Gifted

The scriptures referred to are 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.

A little boy was very restless during the sermon one Sunday. He was fidgeting, playing with the cards and envelopes in the pew pocket in front of him, dropping the pencil and getting down and crawling under the pew to retrieve it, then dropping the hymnal, climbing over his parents and being none too quiet about it all. At first it was cute but eventually he was distracting everyone including the preacher who lost his place a couple times. Finally, the kid's mom bent close to his ear, whispered something and the boy sat stock still for the rest of the sermon. As they were leaving the church, the preacher shook the little boy's hand and complimented him for being so quiet for the last half of the sermon. Then he shook the mother's hand and asked what she had said to him. She said, “I just told him that if he didn't stop interrupting the sermon, you were going to start over.”

Which reminds me of a joke my friend Arnie told me. After the service a woman goes up to the preacher and says, “Your sermons remind me of the grace of God.” Pleased, the preacher says, “Thank you!” Fishing for more compliments, the preacher asks, “In what way do they remind you of God's grace?” And she says, “They are beyond human comprehension and neverending.”

I have to confess: I don't like listening to most sermons. Part of that is how hard it is not to critique how others are doing what you do. It takes you out of the sermon when you are aware of the rhetorical techniques and the gaps in information being shared or in the logic being displayed. You find yourself going, “I would have done it differently.” I imagine it is the same problem that any director or conductor or actor has watching someone else's performance of something they had done.

Another part of it is being so familiar with most topics that after 5 minutes you kinda know what they are going to say. I used to love listening to an aged colleague preach because, with 50 years of doing this behind him, every sermon was a medley of his greatest hits. You couldn't be bored because he didn't stay with any topic for very long. If you didn't like what he was saying at present, just wait a few minutes. It would change. Because I never knew where his sermon would ultimately take us, I found the wild ride to get there exhilarating.

Sadly, we assume that sermons, and worship services in general, are inevitably dull. That doesn't appear to be the case in the early church where we are told everyone would contribute: a song, a lesson, a revelation, a message in tongues and an interpretation of that message. We are told that 2 or 3 people might get up and speak, with others evaluating what is said. And if someone had a revelation, the current speaker was to shut up. (1 Corinthians 14:26-31) No one person was allowed to drone on. Except Paul, whom we are told in Acts once preached so long one night that a young man named Eutychus who was sitting in the window fell asleep and fell out. He plummeted 3 stories and died. “But Paul went down, threw himself on the young man, and embraced him. 'Do not be alarmed!' he said, 'He is still alive.'” You'd think Paul would have learned his lesson, but the passage goes on to say, “Then Paul went back upstairs, broke bread, and ate. After speaking until daybreak, he departed. And the people were greatly relieved to take the boy home alive.” (Acts 20:10-12) Not to mention relieved that Paul had stopped talking. I will never do that to you. I haven't the gift to raise the dead.

And most of our epistle today is about spiritual gifts found in church members, some of which we don't see much of these days. Before I get to them, though, I want to point out a few things Paul emphasizes. First, there's the source of the gifts. “Now there are varieties of gifts but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God that activates all of them in everyone.” Many gifts, one God. And I like how Paul is not merely being rhetorical but enumerating the types of things given and the roles of the persons of the Trinity. The gifts are all distributed by the Spirit; the ministries are all serving the Lord Jesus; the Father is actively working in each person and in each gift.

There is also the nature of the source of the gifts. There is that odd verse where Paul says, “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says 'Let Jesus be cursed!' and no one can say 'Jesus is Lord' except by the Spirit.” Why would anyone ever assume that someone filled with God's Spirit would say “Let Jesus be cursed?” But according to the New Bible Commentary, the Greek can be translated “Let Jesus [grant] a curse.” Archaeologists have excavated curse tablets from ancient pagan temples. A worshiper would write on lead or some other material a request that a god curse an athletic, business, political or romantic rival. In the temple of Demeter in Corinth, they found a curse tablet that said, “Hermes of the underworld [grant] heavy curses.” Paul is saying that God doesn't act that way. He is not a genie, granting wishes for curses on your opponents. He is the God who is love.

