Now about spiritual gifts, brothers, I do not want you to be ignorant. You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit. There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men. Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. To one there is given through the Spirit the message of wisdom,to another the message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he gives them to each one, just as he determines. (1 Corinthians 12:1-11)
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Have you ever said something to someone - something that you thought was pretty important - and they just didn’t get it. No matter how hard you tried, no matter how hard you went over it again and again, they just didn’t get it. It’s a frustrating experience. You know what you’re saying, you think you’re saying it pretty clearly, you say it over and over again - and somehow the point doesn’t sink in. That’s what Paul would be thinking about this passage today. Everybody thinks that the passage is about spiritual gifts. Bibles with subheadings usually entitle the passage “On Spiritual Gifts” or something like that. And, yes, Paul opens the passage by writing “now concerning spiritual gifts.” But it’s not about spiritual gifts. Paul isn’t giving a list of spiritual gifts, or saying that everybody and every Christian community has to have these spiritual gifts. He recites a few (there are many other spiritual gifts mentioned in the New Testament; this is only a sample menu, so to speak, and he’s saying what he’s been saying all through this letter - to paraphrase “your problem isn’t spiritual gifts; it’s how you’re using them and it’s why you’re using them. You’re using them to divide yourselves; you’re not using them to create the one body of Christ.”
You’ve heard the old saying “all for one and one for all.” I want to push that old saying a little bit farther today (and, who knows, maybe I’ll manage to start a new saying!) Instead of “all for one and one for all” I want to suggest that from the perspective of the church, the real saying should be “all for all.” It’s always “all for all” - or at least it should be. That’s the basis of what we believe. We are called to be the church - but we are more than the church; we are called to be a family - but we are more than a family. We are called to be the one body of Christ, present and active in the world today, motivated and empowered by the Holy Spirit of God - the God who is love. That is our identity. In political terms, I hear people speak of either “the Christian right” or “the Christian left.” But we are neither right nor left; we are love. In denominational terms we speak of United Church or Presbyterian or Anglican or Roman Catholic or Baptist or Pentecostal. But none of that matters; we are love, just as God is love, because we are the body of Christ, who was God in the flesh. That’s the Spirit who moves us to loving service for the sake of others, and who equips us for that loving service, which is always to be exercised for the sake of others, in living out the commandment of Jesus that we love our neighbours as ourself. In other words, the Holy Spirit calls us to unity - not to a lockstep adherence to specific doctrines or particular ideologies, but to the unity of love, which is able to make room for all the differences we have and hold us together to be the love of God and the presence of Christ in the world around us.
Paul wrote, “Therefore I tell you that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.” Those who confess Jesus as Lord - in other words, Christians - are speaking by the Holy Spirit. This is the one confession that identifies a person as a disciple of Jesus - “Jesus is Lord.” We might not understand the power and the danger of that statement today. We might think of it as mere words; a rather cheap and easy confession. 2000 years ago - in Corinth, in the Roman Empire - to say “Jesus is Lord” was a big thing. It was a treasonous act. Caesar was Lord, and you denied that at great risk to yourself. I don’t know if there’s an equivalent to that in our modern church and society; I’m not sure that Christians in the Western world anyway can begin to grasp how serious a piece of business it is to place oneself under the lordship of Christ over and above all the other things that call us to serve them - even over and above the nation. Can we even try to put ourselves in the same place the Corinthians were in? Do we understand the full significance of the call of the gospel on our lives? Let’s ask the question in the way Paul was putting the issue to the Corinthians: would we betray our country for Christ if we became convinced that Christ’s call on our lives was incompatible with our country’s call? Would we take the risk? Some will do it for far less reason. According to the news in this past week, Sub-Lt. Jeffrey Paul Delisle sold Canadian and NATO military secrets to the Russians for a measly $3000 a month. All it took was $3000 a month - and that was a reward! If you were in Corinth 2000 years ago you risked literally everything to say three simple words - “Jesus is Lord.” That’s why you needed a community, a church, a family. Strength in numbers, you know. People who shared the risk with you. All for all - in it together. And it all fell apart because some of the folks in that church started thinking they were better than others - maybe loved more by God; maybe better and more faithful Christians; maybe just more important than everybody else. And immediately, once they lost their sense of being “in it” together - once they started to distinguish between those they thought were more important and those they thought were less important - their witness suffered. They couldn’t possibly be the one body of Christ if they weren’t all in it together as equals.
The Corinthians had fallen into that problem. They may have been taking the same risks to be a public Christian outside the community, but not everyone was comfortable with equality within the community. They started to divide themselves up according to who had this gift or that; this ability or that; this talent or that. Some began to think that they were more important than others because they spoke in tongues or had the gift of prophecy or healing and they looked down on others who didn’t have those same gifts as somehow less blessed. And, in this passage, Paul tries to say that they’ve totally missed the point. What God has blessed you with isn’t a sign of greater or lesser love; it’s simply a call for you to use what God has blessed you with for the benefit of everyone - not to divide up on the basis of what we’ve been given, but to pool our resources together for the sake of the community. “All for all” in other words.
It still happens today. I understand the psychology behind it. Generally, we like to be recognized for how important we are. Years ago, on my first pastoral charge, one of my congregations still printed in their annual report (in fact, basically it was their annual report) what they called “the subscribers’ list.” It was a detailed listing (by name and amount) of every person who had donated anything to the church in the past year and how much they had donated. I opposed it. It seemed to me to be unChristian, an attempt simply to make the big givers feel good about themselves and increase their control over the congregation’s life, and to shame those who didn’t have as much or who couldn’t give as much into letting the big givers have their way on everything. Unsurprisingly, the loudest voice in favour of the list was also the biggest giver, and the power broker of the congregation who always got his own way on everything. That stranglehold on power within the congregation was a symptom of a deeper spiritual sickness - the same as the sickness that infected Corinth. We do it in different ways today, but we do it. A “subscribers’ list” is one example. I know Christians today who are adamantly convinced that if you don’t speak in tongues you don’t really “have” the Holy Spirit - as if the Holy Spirit is a commodity to be possessed. I want to say to you quite frankly that I don’t “have” the Holy Spirit, but I sure hope that the Holy Spirit “has” me. That’s all that matters. Some in the modern church talk about “good” Christians vs. “bad” Christians or - even worse - they make lists of the “real” Christians and dismiss everyone else by doing so. Some in the church get fixated on voting but all voting does is create winners and losers - and the church isn’t called to be democratic, it’s called to be discerning, and when voting to determine the will of the people rather than praying to discern the will of God becomes the priority, then the church is in trouble (and I have to say that in most church meetings I’ve attended over the last 20+ years in all congregations and at all levels of the church there tends to be a lot more voting than there is praying!) Some in the church think of themselves as the “spiritual” ones and are dismissive of those they see as less “spiritual.” And Paul (and probably Jesus too) would watch all this - and weep.
What happened to “there are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit. There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. There are different kinds of working, but the same God works all of them in all men.” Same Spirit; same Lord; same God. We’re all called for the same purpose - to respect and hounour each other’s contributions, to work together, to share our gifts and talents, to pool our spiritual and maybe even our material resources to further that purpose - all for all - to share love and grace and hope with one another and to bring love and grace and hope to others. That’s all that we’re about. And all of us are about it. All for all. There is no other way.
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