What Am I Going to Get? tree? Did you find the presents with your name on them and try to figure out what they were?

Transcription

1 1 January 17, Corinthians 12:1-11 What Am I Going to Get? Remember being a child around Christmas and looking at the presents under the Christmas tree? Did you find the presents with your name on them and try to figure out what they were? You know, pick the nicely wrapped present up and shake it a bit listen carefully to what the sound was, feel the weight of the present, look to see who it is from, and then come up with your hypothesis? I enjoy watching my children try to piece the evidence together as they look through the presents, all the time remembering doing the same thing when I was there age. It takes a few years before discovering that presents are more fun to open when you don t know what they are then when you do however, truth be told, I still try to guess what is in the box before opening it. I was thinking about Christmas presents this week because I exposed Jonathan for the very first time to a movie that has a passionate and quite large following A Christmas Story. Have you heard of, or seen, it? There are many people that adore this film and watch it every Christmas. Indeed, I was able to record it because TBS ran it over and over for 24 straight hours starting on Christmas Eve. Either TNT or TBS has done this for the past 15 years. This is a movie with a following. My oldest sister s family can recite every line from the entire movie by memory (and often will if you bring up the movie!). My kids have not had the joy of watching this seasonal comedy because (and don t tell my sister this) I am not a big fan of the movie although I must admit that there are some funny lines (just ask a fan of the movie and they can recite them for you). A Christmas Story is a comedy made in the 80s about a family who lived in a suburb of Cleveland in The whole movie is about this little 9 year old boy named Ralphie and what he wants for Christmas which is a Red Ryder Range 200 shot BB gun. He tries everything to

2 2 insure that he gets what he wants. He leaves brochures where his parents will see it, he tries to tell his parents in the most subtle but effective way, he writes an essay about it for school, he even makes a trip to visit Santa to tell Santa what he wants. Everyone gives him the same response, you will shoot your eye out with that. In the end, against all odds, he does get a Red Ryder Range 200 shot BB gun and the movie ends with him in bed clutching his new gun with warm sentimental music playing in the background and he, as an adult, voicing that that was the best Christmas present he ever received. What I notice about Christmas presents and this joyous process we participate in as I watched this movie with Jonathan is that it tends to be, I hate to say this but I think it is true, selfindulgent. It is all about the self. Think of the question we ask our various family members about Christmas, What do you want? It is the same one that Santa asks all of the children too! And after Christmas we sometime ask a similar version of the question to children, did you get everything you wanted? As I watched Ralphie fall to sleep clutching his Red Ryder BB gun, reminiscing on how that made it a Christmas to remember, it made me feel a bit uncomfortable because I could relate to what he was saying. So we come to the scripture today which is all about gifts. You know what phrase popped out at me in big bold print because it just seemed so out of place? Look at verse 7 where it says, To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Did you hear those last two words? Common good. What does the common good have to do with gifts? That s not how we tend to view gifts. That s not how the church in Corinth viewed gifts either. And this is a most interesting church. I think our tendency is to romanticize about the churches that were around when the disciples and Paul were alive; that they were somehow different from us in that they did not have conflict, inner strife, or the politics that everybody says they hate so much. Guess again. This

