1 Corinthians 12:1-11
Spiritual Vitality Exam
James Sledge January
20, 2019
Unless
you’re really new around here, you’ve probably heard something about the Renew process that we’ve been doing. There
have been a lot of steps along the way, but what really got the ball rolling
was the results of the Congregational Assessment Tool or CAT.
Two
years ago, representatives from our presbytery walked the Session through the
CAT report drawn from the survey that many of you took. The report was thirty
pages long, filled with all sorts of information and a slew of charts and
graphs. One page was a “Performance Dashboard.” It showed eight gauges that
each went from zero to one hundred. They had labels such as “Governance,
Conflict Management, Engagement in Education,” and so on.
Not
surprisingly, we scored higher in some areas than others, and much our
conversation that day focused on the lower scores. One low score was
“Hospitality,” and we talked about things we might do to address our weaknesses
in this area.
But
our lowest score sparked a different reaction. The needle on the “Spiritual
Vitality” gauge read two, but rather than discussing ways we might deal with this
area of weakness, we instead struggled to understand how this could be. Surely the
score was somehow wrong.
I should point out that these scores are
not absolute. They are percentile rankings that compare us to other
congregations who have taken the CAT survey. In addition, the CAT defines
spiritual vitality in a particular way, and when I looked at the raw data, it
didn’t seem all that bad. Significant majorities tended to agree, agreed, or
strongly agreed that their spiritual experiences impacted how they viewed life,
that they experienced the presence of God in their lives, and they tried to
connect their faith to other aspect of their lives. A minority thought that
while their faith was important other matters were more pressing. Clearly many
individuals here are spiritually vital and vibrant, yet as a community, such
folks make up a smaller percentage than is the case in most other
congregations.
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When
Paul writes to the congregation in Corinth, he addresses a group enamored with
the spiritual. But for them, spirituality is not about meditation, candles,
contemplation, or walking the labyrinth. For them, spirituality is about a
visceral experience of the divine, of the Spirit of Christ. And the definitive
experience, the one that proved you were truly spiritual, was speaking in
tongues, being so filled with the Spirit that she took you over.
Those
Corinthians who did speak in tongues thought of themselves as wise and mature. It
may seem an odd combination to us, but they were also the more well-to-do,
intellectual members. They looked down on those who didn’t speak in tongues and
didn’t have a sophisticated theology, considering them spiritual neophytes. So
they were no doubt stunned when Paul, in the opening of his letter, scored them
near zero on the Spiritual Vitality index, calling them infants in Christ… not ready for
solid food.
Paul
says that they are still in the flesh, his term for being
caught up in the ways of the world. Feeling superior to others because they
speak in tongues is proof of this, says Paul, and when he makes a partial list
of spiritual gifts, he conspicuously puts tongues, the Corinthians’ favorite,
at the bottom of the list.
For
Paul, the measure of spiritual maturity and vitality has nothing to do with who
has the sexiest gift or the fanciest theology. For Paul, it’s all about whether
or not Jesus is Lord. If he truly is, the Spirit is at work, giving gifts that
help the work of the church.
Every
time we baptize someone, every time a person makes a profession of faith to
become a member of the church, we profess that Jesus is Lord. But Lord is such
a churchy word, such an archaic word, I wonder how often we realize what we are
saying.
In Paul’s day, Lord referred to a ruler,
a king, a master, one you honored and obeyed. Jews like Paul also used the word
Lord as a reverent, respectful substitute for God’s personal name, Yahweh. And
so Paul is saying that to be truly spiritual, to be filled with the Spirit, is
for Jesus to be your king, your Master, the ruler of your life, your God.
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I
recently stumbled onto a quote by pastor and author Timothy Keller that said,
“Most people want Jesus as a consultant rather than a King, and he does not come
that way.”
Consultants
are part and parcel of modern day life. No matter what the business,
non-profit, or government agency, there are experts who can be hired to help
get better at whatever needs bettering. Congregations regularly engage church
consultants to help with everything from visioning to running a capital
campaign.
Consultants can be of immense help, but
one thing they clearly are not is the boss. Once the consultant has submitted
her report or laid out all his suggestions, the church or agency or company is
free to implement those things they like and to dismiss those things they
don’t. No one would ever call a consultant Lord.
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Tomorrow
is Martin Luther King, Jr. Day. We honor Dr. King because of his remarkable work
in the Civil Rights Movement, a cause for which he gave his life. But many in
our society are unaware that Dr. King’s work was not simply something he
decided to do. It was a prophetic calling from God. It was the difficult,
seemingly impossible task he embraced because Jesus called him, and Jesus was
his Lord. Dr. King could have stayed in his church and been a very successful
preacher and pastor, but he was a deeply spiritual man. Jesus was his Lord, and
Jesus called him to the risky work of bringing good news to the oppressed, of
fighting for justice and opportunity for all God’s children.
The
Renew process I mentioned at the beginning of this sermon has largely been
about discerning what Jesus is calling us to do. The Session feels confident
that Jesus is calling us to “Gather those who fear they are not enough, so we
may experience grace, wholeness, and renewal as God’s beloved.” And right now
the Session is working to become more clear about this calling. What stays the
same? What needs to change? What ministries, structures, activities and so on
are necessary in order to do what Jesus is calling us to do?
Determining
this has been and will continue to be hard work. But I wonder if the biggest
difficulty and impediment isn’t a simple, spiritual issue: The question of who
is Lord of our individual lives and of our congregation. To borrow from Timothy
Keller, is Jesus a religious guru whose advice we will consider and perhaps
implement if it suits our existing likes and preferences, or is Jesus our Lord,
our master, our king, our ruler, our God?
Letting
Jesus be our Lord can be hard, perhaps even more so for people who are highly
educated, successful, important, and so on. It requires giving up control, and
many of us are control freaks. But life often has a way of showing us we’re not
as in control as we thought.
The
late Eugene Peterson, author of the very popular The Message Bible translation, once wrote, “One way to define
spiritual life is getting so tired and fed up with yourself you go on to something
better, which is following Jesus.”
Following
Jesus is just another way of saying, Jesus is Lord. But neither Eugene Peterson
nor Paul are talking about simply acquiring a new boss. They are talking about
receiving a wonderful gift. As Paul writes in another of his letters where he
lists all the things he was once so proud of, that he most valued and then
says, …these I have come to regard as loss because of Christ. More than that,
I regard everything as loss because of the surpassing value of knowing Christ
Jesus my Lord. (Philippians 3:7-8)
Come,
Holy Spirit! Fill us and let us know the joy of life with Jesus as Lord.
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