Full Disclosure

"Full Disclosure"

FPC 1/17/10

Psalm 36:5-10, 1 Corinthians 12:1-11

 [Read before the New Testament lesson. In recent days, the devastating earthquake in Haiti has captured much of the church’s energy and attention, and rightly so. Next Sunday I will try to give this tragedy the sermon preparation and time it deserves. This week we will concentrate on the lectionary texts already suggested.]

Retired preaching professor Fred Craddock says, “Once, before I preached in Oklahoma City at a church, a woman came up just before I stood up to speak; she came right up to the pulpit and said, ‘Before you talk, I need to know something.’

 “I said, ‘Yes, ma’am?’

 “She said, ‘Are you a knocked-down, killed in the Spirit, washed-clean, picked-up, Spirit-filled charismatic Christian?’

 “I said, ‘Well, I’m a Christian.’

 “‘Well, that’s not what I asked you.’

 “And I said, ‘Well, what did you ask me?

 “‘Are you a charismatic?’

 “I said, ‘Yes, ma’am, I am.’

 “She was real pleased and smiled big and said, ‘What’s your gift?’

 “I said, ‘Teaching.’

 “And she said, ‘Oh,’ and she left. I didn’t think it was all that bad.” (Fred B. Craddock, Craddock Stories, ed. Mike Graves and Richard F. Ward, 140-141.)

 Saint Paul is writing to the church in Corinth probably around 54 A.D.. The city of Corinth is sophisticated, cosmopolitan, filled with mobile folks scrambling up the social and professional ladders, shopping for whichever religion meets their needs or desires. Imagine living in a culture like that. Can you imagine?

 The church in Corinth is struggling with many challenges. Some members of the church are preaching and practicing an “anything goes” kind of Christian faith, especially when it comes to sexual behavior. The church itself tends to be divided and segregated along cultural and economic lines. “Let’s just be around our own kind of people.” And some members of the church have become arrogant about an unusual gift they have received from God–the gift of speaking in tongues.

Now, correct me if I’m wrong, but as far as I can tell, First Presbyterian Church is not having a problem with too many of our members getting snooty about speaking in tongues. But such snootiness is a problem at Corinth. So Paul does some teaching and correcting. And he has a little fun in the process. He says, “Now about those spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I don’t want you to be ignorant.” I don’t want you to be ignorant! Oh! Can we hear the Corinthians huffing? Can we see the steam escaping their ears? Paul says, “I don’t want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts. There are varieties of gifts from the same Spirit, varieties of services from the same Lord, varieties of activities activated by the same God.”

Paul continues, “To each person is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Or it may be translated, “To each person is given the disclosure of the Spirit for the common good.” Each person, not just some people but everybody is given a gift to disclose, to manifest the Holy Spirit not for individual gain, not for an ego excursion, not for elevated status but for the common good. And the Spirit’s work is good news for the clergy, good news for congregation members, good news for the world.

As far as clergy are concerned, over the years I’ve learned an important lesson. When someone comes into my office or catches me in the hall with a great idea for ministry, I try to listen carefully. And if the idea makes sense, I try to be encouraging, maybe even asking how I might support that person for the ministry. But what I also try to do is not to take on responsibility for that person’s ministry. If I take on responsibility for that ministry then I’ve robbed that person of the chance to use his or her gifts from God. And if I continually take on responsibility for what other folks could and should be doing, very soon my ministry suffers and I become frantic in my living. As one pastor put it, “The key to ministry: knowing what not to do and not doing it.” (David Steele, quoted by Karen Stokes in Feasting on the Word: Preaching the Revised Common Lectionary, Year C, Vol. 1, 258.)

Instead, the Spirit equips everybody in the church. And the Spirit calls every single person in the church to use his or her gifts for full disclosure of the Spirit and for the common good. The quiet tragedy is that some Christians drift through life without using the gifts they’ve received from God. Why is that? I think some people have never tried to discern what their gifts are. Maybe they don’t know how to discern. Well, good news. Here’s a shorthand version of discernment. Sit in a quiet place. Pray for God to speak to you. Then think about these questions. 1. What do I enjoy doing? What energizes me? 2. What does God’s church and world need to be done? 3. What am I good at or could become good at? That’s the quick version of discernment.

Now if you’re more curious and more committed to discovering your spiritual gifts, pick up the Spiritual Gifts Inventory that you’ll find at the entrances of the sanctuary. Take the inventory home and really put some serious time and energy into it. Let us know what you discover about yourself, how God is working in your life, and how you might share your gifts at First Presbyterian.

Another reason some folks don’t use their gifts fully is they say, “Hey, I’m busy and nobody asked me to help around here.” I empathize with that. We’re busy people. And sometimes people fill out forms to tell the church what they’d like to do, and somehow those forms disappear into an ecclesiastical black hole from which nothing, not even light, escapes. Well, good news again. This year we’re going to develop a computer database that keeps track of your gifts and interests. So if somebody in the church office types in key words such as “Sunday School teacher,” Zip!, a list of interested people will pop up on the screen. This should help us do a better job of following up with you. But let’s be honest. You can bet whatever system the church devises will be imperfect and messy, and we will accidentally not contact everybody who should be contacted. So if you feel called to do a ministry here, take the initiative, even if nobody phones you. Contact Emily, or one of the coordinating teams, or me, and let’s see how we can help God work through you.

It’s interesting that after reminding the Corinthian church that the Spirit gives gifts to all as a disclosure of the Spirit and for the common good, Paul actually lists some of the gifts. Wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, miracles, prophecy, discernment, and so on. But Paul’s list is not exhaustive. He doesn’t say anything about driving the church bus on Sunday mornings. Paul fails to mention cooking and doing dishes for church events. He doesn’t talk about youth going on mission trips. Paul leaves out the gift of children and their play. He doesn’t mention giving money to help the people of Haiti. Nor does he lift up folks who pray, sing in the choir, help the poor, maintain the church grounds, or knit prayer shawls. Serving on a church team or as an elder or a deacon are not activities that Paul commends either. Paul doesn’t list everything, because, of course, he cannot. The Spirit’s gifts are too great, too varied, too awesome to be contained in a list. But the Spirit’s gifts are for each and every one of us, waiting to be discerned, developed, and shared for the common good.

Religion professor Barbara Brown Taylor says she had no inkling of what she was going to do after she graduated from Yale Divinity School. Other students around Barbara knew exactly what they were going to be doing, but her calling was not so clear. So in the evenings for several weeks she went and sat at the top of a fire escape at “a deserted Victorian mansion next door to the Divinity School.” She prayed, but prayer, much less answers to prayer, did not come easily. She writes, “Then one night when my whole heart was open to hearing from God what I was supposed to do with my life, God said, ‘Anything that pleases you.’

“‘What?’ I said . . . ‘What kind of an answer is that?’
 “‘Do anything that pleases you,’ the voice in my head said again, ‘and belong to me.’” (Barbara Brown Taylor, An Altar in the World: A Geography of Faith, 109-110.)

God’s gifts are poured out on each and every one of us so that we might fully disclose the Spirit for the common good. God asks, “So what are you going to do? And belong to me.” Amen.