Nehemiah 8:1-3, 5-6, 8-10
I Corinthians 12:12-31
A church youth group was on a weekend retreat working through a low ropes course. A low ropes course is an outdoor team-building challenge usually set up in the woods and done in small to medium sized groups. They were doing well until they reached one of the more challenging elements. The teamwork and unity they had been building came to a crushing end: they sudden stopped getting along, there was a lot of yelling and screaming at one another, nobody wanted to help anyone. In fact one of the youth, an ordained youth elder at the time, tried to form a committee to figure out what to do. When the new youth pastor arrived the following year, the same church youth group returned to the same course and the same challenging element. In preparation for the retreat, the new youth pastor taught I Corinthians 12 in church school and youth group to give them the building blocks they would need.
The preparation paid off. It was a complete turnaround for the whole group. It took a long time to complete, but they stuck with it and with each other. They were getting along and working together: the stronger kids helped the weaker ones, the seniors worked with the freshmen, the quiet kids worked with the outgoing kids. When something didn’t go right they didn’t quit on themselves or each other. They persevered and tried again. They learned patience. They learned empathy and respect. They learned to trust each other. There was no yelling and screaming; everyone stepped up to help a friend who needed help; and thankfully no committees were formed. The youth group actually looked and worked like an actual group, an actual fellowship of Christ’s disciples filled with the Holy Spirit. They worked as a team and cared for one another, respecting each other’s differences, gifts and shortcomings. How you play the game matters to everyone.
The church in Corinth is plagued by a division amongst followers where some exalted themselves over others because they believed God had blessed them with unique spiritual gifts and graces.[1] There were other members who appeared to push for a uniformity that stressed one gift (perhaps speaking in tongues) over all the rest. It is a uniformity that leads to disunion and division. In our reading this morning, Paul writes of the abuse of spiritual gifts, gifts given from God to us through the Holy Spirit. He argues in favor of the diversity of Christ’s disciples, employing the well-known image of the human body. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body…and were made to drink of one Spirit…now you are the body of Christ and individually members of it.” (I Corinthians 12:13, 27)
Next Sunday, the San Francisco 49ers and the Baltimore Ravens go head-to-head where only one of them will be named Super Bowl Champions and be recipients of the Lombardi trophy. To become a Super Bowl champion requires a great deal of time, effort, preparation and commitment on the part of each player, each coach and everyone in the organization. It’s a team effort. Everyone has to be fully committed and work together to be successful.
I can best describe this by sharing with you the Super Bowl version of 1 Corinthians 12:12-26: "For the team is one and has many players, and all the players of the team, though many, are one team ... Indeed, the team does not consist of one player, but of many. If the defensive end would say, 'Because I am not the quarterback, I do not belong to the team,' that would not make him any less a part of the team. And if the right tackle would say, 'Because I am not a wide receiver, I do not belong to the team,' that would not make him any less a part of the team. If the whole team were tackles, where would the running backs be? If the whole team were running backs, where would the kickers be? And if the whole team were kickers, where would the cornerbacks be? But as it is, the coach has arranged the players of the team, each one of them, as he chose. If all were quarterbacks, where would the team be? As it is, there are many players, yet one team. The quarterback cannot say to the tackle, ‘I don't need you.' Nor can the defensive ends say to the running backs, 'We don't need you.' On the contrary ... if one player suffers, the team suffers together with him; if one player is honored, the team rejoices with him."[2]
So what Paul is saying here is that everybody matters because everybody has something to offer, something to give to society, to the church, to the world. God wants to be partners with us. God created us as partners to make creation what God designed it to be. The people hear Ezra read the Torah aloud after returning from exile. They renew their covenant with God as one united people. As partners, we share in one another’s sufferings and joys. It is a fundamental element of the Christian life. We do our part, others do their part, and God does God’s part. And although God does not need us in any ultimate sense, God wants us in every ultimate sense.[3] We are all interdependent parts of the body of Christ.
But in the church, like the church in Corinth, we occasionally forget that in the life of the church each believer is crucial. We each have different abilities and gifts to offer the community of faith and every gift is important. Every one of us has new ideas, perspectives and experiences to share. Good, effective teamwork and cooperation allow for those new ideas, perspectives and experiences to be seriously considered and perhaps implemented into the life of the community.[4] Ezra reminds us that we too are recipients of divine instruction, a people called to continued renewal and reinterpretation of God Word among us.
Unfortunately some people spend too much time and energy in the church trying to jockey for the best positions and places of honor and control. There are some people in the church who exclude others because they don’t contribute enough, or they don’t work hard enough or they don’t do things the way they’ve always been done. They are the ones who stifle, ignore and disregard the gifts and ideas of others as inappropriate.
But Paul is very clear: no one gift is better than another’s; all who confess belief in Christ have been given gifts by the Spirit; gifts that are vital to the work of God in Christ’s church. It’s the game that cannot be won, only played.
Sixteenth century poet and pastor John Donne once wrote, “No man is an island, entire of itself; every man is a piece of the continent, a part of the main…any man’s death diminishes me, because I am involved in mankind…so never ask for whom the bell tolls, it tolls for thee.” Everybody matters because we are all interconnected, having been made and formed by the Creator. Everybody has something to give to society, to the church, and to the world. Every single one of us has a purpose; a calling from God; a series of different gifts that reveal to each of us our place in this world. When someone’s gifts are not being used, it’s an offense against God. It’s not what God wants. It’s not what God needs, because God wants to unite us in Christ, with all our gifts, skills, faults and failures.
In my former congregation, the high school church school class was learning about how to be a good steward of God’s creation. They had put one of their ideas into practice through a campaign against the use of Styrofoam cups, sharing what damage they do to the environment. The alternative was to only use mugs and cups. They asked the congregation to bring in from home any old coffee mugs that they weren’t using. Instead of throwing away Styrofoam cups, they reused the donated mugs. At first it was met with some resistance: How will we keep them clean and sanitary? Where will we keep them? What if we don’t get enough mugs donated? The naysayers were all wrong. It was a hit! Everybody caught on and now it’s seen as the way we’ve always done it. The youth of the church used their gifts, talent and knowledge rooted in their Christian faith to make their world a better place.
God’s will for the church is for the Holy Spirit to edify the church through the gifts offered by that same Spirit. When we place our gifts at the feet of Christ and then offer our whole selves to Christ’s ministry, then we satisfy and we respond to God’s call. Jesus calls us to, “Seek first the kingdom of God and…all these things will be given to you as well (Matt. 6:33).
The Holy Spirit unites us, his disciples, “so just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of body, though many, are one body…in one spirit we were all baptized into the body of Christ.”(I Cor. 12:12) So we are to go and “lead a life worthy of the calling to which we’ve been called, with all humility and gentleness, with patience, bearing with one another in love, making every effort to maintain the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace. There is one body and one Spirit, just as we were called to the one hope of our calling, one Lord, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who is above all and in all and through all.” (Ephesians 4:2-5)
How do you play the game? Let us play it together as the body of Christ.
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