It follows that the various gifts that come from God are intended to serve “the common good.” This is especially important because some of these gifts are flashier than others but the purpose is not to draw attention to the person exercising the gift but to serve everyone. You see this principle violated all the time in organizations. Some people have roles that are more eye-catching, and if they let that go to their heads, they end up aggrandizing themselves at the expense of the organization. You see it in rock bands where a lead singer or musician leaves the group to launch a solo career, which may or may not work out for them but never helps the band they left. A character in a sitcom stands out and all of a sudden the show is not about the Cunningham family but the Fonz, or not about the Winslow family but Urkel. We see it in business where a superstar CEO makes the business all about them and the fortunes of the company rise and fall with the person's popularity or infamy. You see it in politicians who forget they are supposed to be serving their state or their country. Paul is saying “It's not all about you.” You need to be thinking about others and serving the common good.

Then Paul gets down to the individual gifts. First he mentions the “utterance of wisdom.” Some people have the ability to take the long view, to see the big picture, to foresee the consequences of a course of action. They ask not “Can we do something?” but “Should we? And if we should, how do we go about it?” These people are invaluable. They keep the church focused on what is essential, what is ethical and what is practical. Sadly, this is one of the less flashy gifts. And sometimes in the heat of the moment these cooler heads are often seen as wet blankets, even when they aren't saying “Let's not do this” but “Let's not do it this way.” People who are excited about something don't want someone saying, “Slow down and let's think this through.”

Next Paul looks at the “utterance of knowledge.” Certain people soak up facts and useful, if sometimes out of the way, details. They tuck away information on how things work and how to make, use or fix them. They know how to deal with organizations or bureaucracies. They know the legal issues one will encounter. They may have picked up their expertise from their job, or their hobbies or their experiences. But what they offer are not their gut feelings but actual knowledge. They offer their opinion only if asked.

Then Paul moves to the gift of faith. Wait! Aren't we all to have faith in God? Yes, but we have it in various degrees. It doesn't take much to be effective. Jesus said that faith as small as a mustard seed would enough to remove a mountain. (Matthew 17:20) The father who said to Jesus, “Lord, I do believe; help my unbelief” had his son healed by Jesus. (Mark 9:24) After all, the power is not in us but in our God. Yet some people trust God more. It's not that the amount of faith you have increases the amount God can do for you; it increases what you are willing to attempt. Peter was able to walk on the water towards Jesus at least briefly. (Matthew 14:25-31) None of the other disciples stirred from the boat. I sincerely think that when Jesus said to the disciples concerning the 5000, “You feed them,” he meant it. (Mark 6:36) They had just returned from going out two by two to spread the good news and heal people. (Mark 6:7-13) But they did not yet trust God enough to try to feed the multitude, so Jesus stepped in to show the how to do it. Some people have the gift of trusting God more than the average Christian and those people can do wonders.

Speaking of which, Paul now gets into the miraculous gifts. What are we to make of these? Some churches have members who apparently manifest them; other churches feel that this was phenomena reserved for kicking off the new thing God was doing by creating the church, rather like the tongues of flame and mass speaking in tongues on Pentecost. They feel that time is over. I must confess that I am ambivalent about this subject. After all my own recovery can be seen as miraculous, considering the severity of my injuries. Hundreds of people prayed for me. And I don't like to discount the experiences of other Christians. Yet there is little evidence of this being widespread these days. We also know that unscrupulous religious leaders and so-called “faith healers” use all kind of illusions and tricks to fake miracles. And I feel that too much focus on such things can be unhealthy, as indeed Paul felt. The whole reason for this discussion is that the church in Corinth considered those with flashier gifts to be more spiritual than those with the less dramatic ones. Paul is saying that no one has every gift and all gifts are important.

So does that mean the rest of this passage has nothing to say to those who do not manifest the miraculous gifts? I don't think so, any more than I think Paul's discussion of the problem of eating meat previously offered to idols is irrelevant. That issue was about the attitude and behavior of Christians who recognized that other gods don't exist, and whose consciences were strong enough not to be bothered by it, towards those who, recently converted from paganism, could not bring themselves to eat meat. The underlying principle, that the stronger Christians should accommodate the ones whose consciences were troubled by the issue, is still valid.

