Wednesday, August 30, 2017

Tenth Sunday after Trinity (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)

“Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” Grace, mercy, and peace to you from God our Father and from our Lord and our Savior Jesus Christ, Amen. The text for our sermon this morning is the Epistle lesson read a few moments ago from the first letter of Saint Paul to the Church of God in Corinth. Dear friends in Christ: What is more important, diversity or unity? I could hardly have picked a more explosive question. If you want to see some excitement, just drop this hand-grenade into a faculty forum at a major university, or a newsroom staff meeting, or onto the floor of Congress, then quietly (and quickly) walk away. How you answer this question puts a label on you, liberal or conservative, Republican or Democrat, but the debate isn’t that simple. Both sides of the aisle call for unity, the differences come in how diversity plays into that unity, and what kind of diversity we’re talking about; there the debate lines are drawn. But this question is certainly not restricted to the secular realm. Foundational to the debates that rock Christianity in general, and our church body in particular, is the question: How much diversity in practice can we tolerate while still remaining unified in confession? That question is the key to the worship wars, to debates over the role of women in the church, to arguments over communion practice, to division of almost any kind.

What is more important, diversity or unity? Saint Paul has as much to say about our political and social debates over diversity and unity as the book of Daniel has to say about dieting—that is, absolutely nothing. But he may have something to say about the similar debates in the Church, and his solution is quite simple: diversity flows from, and is in service of, our unity. Both diversity and unity are important, but the center of gravity is always found in our unity, unity in the one Spirit who gives all good gifts to Christ’s Church, gifts given in diversity to individuals for the service of the whole.

You see, Saint Paul cannot conceive of a congregation that isn’t diverse. Not necessarily ethnically diverse, though that will certainly be the case as the Gospel goes out to the four corners of the world. That kind of diversity is only skin deep—the great message of the Gospel is that Jesus died and rose for all, every nation, tribe, language, and race, and such outward diversity really means nothing when it comes to salvation and the gifts of the Church. No, Paul is thinking of the diversity that still exists among brothers and sisters in Christ, that isn’t abolished by the common call of the Gospel, the diversity that comes when the Spirit gathers a variety of individuals into a congregation and gives to each different gifts. Not everyone is given the same gift, and not everyone is given gifts in the same measure. The differences can be vast from one Christian to another. He gives us just a taste of what these gifts might be: “To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the ability to distinguish between spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.”

That’s a pretty impressive list, with some incredible gifts. But the list isn’t the point. If you leave this sermon thinking that you need to go take a spiritual gift inventory, or that you need to find a congregation where people still do miracles, heal, and speak in tongues, you are falling into exactly the trap that Saint Paul is warning about. The time of the incredible, extraordinary manifestations of the Spirit came to a close nineteen centuries ago. Those gifts were for the age of the apostles, the first decades of the Church, and we are not to expect them any longer. Indeed, it isn’t even Paul’s intention for us to match ourselves with some list of spiritual gifts at all. Instead, Paul wants us to recognize that we all have been given different gifts, with this key: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

The common good. That’s what spiritual gifts are for. The Spirit gives them in diversity for the good of all. A congregation that is filled with people gifted in exactly the same way is woefully deficient. Only a body of believers who has a variety of gifts can supply what others lack, the assembly of Christians can then fit together like a puzzle, or to use more Biblical imagery, we can be built together as a house, or live, move, and have being as a body. Each part is necessary, and each part supplies something the others don’t have, something essential. No matter what gifts the Spirit has given you, no matter in what proportion He has given them, they are for the good of the Body of Christ, the Church universal, and for your fellow believers.

