What then shall we say, brothers? When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church. If anyone speaks in a tongue, two - or at the most three - should speak, one at a time, and someone must interpret. If there is no interpreter, the speaker should keep quiet in the church and speak to himself and God. Two or three prophets should speak, and the others should weigh carefully what is said. And if a revelation comes to someone who is sitting down, the first speaker should stop. For you can all prophesy in turn so that everyone may be instructed and encouraged. The spirits of prophets are subject to the control of prophets. For God is not a God of disorder but of peace. (1 Corinthians 14:26-33a)
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I guess we all feel pretty familiar now with the idea of a “perfect storm.” The phrase, I suspect, first entered the popular lingo several years ago with the release of the George Clooney movie of that name about a fishing vessel lost at sea during a severe North Atlantic storm. In the last couple of weeks the phrase has re-emerged in discussions about Sandy. Sandy is now a little bit like Cher - one name is enough, and folks know what you’re talking about. We came through fine here in Niagara, thankfully, aside from some wind and rain, but it was nowhere near as bad here as some had been predicting. But we’ve seen the news. We’ve seen the devastation Sandy wrought on the Carribean - especially Haiti and Cuba - and, of course, in the last few days we’ve seen the scenes out of New York City and New Jersey, and we pray for the well-being of all those affected. A perfect storm is caused when there’s a collision; a collision of two or more otherwise normal storm systems that join together and become greater than the sum of their parts. In the case of Sandy, a strong but not unusual Atlantic hurricane joined with a strong but not unusual Arctic cold front to produce an unusually powerful “superstorm” as some of the media were calling it. It was unusual enough that Lynn and I chose to make some preparations. So, we did something we’ve talked about for years but never acted upon - we bought a generator, so that we could keep our sump pump going and have a little bit of heat in the event of a power outage; we made sure we had 20 litres of clean water set aside in the house; we bought brand new flashlights and made sure we had brand new batteries so that we could have some light. I was never a Boy Scout, but I chose to live by the motto “be prepared.” Our preparations were unnecessary as it turned out, for which we’re grateful, but - better safe than sorry. And, as it all came to an end earlier this week, I turned my attention to what God wanted me to share with you today.
We continue our journey through 1 Corinthians this morning; continuing to look at the qualities Paul identifies that help to create a stronger and more unified church; a church that overcomes the divisions and differences that can sometimes threaten to tear us apart. When we gather on Sunday morning, in a way we’re a “perfect storm.” We come with all of our spiritual gifts and with all of our spiritual baggage and we blend them together and we create something that is hopefully greater than the sum of its parts, and hopefully something that’s positive and bears witness to Christ. When Paul writes that “When you come together, everyone has a hymn, or a word of instruction, a revelation, a tongue or an interpretation. All of these must be done for the strengthening of the church,” he’s acknowledging the presence of all of these things that are present in the lives of the believers. He doesn’t mention here the negative spiritual baggage that we can bring (probably because at this point in 1 Corinthians his goal is to encourage the Corinthians by pointing out their strengths and not to discourage them by pointing out their weaknesses) but while he doesn’t mention negative spiritual baggage, he’s well aware of that as well, even in his own life. In the course of his letters, Paul speaks about his struggles with sin, and the distance he sometimes feels from God. There are times when he acknowledges that he’s not sure whether his words are only his or whether he’s being guided by the Holy Spirit. So Paul understands that any Christian community is a gathering together of many different things; a Christian community is, indeed, a perfect spiritual storm of sorts - and storms can be both good and bad. They’re a part of nature; they play a part in the renewal of the earth. They can also be tremendously destructive. What side our own perfect storm falls on depends on what we do with our differences and how well we blend them together to make something positive or whether we use them to set up barriers and to highlight differences, and what often happens is that those who seem to have it altogether become the bright shining examples of Christian faith, and those who don’t feel as if they’re missing something; as if they just don’t quite measure up.
