Growing Together in Grace. Purpose: To explore the gifts and challenges of working together toward a shared vision

Transcription

1 June 22, 2014 Ephesians 4:1-7 Pastor Rosanna McFadden Creekside COB Growing Together in Grace Purpose: To explore the gifts and challenges of working together toward a shared vision Good morning! Last week Pastor Doug laid out some ideas about vision, and invited you to write down your vision for Creekside Church. I want to continue to build on that foundation today, and continue to draw primarily from Paul s letter to the Ephesians. You heard Lodema read from the beginning of Chapter 4; it is a passage which was familiar to me, and I m sure to many of you, but I found that it resonated differently in The Message version. Even the headings in the text were food for thought. The NRSV, the translation I usually begin my study with, titles this section Unity in the Body of Christ -- certainly important if we re talking about working at a common vision. The Message calls this section To Be Mature -- which sounds like something different. But are these things different, really? I think it s more of a chick-and-egg proposition. This morning I want to explore how unity in the body of Christ helps us to become mature Christians, and how a commitment to spiritual maturity helps us grow in Christian unity. The apostle Paul has some really good stuff to help us along. Let me highlight some verses for you. Paul writes, Get out there and walk -- better yet, run! -- on the road God called you to travel... And mark that you do this with humility and discipline, pouring yourselves out for each other in acts of love, alert at noticing differences and mending fences... You have one Master, one faith, one baptism, one God and Father of all, who rules over all, works through all, and is present in all... But that doesn t mean you should all look and speak and act the same. Out of the generosity of Christ, each of us is given his own gift. (Ephesians 4:2,5,7)

2 Several years ago, when I was considering going to seminary to explore my call to ministry, Tim teased me about being the Don Mattingly of church: he said I could play any position. My kids joined him by talking about the things that happen in worship that I participate in: leading songs, decorating the worship table, telling children s stories, writing worship resources... and then they remembered the Media Center, and we just had to laugh, because for anybody who knows me, the idea of me creating screens or running the sound board is just ridiculous. Not that I wouldn t give it my best effort if I said I d do it and people were depending on me, but it is not my gift. In fact, there are a lot of things that it takes to make a church function that are not my gifts: if you re having a pancake breakfast, I ll paint the sign, but I m not the person you want purchasing supplies or working the griddle. I do not have the expertise to advise us about investing our designated funds. I enjoy working outside, but I don t have the skill to design a garden or even mow the property. Even the things I feel called to and have worked hard at would be pointless if everyone were like me: preaching to yourself is an exercise in futility - - I d be second-guessing every point, and I d already know all the jokes. The choir wouldn t even be any good: all sopranos and no accompanist. Paul knows, and I hope it s obvious to us, too, that unity doesn t mean that we all look and act and speak the same way. We need a diversity of personalities and interests and gifts, not just to make the church interesting, but to have it be effective. And although these gifts are related to our personalities and our interests, they not our gifts -- they are given to us through the generosity of Christ. They are given to us so that we can use them in the service of Christ, and to support our sisters and brothers, pouring ourselves out for each other in acts of love. Even this understanding of our gifts doesn t insure that everything will run smoothly with no effort from us: in order to work effectively together, we must be alert at noticing differences and quick at mending fences. You ve probably heard this quote from the world of sports [Slide 1 No I in TEAM] There is no I in TEAM It s a simple way of making the point that in order to be effective as a team, we need to put the goals of the team above our individual needs. You may have also seen this:

