I Corinthians 12: 1-11

2 Epiphany / Year C

14 January 2007

The Church of the Good Shepherd

Wareham, Massachusetts

 

Preached by the Rev. David Fredrickson

 

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 who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

(1 Corinthians 12:4-7)

 

Frederick Buechner in his book, Beyond Words has one of the best explanations I have ever read of what the Apostle Paul was trying to communicate here in chapter twelve of his letter to the church in Corinth. The word for Buechner is vocation and this is what he says about it:

 

Vocation comes from the Latin vocare, “to call,” and means the work a person is called to by God. There are all different kinds of voices calling you to all different kinds of work, and the problem is to find out which is the voice of God rather than of society, say, or the superego, or self-interest. By and large a good rule for finding out is this: The kind of work God usually calls you to is the kind of work (a) that you need to do and (b) that the world needs to have done. If you really get a kick out of your work, you’ve presumably met requirement (a), but if your work is writing cigarette ads, the chances are you’ve missed requirement (b). On the other hand, if your work is being a doctor in a leper colony, you have probably met requirement (b), but if most of the time you’re bored and depressed by it, the chances are you have not only bypassed (a), but probably aren’t helping your patients much either. Neither the hair shirt nor the soft berth will do. The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.[i]

 

The Corinthian Church was a troubled community. Within that local church there were many divisions over a myriad of issues. Yet Paul begins the letter in a very hopeful way, “I give thanks to my God always for you [he says] because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind -- just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you -- so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

From here, Paul goes on to deal with the issues that were dividing the church in Corinth, but then in chapter 12 he returned to this notion of spiritual gifts. Despite its divisions, its diversity of views and values, the church in Corinth had the spiritual gifts from God to effectively live out the gospel of Jesus Christ in the world. Paul wanted to reiterate that and make it absolutely clear. “Now there are varieties of gifts, [he says] 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 who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” The Corinthian Christians needed to be reminded of the same thing we all need to be reminded of, our gifts are to be used for the common good.

In many ways we are in a much better place here at Good Shepherd than those Christians in Corinth were. We don’t have the major divisions in our community that the Corinthian church did or that so many of our churches have today. Our parish has weathered the raging storm that has pounded our Episcopal Church and our Anglican Communion extremely well; and I give you all the credit for that. But nevertheless, we have a diversity of perspective here in this parish. Many of us come from different church backgrounds, from different social, economic, and educational contexts. So I think it is still important to hear these words of Paul’s as if they were spoken to you and to me. “I give thanks to my God always for you [brothers and sisters of Good Shepherd], because of the grace of God that has been given you in Christ Jesus, for in every way you have been enriched in him, in speech and knowledge of every kind – just as the testimony of Christ has been strengthened among you – so that you are not lacking in any spiritual gift as you wait for the revealing of our Lord Jesus Christ.”

Like the local church in Corinth, we too have every spiritual gift necessary to do great and amazing things. It may be hard to believe that we have the same abundance of spiritual gifts that they had back in the New Testament, but it’s true. It is also true that our spiritual gifts are not just for use around the church. They are ours to make a better world with, to help us to bring liberation and reconciliation to the broken and disenfranchised. In short, our spiritual gifts come from God and are not something for us to boast about and these spiritual gifts are to be used for the common good, not for individual gain. In getting back to Buechner, “The place God calls you to is the place where your deep gladness and the world’s deep hunger meet.”

You and I need to ask some questions? What are our spiritual gifts, where does our deep gladness lie? Then how can we or perhaps how have we put those gifts to work to help alleviate the deep hunger that the world is feeling right now?