All of Christian life is a spiritual struggle of sorts. One biblical story that I’ve always cherished as a metaphor for a life of faith is the Genesis story of Jacob wrestling with God as he desperately seeks God’s blessing and apparently tries to force the issue! Even more interesting is that in a way God cheats in the wrestling match by wrenching Jacob’s hip out of its socket. But eventually, Jacob gets his blessing. The point seems to be that even those who are struggling spiritually and who bring their spiritual struggles with them are working their way through a spiritual process that will eventually lead to a divine blessing. And we all struggle spiritually. I’ve been in a massive spiritual struggle recently revolving around preaching. For several weeks now I’ve spent a lot of time staring at a computer screen, typing a few words and then deleting them. For several weeks sermon writing has been seeming like a chore rather than a joy; a job rather than a vocation; sometimes a curse rather than a blessing. That’s tough on a preacher. It’s felt at times like I’ve been involved in a wrestling match with God, and sometimes I’m not sure that God hasn’t cheated a little bit just as He did with Jacob. I can well remember last Sunday still being up and at the computer at about 1:00 in the morning, still not sure exactly what I was going to be saying a few hours later! This week seems to have gone a little better for me in that respect - perhaps because I’ve decided that I should openly acknowledge my spiritual struggle of the last few weeks. A lot of people like to put the minister on a pedestal as a spiritual giant and example of the faith. I’m not convinced that the best way for the minister to be an example of the faith isn’t to let go of the idea that a minister has to be a spiritual giant who has it altogether spiritually and just admit that sometimes faith is tough and God seems distant and the call Christ gives us can start to seem like a burden. Because - truth be told - that’s the case for all of us. It’s part of being a Christian - and I’m not convinced that it isn’t the spiritual struggles that are brought together on a Sunday morning when we gather that aren’t more important in creating Christian community than all the “hymns, words of instruction, revelations, tongues or interpretations” that might also be present.
One of the problems with contemporary society (and even with contemporary Christianity) is that we’ve internalized our spirituality far too much. Spirituality becomes at most about us and our relationship with God and sometimes it gets reduced to being just about us and whatever makes us feel good about ourselves. But Christian spirituality can surely never be reduced to merely a personal matter to the exclusion of everything and everyone else. A healthy Christian spirituality has to be about the bonds we have with God and with one another and even with all of creation. A healthy Christian spirituality has to be about relationship; about connectedness; about oneness. Whether we bring our spiritual highs or our spiritual lows together on a Sunday morning; whether we bring our spiritual triumphs or our spiritual struggles together on a Sunday morning, we blend them together as a community into what you might call a “perfect storm” of Christian spirituality. Storms can be destructive - and Christian spirituality (when it’s used to divide us into the “haves” and “have-nots” as it so often tragically is) can be destructive. But storms don’t have to be destructive. They’re a part of what God has created; they’re a part of the normal course of things; they’re natural; ultimately they play a part in cleansing and renewing and giving life. This “perfect storm” of spirituality we’ve created here this morning - as we come from all of our varied experiences with our joys and our sorrows, our triumphs and our defeats; our assurance and our questions; our faith and our doubts - can also cleanse and renew us, because, as Paul writes, it all comes together “for the strengthening of the church.”
Ultimately, isn’t that what it’s all about? “The strengthening of the church”? The secular world might call it strength in numbers; we might call it the communion of saints. But whatever you call it, it reminds us that we all, with all of our experiences, are a vital and necessary part of the body of Christ. It’s about all of us, merging together our gifts and our talents, bringing together our own beliefs and our own questions, our own sorrows and joys, our own victories and defeats, our own tragic heartbreaks and our own amazing blessings, our own experiences of the Holy Spirit and our own experiences of feeling distant from the Holy Spirit. And, somehow, that all comes together as something akin to a spiritual perfect storm “for the strengthening of the church.”
If you're interested in watching the video of the actual sermon preached:
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