One in Many

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

The first Captain Marvel was not owned by Marvel comics, nor by DC comics, but by Fawcett comics. You may remember that the original Captain Marvel is really a boy who, when he says the word “Shazam,” becomes a man with the powers of 6 ancient heroes and gods. The magic word is an acronym for Solomon's wisdom, Hercules' strength, Atlas' stamina, Zeus' power, Achilles' courage and Mercury's speed. In other words, he can do just about anything. At one point he was more popular than Superman, possibly because in addition to his physical powers he had greater wisdom. The owners of Superman, another hero with every power you could wish for, sued Fawcett for copyright infringement and eventually got the rights to him. But while he is now owned by DC comics, Marvel comics, by cleverly exploiting an oversight by DC, was able to copyright the name “Captain Marvel” and use it for their own superpowered character. So today the original character is simply called Shazam.

These heroes are the ultimate in childhood fantasy characters. They are virtually all powerful. So the problem for the writers is how do you generate any suspense when your hero is superstrong, invulnerable, shoots beams of energy and can fly? I think I know why the creators of the Superman radio show invented Kryptonite as his weakness and why the comics and films picked up on it. Otherwise, practically any Superman story would be over in 5 minutes. He's too powerful for most villains to pose any real threat. And most stories need some kind of conflict or difficult obstacle to your protagonist achieving his goals. Which is why my favorite heroes were generally ones with few or no superpowers.

In the real world, nobody can do everything. Nobody knows everything or has every conceivable skill or talent. But some people think they do. They will claim an expertise in anything you bring up. What surprises me is that they can always find people who believe them. Keith Raniere who created Nexivm, L. Ron Hubbard who created Scientology, and other cult leaders have claimed to possess genius level skills in multiple fields of knowledge. Most cult leaders are self-proclaimed polymaths. Just don't dig too deep into their resumes and educational records.

In reality, we all have both strengths and weaknesses. Einstein understood physics to a degree beyond many of his scientific peers. They are still testing his predictions and finding them correct. Einstein also got lost in Princeton so often that the local police were used to having neighbors call them to pick him up and drive him home. (That would be a great weakness for a superhero. He can solve any problem...if he can just remember how to get there. Or is that Doctor Who?)

We so love the individual hero who can do everything that we have convinced ourselves they exist in real life. So we have conveniently forgotten people like the legion of scientists and engineers employed by Edison to come up with inventions credited to him. Or Rosalind Franklin, whose X-ray crystallography enabled James Watson and Francis Crick to discover the structure of DNA, for which they and not she won the Nobel Prize. Or Tenzing Norgay, the Nepalese Sherpa who was one of the first persons to climb Mount Everest but did not get the same recognition that Sir Edmund Hilary did, though one wonders if Hilary could have done it without Norgay. They say that behind every successful man is a woman. But often it is a lot of women and men who did the lion's share of the ground work for which one person received all the credit.

In the church at Corinth everyone wanted every possible spiritual gift. In today's passage Paul points out that the Spirit of God gives different gifts to different people. He says, “All of these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” Paul doesn't say why God does this but there is a clue in verse 7: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” In other words, the distribution of the gifts to various people is for everyone's good. If one person had all the gifts, there would be great temptation for him to use them for his own benefit. If you were Superman, wouldn't you become the world's benevolent dictator? And since no one could stop you, how long could you stay benevolent?

Often churches think they can find a person who is a Superman and can do all these things. They call that person a priest or pastor. And inevitably they are disappointed when he or she can't do it all.

Not even Paul could do it all. (2 Corinthians 10:10) He mentions people like Apollos who were better preachers. (1 Corinthians 3:6; Acts 18:24) His letters often end with lists of people who help him in the churches he planted. (Romans 16) Plus he suffered some kind of affliction. He writes, “Therefore, so that I would not become arrogant, a thorn in the flesh was given to me, a messenger of Satan to trouble me—so that I would not become arrogant. I asked the Lord three times about this, that it would depart from me. But he said to me, 'My grace is enough for you, for my power is made perfect in weakness.'” (2 Corinthians 12:7-9) Paul doesn't say exactly what it was but I think it was a vision problem because of remarks he makes about how the Galatian Christians would have gladly given him their eyes (Galatians 4:13-15) and the fact that he had a secretary actually write down his letters (Romans 16:22) and he signed them using big letters (Galatians 6:11). And if Paul had trouble seeing, he would not be able to be as independent as he'd like but would have to rely on others. Paul was not a Superman.

