Of Body and Spirit

Pentecost A – sermon based upon 1 Corinthians 12: 3-13

Good morning. It is so good to be with you on this day of Pentecost. I’ve missed you over the past month but I’ve kept up with some of the happenings and you’ve always been close to my heart and in my prayers. I wanted to make a joke about how long it’s been by how quickly my hair is growing back but I couldn’t really think of anything witty to say so let’s just jump into this scripture.

Today’s scripture passage around the gifts and the body of Christ offers us a familiar image and calling. But like most scripture, we are blessed with a new hearing each and every time we encounter it. So, on this day where we celebrate the birth of the church, Pentecost, what does God want us to hear with newness?

Well, the passage is pretty straightforward and there isn’t much in the way of controversy in its meaning. The passage is very clear that there is one Spirit, one Christ, and one God and that all gifts, services, and activities flow from the one triune God. God is the breather of life, author, & initiator of all gifts and services. Verse 7 tells us, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” Verse 11 says, “All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

All of our gifts and callings, every last one of them, come from God and are activated by the Spirit to work in the body of Christ. When we survey our lives, it can be so easy to pat ourselves on the backs for what we’ve done or achieved. But when we use our intuition or wisdom or compassionate heart, we must know that those things flow from God for the glory of God. Actually, the scripture said specifically they are “for the common good.”

This brings us to another point of this passage that reminders us that there are many different kinds of gifts and callings in the body of Christ. Verses 8 through 10 give us a litany of gifts and fruits of the spirit. But why is it that there are all these amazing gifts from God… compassion, healing, empathy, wisdom, leadership, faith, insight, tongues, hope, prophetic voice, and so many more… yet, we each only get a handful?

Well, most of us struggle to master even one or two of the gifts and callings in our lives let alone a bunch of them. As friends and neighbors, it takes hard work to use our particular gifts… the listening ear, perfect timing for distraction, asking intuitive questions, bravely challenging problems. Whatever our deepest gifts are in our friendships, it takes lots of effort on our part to use them well.

And what about our other relationships and roles like work, family, and even our faith community? Pure and simple, it’s just hard to develop a few of our gifts well and get them on the path God is calling us to. And even more difficult than that, when we do master a few, it becomes especially challenging to stay humble and remember from whom these gifts came.

But there’s more than the obvious “human” limitations going on here. We are not called to be individual gods, possessing all gifts and wholeness of the one God. Scripture says, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” The common good... we are called to be joined together for the betterment of all. When we join all our gifts together, we become Christ’s presence in the world… God’s love reaching out.

If we each had all gifts and roamed about as our own mini-gods, we would become increasingly self-centered because we lacked the need to open ourselves to what others can teach and give us. Instead, God wisely gave us each differing gifts in various combinations. That would mean that we could each have some special function but that function is only made whole in the presence of other parts. It is for the common good, the greater good that we have these gifts. And if they are truly made whole by joining together, we will be compelled to reach outside of ourselves.

So what do I mean by this? Take for example the gift of compassion. It is an amazing gift that can produce healing, connection, and fill voids in people’s lives. But how do we have it? Well, a seed of it is planted in us. But to grow that seed, we must water it with the experiences of others. We grow compassion by extending ourselves to others and growing in our ability to put ourselves in someone else’s shoes. What about leadership? Leadership is usually a combination of gifts that come together. Some do it through honing their gifts of good planning and charm. Others lead by being able to articulate big visions and ideas. Regardless, the point is that no one ever became a great leader overnight. It was by extending one’s self to others that the experience was gained to develop that gift.

And the church should be a safe proving ground for such gift cultivation. When we volunteer to set up tables, we’re practicing gifts of stewardship and mutual support and we’re deepening relationships. When we participate in worship, we are doing so in a community that is founded upon grace so we don’t have to get it perfect. We just need to be faithful and the gifts will grow. And when there’s a loss or other crisis here, we can respond knowing that we are part of a community where don’t have to fix anything by ourselves because it can only be healed together.

This brings me to the last point I want to share from this passage. Gifts of the spirit are just like the many members of the body of Christ. It indeed does take all the parts to truly fix or heal or change anything for the better. The scripture says, “For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ. For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body… and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.”

We are completely and utterly bound together. Not just us inside these walls, but all followers. And as awe inspiring as that can sound, it’s also a tough one to swallow sometimes. Think about it. As people of faith, we have spent a great deal of time, energy, and money fighting with one another. For complicated reasons, we get more riled up with one another than we often do with people of no faith. Christians from other backgrounds, people that use different gifts like speaking in tongues, or even other Presbyterians become the object of our frustration and scorn. We think to ourselves, “how can they believe that?” or “they are just sinners.” We try to cut off parts of the body of Christ.

But verse 3 began by telling us “Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says ‘Let Jesus be cursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit.” So our utterances of wanting to dismiss or even push away those we don’t understand in the body of Christ do not come from the Holy Spirit. The Spirit calls us together, even when we don’t understand all the parts… even when we can only see one another’s flaws… even when we are tired of listening… even when our beliefs stand in outright conflict with one another.

But we are not called to belief. We are called to faith. Faith that is bound together by the Spirit because we were baptized into one body and drink of one cup. We, all people who have faith in Jesus, are the body of Christ. When we want to dismiss any part of the body, our job is to seek more understanding rather than getting defensive or closing off. When we can’t figure out how someone can call themselves Christian, our calling is to spend time listening. When we’re frustrated with people we don’t understand, a better use of our time would be helping develop our gifts and theirs by working together on what we do agree on… things like poverty and being with the lonely and suffering. When someone tries to cut us off from the body, our calling is to keep living the mission and reaching out.

These acts of reaching out to one another to understand and connect as I said before are the proving grounds for our faith. If we can’t figure out how to work together as a living body of Christ then our witness to the world is also diminished because we’re not working as the whole body. But when we do join together, history shows us over and over again what amazing things can be done. Consider the Civil Rights Movement, the works of the Red Cross, and even close to home think of the amazing ministries of this congregation. Living out our callings together always leads to bigger things than we could have ever done on our own.


Sisters and brothers, This is a huge calling both inside and outside these walls. But lest we get too burdened by this, come back next week and we’ll be talking about our refuge, strength, and nurture inside these walls. But for now, we wear red on Pentecost to symbolize the flames of the Spirit so this quote from St. Catherine of Sienna is fitting. She said, “Be who God meant you to be and you will set the world on fire.”

On this day where we celebrate the birth of the church, our calling is to develop the gifts that are given to us and to work hard to support the gifts of the Spirit given to others. When we do this, we become a full and vibrant living body of Christ. When we do this, we set the world on fire. Amen.