1 Corinthians 12:3b-13
Body Parts
James Sledge June 12, 2011 – Pentecost
Today is one of the big celebrations on the Church calendar. It is Pentecost, the birthday of the Church, the day the Holy Spirit is given so that Jesus’ followers can begin to be his witnesses in all the world. Of course you would never mistake Pentecost for some of the other celebrations on the Christian calendar. Church attendance swells at Christmas and Easter, but Pentecost, especially on years when it falls in the summer, barely elicits a yawn. This year Pentecost comes at the same time as graduations and the end of the school year. If anything, attendance will likely be down in many congregations.
But despite fewer worshipers, Pentecost does share something in common with Christmas and Easter. Like those high holy days, it tends to be a recollection of something that happened long ago; Jesus’ birth, his resurrection, and today, the gift of the Holy Spirit to the Church. Isn’t it wonderful what happened nearly 2000 years ago? The disciples able to speak in other languages… Amazing. But what does any of that have to do with me or you?
Growing up Presbyterian, I didn’t hear a lot about the Holy Spirit,
except for the Pentecost story. Oh, it was there in the Apostles’ Creed that we said every Sunday. After God the Father who created heaven and earth, and then a lot about Jesus, his birth, trial, death, and resurrection, we finally said, “I believe in the Holy Spirit,” or the Holy Ghost as we said when I was a kid, only making things even more mysterious. So I believed in the Spirit, which the Creed said had something to do with the virgin Mary having a child, but none of that seemed much related to my life, in or out of church.Growing up, I never realized that “the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins,” and so on, were all connected to the Spirit. I was perfectly happy to leave the Holy Spirit to the Pentecostals and other enthusiastic sorts who practiced a less subdued, orderly, and controlled version of faith.
When I went to seminary, my particular school had a number of things they did to keep the school connected with the local congregation. One was to send out teams of students to churches within a reasonable driving distance where we would gather at the church for supper and fellowship on Saturday evening, stay that night with church members, and then lead worship and Christian Education on Sunday. I think we did this three or four times over the course of the school year.
When the team that I was part of began to think about what we would do when we visited these churches, we decided to work with the theme of the Holy Spirit. All of us, it seems, realized that our understanding of the Holy Spirit was a bit fuzzy, and we suspected the people in the congregations we would visit were a lot like us. And so with more than a little trepidation, we started working on a worship service, sermon, class, children’s message, and so on that would address this.
This was over 15 years ago, and so my memory’s a bit hazy. But I do remember that we used the same Scripture I just read from 1 Corinthians. And I recall that when I preached, I decided to test Paul on his contention that no one can say, “ ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” I told the congregation that we would try it, and then I yelled out “Jesus is Lord!” and waited to see if anything happened. Nothing did, but a number of people in the pews looked a little uncomfortable.
The Holy Spirit makes a lot of Presbyterians uncomfortable. We’re perfectly happy remembering that day almost 2000 years ago when the Holy Spirit stirred things up and empowered frightened disciples to begin proclaiming the good news to complete strangers. But the last thing we want is for a divine wind to rush through here some Sunday morning, spin us around in our seats, and launch us into some new enterprise that we have no idea where it might lead.
But Paul insists that if we have even the most rudimentary faith, the Spirit is at work in us. The Spirit is forming and shaping us into integral parts of the body of Christ. The Spirit is bestowing gifts to each of us. I’m not talking about talents that we are born with; I’m talking about spiritual gifts that allow all of us to do our part. As Paul makes clear, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit. Not “To some,” but “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Imagine for a moment that you are getting ready to attend a dinner party. Some of the folks there will be good friends and others will barely be acquaintances. There’s likely to be a bit of drinking before dinner, and clusters of folks will gather in conversation. Now nothing ruins a dinner party like people getting into a heated argument, so what topics do most people know to avoid in such settings?.. That’s right; religion and politics.
No doubt there are times when adhering to the old adage against discussing religion and politics is probably the way to go. Certainly, trying to win a religious argument at a party is bad form. But from this practice of polite etiquette has arisen the unfortunate notion that religion and faith are private things.
Faith most certainly is a personal thing. But it is not private. Faith, by its very nature, binds us together into one body. The Spirit connects and knits us together, making each of us an essential part of the body. Each of us has a role to play. Each of us had gifts to add, and when we suppress the Spirit’s work in us, we diminish the body.
Anyone in a congregation who has ever tried to recruit Sunday School teachers, elders or deacons, someone to lead a project or program, or someone to sing in the choir has heard people say, “Oh, I could never do that.” At times these objections may be well founded. The choir is probably not the best place for a person who genuinely cannot carry a tune to serve. But many times such objections come with reasons such as, “My faith isn’t strong enough. I don’t know the Bible well enough. I don’t understand the Presbyterian system enough.” Such statements may be real or false modesty, but regardless they seem to proclaim, “The Holy Spirit cannot use me.”
This disdain for the Holy Spirit is aggravated by the notion of faith as a private thing. When people think that faith is about private beliefs, that even though serving at church or in the community may be a nice thing to do but it is not an integral part of faith, it is no wonder they are perfectly content to believe and “go to church.” No wonder they think of teaching, singing in the choir, being part of a mission project, of serving as an elder or deacon as something for other people, for the extra effort sort.
But Paul tells his congregation that if in any small way they have begun to experience Jesus as Lord of their life, if in any small way the seed of faith has begun to grow in them, then the Holy Spirit is at work within them, empowering them, gifting them, equipping them so that together they can do all that is necessary to be the body of Christ. Together, when each of us adds our gifts and does our part, Christ’s presence is made know to the world through us. But when faith turns private and the work of the Spirit is resisted, the body is wounded, injured and dismembered. The Church ceases to be the body of Christ and becomes little more than a gathering of people who share similar beliefs.
I’m going to go out on a limb and say that virtually everyone here today has experienced some sort of faith. We’ve all felt ourselves drawn toward Jesus in ways great or small. And so I can say to all of you that God’s Spirit is at work in you. The presence of the risen Christ is touching you right now, seeking to stir you and activate you for the common good. The creative power of the Spirit is at work in you this very moment, equipping you to be an absolutely essential part of the body. And the body is not whole without you.
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