3 [Slide 2 There it is] Which I believe is a sneaky way of showing that every team is, in fact, made up of individuals. You really can t take the I out of TEAM, and actually, I cause more trouble if I deny that I am there. I don t stop being me just because I m part of a team. I joined this team because I believe that Christ has given me gifts to share. This is where maturity comes in: how do I take responsibility for my own spiritual growth and maturity so that I can use the gifts that Christ has given me without getting hung up on myself and how special and important I am? How can I use my gifts and still respect and affirm the unique gifts of other people? [Slide down] Incidentally, I also found a graphic which read, There is no I in team, but there are 4 I s in platitude quoting idiot. Which I take to mean that the message of the gospel can t be reduced to a T-shirt or a bumper sticker. Growing in Jesus is not a quick fix or even weekend project, it s the work of a lifetime. Maturing in Christ is complicated and emotional stuff that we should handle with sensitivity and respect. It might seem like the first step toward unity in Christ is for us to all agree on the same objective: if we all have the same goal, we ll all be working together, right? Not necessarily. Let me give you another sports illustration: I am a World Cup soccer fan. I don t follow professional soccer in the US or internationally on a regular basis, but I love the intensity and the variety of the World Cup, and this year s games have been great so far. All of those teams arrived in Brazil with the same objective: to win the World Cup. Does that mean that they re all working together and cooperating and building one another up? No, of course not. They re competing fiercely, doing everything they can to win, or at very least, not to lose. That s because there are limited resources: only one team can win; only one team can accomplish the objective that 32 teams came with, the objective that all of those individual team members trained so hard to accomplish. Only one team can win. That s why the competition is so fierce. If our objective is for our congregation to win, then other Christians in other places have to lose for us to reach our goal. That s not the model that Paul gives us of what the church should be like. Growing together in grace is something different than winning. Growing together in grace assumes something besides competing for limited resources. Judy De Pue has asked Church Board members to

4 consider their answers to a basic and important question, and I would invite you all to consider it, too. Here s the question: Why do we exist? Another way to consider this is How does Creekside contribute to making the world a better place? I m looking forward to hearing those answers, because I think they re the foundation of our vision as a congregation. I d invite any of you to share your answers with me or Elizabeth or Doug by , or write them down and leave them in the church office. I really hope there s something in those answers about the grace of Jesus, because if there isn t, I think we have missed the mark in a major way. The grace of Jesus what gives us unity as a church: unity, not just conformity that tries to get us all to look and act and think the same way. The grace of Jesus is what helps us to become spiritually mature. The grace of Jesus is a free gift which is offered to everyone; it is one resource that the church is given which is unlimited. It doesn t come from us, we can t control it, and if we try to keep it for ourselves, it s gone. It is the grace of Jesus which frees the church from the competition of winning or losing. The grace of Jesus is what allows me to bring myself to the team (there is me in TEAM, by the way) and offer Christ s gifts without worrying about what everyone else is doing. Competitive thinking is an easy trap to fall into, but it can be destructive to the church, and it can get in the way of growing together in grace. If you have ever wished that a ministry of this congregation would fail because you weren t in charge of it, or don t like the person who was in charge of it -- you have blocked the grace of Jesus. If you think that money that is given by your sisters and brothers is for your ministry rather than the good of the entire congregation, you have lost track of playing for the team. If you feel like there s a limited amount of good will, and affirmation for someone else means that they got your share so you are not appreciated, you have missed Christ s gift. If you say you love God but hate your brother or sister, you re a liar -- I know that s a strong statement, but I got it from the Bible, (I John 4:20) so I think it s OK to say. This kind of competitive thinking sneaks up on all of us. Last Sunday my family was driving home from church and took the road which goes by the big community church around the corner from my house. They were wrapping up their annual Dadfest and hundreds of people were trying to pull out of the parking lot in front of us. Despite

5 police assistance and volunteer traffic control, it was a long wait, and I had time to ponder, what would it be like to have a church of people? They re giving away a motorcycle, and my congregation has to have a pledge drive to upgrade our sound system. I bet they re not that great a Christians. I mean look at that rude driver who just cut me off coming out of the parking lot of their church. And just before I went like this -- I remembered that I was also coming home from church, and I m the pastor. You know what, we re all playing for the same team. I am so grateful that you have chosen to play on this team in this place. I m sure some of you have gifts that we haven t even discovered yet, but I am humbled by the generosity of Christ and the variety of individuals and gifts which are assembled here. I am so blessed that when I preach, someone else creates the screens and runs the sound. Most of all, I m convinced that the most precious thing we are given is the wonderful grace of Jesus. It is precious because of the cost at which it was purchased, and is it precious because it is boundless and eternal and free. If we can release ourselves from the need to compete for limited resources and instead make it our goal to give away as much of Jesus grace as we can, we will find maturity and unity in Christ. As we grow in grace as part of the same team -- the Creekside team which is cooperating with other teams for the Kingdom Cup -- we will find life and hope for ourselves, for our congregation, and for our community. We will be rooted in God, growing in Jesus, and bearing fruit in the Spirit. Amen.