bringing up hastily our point of disagreement. They begin to speak their truth, and we
interrupt with “Yes but…” or “How you
can say….” Slow down and be more discerning. Do you really think you need to “correct”
their truth? Does the Spirit really want
you to assert your point. Or is there a
gentler, kinder way of hearing them out, and asking more questions, and finally
expressing yourself in a less antagonistic way?
When someone
is getting on your last nerve by expressing a faith or sharing a gift or
service or activity that you cannot appreciate very much, think of Paul’s
word: Variety…but the same Spirit. Many members but one body. To each is given the manifestation of the
Spirit for the common good. For the
common good. Is there a way to
appreciate this gift, this activity, this service as being for the common good? If not, then is there a way for you to encourage
the person to be more concerned for the common good as they share their wisdom,
knowledge, faith, gifts of healing, discernment or whatever it is that they do?
Can we hold on
to both unity and diversity? Yes, in
the Christ’s Spirit who meets us in the communion of wine and bread, and in the
true community of brothers and sisters, who value one another’s dignity
completely, yes we can.
But it is
hard work, requiring us to listen more than speak, to care about another’s
experience more than sharing our own experience, to value relationships more
than being right. It means we do not
rush to conclude discussions and make decisions. When relationships matter more than being
right, the Spirit has room to breathe in us and to move among us, and to make
our unity something that transcends our diversity. It takes patience and discernment. Remember that Paul ends this discussion of
the variety of gifts by saying no gift is of value without love. If I have all powers but have not love, it
is worth nothing.
On Pentecost
Day, after all that wind and flame and people speaking in different languages, Peter
addresses the congregation. He quotes
the prophet Joel who declared God word saying:
I will pour out my Spirit upon all, and your sons and daughters will
prophecy, and your young men shall see visions while your old men dream
dreams. Today we give to the Pentecost
Offering believing that the Spirit of Christ is still giving visions to our
young adults and youth. We will hear
from Russ Kerr, who has been accepted in the Young Adult Volunteer program to
serve in an inner city mission for the next year, while being in an intentional
community with other YAVs. Our prayers
and support are with you Russ.
Our prayers
are also with Matt Grantham and three elders and three ministers from Peace
River Presbytery as they travel this week to join the other six hundred
commissioners from 172 presbyteries for the General Assembly in Detroit this
year. We pray that all will treasure
the variety of gifts being from the same Spirit, that no respectful voice will
be silenced, even though it may articulate a different perspective. To each is given the experience, the
presence, and the power of the Holy Spirit – for the common good. The Holy Spirit’s different manifestation in
each person’s gifts may be a unique as our facial features and fingerprints,
but it is one Spirit. May unity and
diversity come together into a beautiful spirit-filled community – both here at
Peace and with all the Presbyterians in Detroit, and with all the Christians
around the world, and with all the people everywhere, and with all of God’s
beautiful and wondrous creation.
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