3 3 church in Corinth was something else. When reading this letter from Paul, one discovers that they had all sorts of issues. In the very first chapter, Paul is admonishing the congregation as they fight over who in essence is the best preacher ( I belong to Paul, I belong to Apollos, I belong to Cephas ). That in itself would be enough for a church to deal with, especially since church communities at this time are not very large in number at all. But the letter reveals many other problems as well! Chapter 5 reveals that there is sexual immorality in the church that is not found even among pagans. In chapter 6 we discover that some members of the church are taking other members to court. In chapter 8 we find a debate within the church over whether or not one should eat food offered to idols. And just before the chapter we read from today, Paul is discussing the issue that some within the church are abusing the Lord s Supper! Some of them were gorging and even getting drunk in their sacred shared meal. This church fought over just about every aspect of their life together! Can you imagine being a part of this church at Corinth? Guess what else they fought about. Gifts. Spiritual gifts. Look at how this chapter starts with Paul saying Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. The NIV uses the word ignorant instead of uninformed I do not want you to be ignorant. I think that may be a better word for how Paul was feeling as he wrote because he can t help but feel that they are a bit ignorant. And this phrase certainly does seem like slightly veiled dig at them like Paul is saying, you who are ignorant But what are they ignorant about precisely? Well, they are not ignorant about the existence of spiritual gifts. They definitely know they exist. What they are ignorant about, and what they are fighting over, is the use of spiritual gifts. They are arguing over who s got the best gift! They are in competition, comparing their gifts to each other. The gifts come to be more about themselves than about others or the ministry.

4 4 There are at least three things Paul says here that we need to hear so as not to be ignorant. First, we do not choose the gift or gifts that we receive. The Holy Spirit does not ask us, so what do you want? One pastor I read this week used the analogy of a vending machine where we stand in front and decide what we want, what will satisfy us. 1 But these gifts are not like how we treat Christmas gifts, they are not for our own self-satisfaction. Second, they all come from the same source. This is a point that Paul makes again and again for instance look at vv. 4-6 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 So if we each got our gifts from the same source, from God, how can we brag about them as if it is something we did?! The third point we need to hear as to not be ignorant is that phrase which I mentioned earlier common good. The same source from which we receive these gifts has a plan for these gifts that is much greater than merely our own self-satisfaction. These gifts are to be used to advance God s mission. Often we hear people say things like, my ministry is to or my mission is But as Christians we recognize that just as there is only one source from which these gifts come, there is also only one ministry one mission. God s. The other interesting word in this verse about the common good is the word, manifestation. What is it that these gifts manifest? Reveal? This is an interesting question during the season of Epiphany. These gifts are to reveal the Holy Spirit God. How will these gifts reveal God? When the body of the church works as one, using the gifts given to them by the Holy Spirit for the common good. Stan Mast, who was a professor at Calvin Theological Seminary as well as a pastor for many years, put it this way, There is only one place the 1 Roy M. Terry, IV, Supernatural Vending Machine: Are Christians Any More Gifted Than Others? THQ: The Hardest Question,

5 5 splendor of the Lord Jesus is clearly displayed in the world today, and that is the church, when it uses those Spirit given gifts for the common good. When the church hoards its gifts or uses them only for self-preservation or personal glory, Jesus will remain hidden from view. 2 Tomorrow we as a country celebrate and remember Martin Luther King, Jr. Here is someone who understood what Paul was saying to the church at Corinth. Martin did not dream or desire to become a preacher. He wanted to be a professor. After receiving his PhD he had offers from three different colleges. But he also received a letter from a church in Alabama. Neither King nor his wife really wanted to move back to the South, to a segregated society in which King s wife would not have the opportunities that she might find in the North, not to mention having to raise their future children in the bonds of segregation. But after days of prayer, King and Coretta agreed that, in spite of the disadvantages and inevitable sacrifices, our greatest service could be rendered in our native South. Then after becoming a preacher, he did not want to become the head of a political movement. But throughout it all this professor-want-to-be kept saying to himself, Keep Martin Luther King in the background and God in the foreground and everything will be all right. Remember you are a channel of the gospel and not the source. In every step, King remembered that his gifts were not for his own self-satisfaction but for the common good for God s mission. 3 Like King, we as a church are called to reveal the Holy Spirit through using our gifts that God picked for us, not of our own choosing for the common good. When we do that, Epiphany will not just be something we talk about, it will be something that happens. We just need to follow Paul s words and not be ignorant! 2 Stan Mast, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, Center for Excellence in Preaching, 3 Martin Luther King, Jr., Stride Toward Freedom (Harper and Row Publishers, 1958).