The “Great Men” way of looking at history has bled over into the way we see figures in the Bible. But they were not self-sufficient individuals doing it all on their own. Moses had the support of men like Joshua and Caleb and his father-in-law. David had his corps of mighty men. Jeremiah had Baruch, his secretary. Jesus had the Twelve to help spread his message. Paul had people like Silas, Timothy, Luke, Titus, John Mark, Aquila and Priscilla. Overall he names at least 40 people involved in sponsoring his missionary work. God doesn't endow nor does he want Lone Ranger Christians.

As in Corinth, people today are really drawn to this list of spiritual gifts, to the point that they ignore Paul's other list of gifts. In Romans he says, “And we have different gifts according to the grace given to us. If the gift is prophecy, that individual must use it in proportion to his faith. If it is service, he must serve; if it is teaching, he must teach; if it is encouraging, he must encourage; if it is giving, he must do so with generosity; if it is leading, he must do so with diligence; if it is showing mercy, he must do it with cheerfulness.” (Romans 12:6-8) These are not as flashy as the spiritual gifts but they are all functions necessary for the common good.

God is love and a key part of love is sharing with and helping one another. Ideally in the church people use their gifts to help the whole community. Every church needs people who can preach and people who can teach. They are NOT the same gift. For that matter the ability to teach adults, the ability to teach teens and the ability to teach kids are not the same gift. We need people who can sing and people who can play instruments and people who can lead the music. We need people who can organize and people who can empathize. We need people who can keep the books and people who can make wise money decisions and people who make sure the money is also used to in compassionate ways to further the mission of Jesus. We need people to maintain the church and people to reach out to the wider community. We especially need people who can bring the good news to others and who can bring people into the church.

These are all different activities which require different skills and thus different people. But they must all be done in the same Spirit, the Spirit who empowered Jesus in his ministry. Paul was probably emphasizing the fact that one Spirit distributes and activates all these gifts because in a polytheistic culture, people might think different spirits like the various gods presided over separate matters. That's not exactly a problem in today's culture but even within the church people can act in accordance with other “spirits.”

There is the spirit of competition. Some people think different churches are rivals or even enemies, rather than our brothers and sisters in Christ. The main differences between most churches are not in the basics of what they believe but in interpretations, in emphases and in polity. For instance, most churches recite the Apostles Creed, a baptismal creed that summarizes the basic beliefs of Christianity. So they agree that, say, Jesus died for us but their explanations of how exactly this worked might be different.

Churches also differ in which doctrines they emphasize more than others. Lutherans emphasize grace. Episcopalians tend to emphasize the Incarnation. But they agree on the importance of both. Again Lutherans mention baptism in just about every worship service. Episcopalians emphasize the Eucharist. But neither church neglects either sacrament; both are valued as vital to church life. It's kind of like how individual workers may differ in which tool is their favorite. But no one would use a hammer when a screwdriver is called for or throw away their wrenches.

Finally, there are differences in how churches are organized and what you call the local clergy and the officials who oversee larger districts. I'm not saying all the differences are trivial but that doesn't make us enemies. Remember what Paul says about varieties of services and activities and manifestations of the Spirit. We serve God in different ways and the Spirit reaches people through various means.

Another spirit that we Christians should not serve is Mammon or money. Of course, the church needs money to function and do ministry and pay staff and bills, but making money is not its primary purpose. When the bottom line becomes your top priority you have inverted your mission. And we have seen lots of scandals involving churches and preachers and misuse of money. Paul famously says, “For love of money is a root of all kinds of evils. Some people, eager for money, have wandered from the faith and pierced themselves with many griefs.” (1 Timothy 6:10) Notice it is the love of money that is condemned, not money itself, though it affords a powerful temptation. And notice that this translation accurately reflects Paul's original Greek: love of money is a (not the) root of all kinds of evils, not of all evil. There are other roots of other evils. But, sadly, an obsession with wealth, just like the 1849 gold rush, has caused a lot of people a lot of grief and has lured people from the true and lasting riches of faith in Jesus.

There are other spirits out there—patriotism, capitalism, liberalism, conservatism, any ism—that some churches, maybe not consciously, try to unify around instead of or in addition to the Holy Spirit of the God who is love. Our allegiance is to Jesus Christ alone and it should not be conditional on whether we think he would support our intellectual, economic or political ideas. First we commit to following the one who demonstrated the love and justice, mercy and transformative power of God in his teachings, life, death and resurrection. And then guided by his Spirit we use our various gifts to express his grace in all we think, say and do, working together for the common good.

We must stop trying to either be Superman or find one among mere humans. We have someone who is all powerful: God. And he has chosen to work through each of us using the gifts his Spirit has distributed. We are all part of the body of Christ, with distinct functions and abilities, working in unison to bring his good news in both word and deed to a world obsessed with the fantasy that someone can do it all by himself or herself. We can't. We keep trying and we keep failing. But working together in the Spirit of God's love we will find we can do all things through Christ who strengthens us.