All gifts, in their wondrous diversity, have their unity in their source: the Spirit who gives them. He gives the foundational gift, the gift from which all others flow, the gift of faith. “I want you to understand that no one speaking in the Spirit of God ever says ‘Jesus be accursed!’ and no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except in the Holy Spirit.” There is no room for looking down on any in the Church as if they are sub-Christian or even non-Christian because they don’t seem to have much (or anything) in the way of spiritual gifts. The fundamental, foundational, vitally important spiritual gift is the gift of faith, faith which confesses Jesus as Lord. No other gift is possible without this one, and every other gift is secondary next to it. This gift makes you a part of the body, this gift makes you fit building material for the house. You cannot be saved without it, for the forgiveness of sins, won by the death and resurrection of Jesus Christ, is received only by faith, and faith is only given through the Spirit.

Mute idols can make no one speak, nor can the dead make themselves alive, but the Spirit has come to you and done both; He has raised you up in Christ’s resurrection and He has given you faith to confess your Savior’s holy Name. Jesus died for all, every nation, tribe, language, and race; all humanity, despite our diversity, is unified in two facts: we are all sinners, and Jesus died for us. And all Christians, despite our diversity in spiritual gifts, are unified in this single fact: the Holy Spirit has created faith within us through the Word and the Sacraments, and we are members of the kingdom of God, brothers and sisters of each other, brothers and sisters of Christ. There is our unity, given in this one spiritual gift, the one that comes before all others: the gift of faith.

No other spiritual gift saves, no other spiritual gift brings you Jesus, every other gift is for the common good of the body, they do not make you Christians, but this one does. So there is no room for bragging or boasting in the Church, there is no room for looking down on others with regard to spiritual gifts. In common, we have the greatest spiritual gift, faith, which delivers to us Christ’s blood-bought treasures, and then every other gift is exactly that—a gift!—for the good of the body of Christ. “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of service, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who empowers them all in everyone.” Spiritual gifts are not ours at all, they are gifts entrusted to our use, and they are for the good of the Body of Christ. That’s why the Spirit gave them. The Corinthians held some gifts more highly than others (speaking in tongues!) and looked down on others who had more ‘boring’ gifts, or didn’t seem to have much in the way of gifts at all. Their life as a congregation was a competition to see who was more ‘filled with the Spirit’ than others.

Brothers and sisters, this should not be! “All these are empowered by one and the same Spirit, who apportions to each one individually as He wills.” The Spirit is interested in diversity, in variety, and He determines how he will give the gifts; it is not human choice, individually or as a congregation, that gives out spiritual gifts. That is the task of the Spirit, and He does this for a specific purpose. “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” It is not our Church, it is not our congregation, it is Christ’s Church, His congregation, and He has sent the Spirit first to deliver His forgiveness in our midst, and then to give the spiritual gifts necessary for the building up of His Body in this specific place and around the world.

So there is no need to take an inventory, but it is worth thinking about how the Spirit has blessed you with certain gifts and how those gifts may be used in service of the common good, for the building up of the Body of Christ. These gifts always serve the good of the whole, and thus are never for our own personal use, or to be exercised apart from God’s Word. Someone who thinks that they have the gift of preaching should first consult Scripture’s qualifications for a pastor and then, if qualified, seek the Church’s order of putting a man into the office of preaching. In the same way, we can have diversity in practice only if such diversity doesn’t threaten the unity of our confession founded on the truth of God’s Word. Diversity must serve unity. Our variety of gifts are to be used for the good of others in accord with God’s Word.

So what is more important, diversity or unity? Throughout our text there is a pattern, a cadence, between diversity and unity, but in every case, the emphasis is on the latter: the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God. The diversity that we find in the Church flows from what unites us: our common confession that ‘Jesus is Lord,’ the Holy Spirit’s gift of faith, the death and resurrection of Jesus in our place and on our behalf, the same Triune God to which we now belong. The blessed diversity that we find in the Church serves the unity of the whole, the common good. Diversity serves unity, it never rules over it, for we all have one Scripture, one Lord, one faith, one Baptism, one Jesus who died for us, one Jesus who rose for us, one Jesus whom we confess as Lord by the one Holy Spirit who gives us every good gift. In Jesus’ Name, Amen.

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