Plus, as we saw with faith, the gifts exist on a continuum. Even if someone can't cure people with a touch and a prayer, there are those with a knack for healing. Though someone may not be able to perform miracles like multiplying food, there are those who can do "powerful works," which is closer to the literal Greek. Even if someone can't speak tongues one hasn't learned, there are those with a talent for acquiring languages. When I and my fellow classmates were struggling with Greek, I had a friend who never met a language he couldn't master. Again someone might not be able to miraculously interpret tongues, there are those who can translate what others say into words that folks can understand. C.S. Lewis, for instance, read classical theologians in their own languages and was able to communicate the riches of their thoughts in conversational English.

You may have noticed that I skipped two gifts on Paul's list: prophesy and discernment of spirits. That's because those two gifts are not as rare as the others. We tend to think that prophesy is exclusively about prediction but it is not so much about foretelling events as relaying God's message, whether it has to do with past, present or future. At Pentecost, the Spirit spoke through all the disciples but they weren't talking about what would happen but what had happened in the life, death and resurrection of Jesus, as well as the present outpouring of the Spirit. The key to prophesy is God speaking through the person. If you look at the prophets in the Old Testament you will see that they are giving messages of God's judgment on certain behaviors and attitudes as well as words of reassurance and restoration to the oppressed and those who heed God's word and turn their lives around. As someone has put it, the prophet is called to comfort the afflicted and afflict the comfortable.

A good preacher can be prophetic, provided she/he is intent on communicating God's word rather than personal opinions. The preacher's focus should be on God's agenda, not his or hers. The preacher should expound the principles of the kingdom of God, not the policies of a specific political party or politician.

Which brings me to a gift rarely mentioned: the discernment of spirits. Remember that the worship service described by Paul had opportunity for anyone who had a contribution in the form of song or a lesson or a prophesy to share it. Obviously that format could allow some people to push their own agendas or their own peculiar interpretations of scripture or their own supposed revelation. Paul said some others had to evaluate what was offered. Some people had the gift of distinguishing if these things were in fact being offered in the right Spirit. Were they in line with the Spirit of God who produces love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, gentleness, generosity, faithfulness and self-control in us? This is a much needed gift today where we often hear of so-called Christians saying and doing awful things in the name of Christ. Someone needs to point out that these things are not done or said in the Spirit of Jesus.

The purpose of all of this should be, as Paul says elsewhere, “to equip God's people for the work of ministry, for building up the body of Christ...” (Ephesians 4:12) Again all of these gifts are to be used for the common good. And everyone has a gift. Though maybe not these. This is just one of 3 such lists we find in Paul's epistles. None are exhaustive. But we are assured that God activates gifts in everyone.

So how do you figure out what your gifts are? They are usually at the intersection of what you are good at and what is good for the body of Christ. And often they are also what you enjoy doing, at least once you really get into using them. Sometimes the reason you haven't found your gifts is because you haven't stepped out of the rut of what you usually do. Move out of your comfort zone; try doing something else and see if you have the knack for it. The only way anybody learns if they can do something and if they like it is by trying it. That's how kids find their talent for music, sports, drama, writing, making stuff, etc. And as Paul tells his protege Timothy, “God has not given us a spirit of timidity, but of power and love and self-discipline.” (2 Timothy 1:7)

It is God's intention that we all have some ministry, some way of serving others and building up the body of Christ. Or as it says in 1 Peter 2:5, “you also, like living stones, are being built into a spiritual house, to be a holy priesthood...” Too often we think the only priest is the person with the most visible ministry. But, to paraphrase Paul, if the whole body was a mouth, how would you see or hear or do anything? The guy at the altar or behind the pulpit can't do it all. Fortunately he doesn't have to. Each of you has been given gifts to equip you to minister to the church. Which means each of you is a gift to the church, bestowed upon us by the Father of lights, the giver of every good and perfect gift.