Epiphany 2C (1 Cor 12:1-11)  01/20/2013

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Just a few weeks after my graduation from college, several friends of mine and I moved to Orlando, FL in order to attend a six month Navy training course. I had known one of my roommates throughout my college days and he had become a great friend. A person of integrity and intelligence, he was a steady and thoughtful presence during those demanding days of school. We shared many long days, lots of laughs, and some challenging times, but we were confident of our future and we had great plans. My friend was going to serve his commitment to the Navy and then leave the service behind to pursue other interests. I was sure of my future in the Navy and I fully intended to make a career of it, 20 years or more. We had different visions of our future, but we were both quite confident we knew the things that mattered most in our lives and we were determined to achieve our goals.

This morning in our Epistle reading we hear from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. The Corinthian community that received Paul’s letter was a confident group of people, no less confident than my Navy friends and I were so long ago. The recipients of Paul’s letter had placed their personal values on the gifts of ministry within their church, and their differences of opinion had created conflicts among them. According to some of the more vocal leaders of the Corinthian church, those who spoke in tongues were to be held in high esteem. The members of the church recognized that the community was made up of people with different gifts, different talents; but those who were blessed with the special gifts from God could be identified by their ability to speak in tongues…and they were quite certain of this privileged place because they had determined this to be true all on their own. Paul’s letter says to the Corinthians, “Not so fast, my friends!” Paul warned, far be it for you to decide these things; he wrote to the leaders in Corinth, “Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed.” (1 Cor 12:1) Paul is setting the record straight regarding the importance and the distribution of God’s gifts…and the Corinthians have it all wrong.

The advice we hear Paul give to the Corinthian church this morning is the first half of Chapter 12 from his first letter to that community. The following chapter, Chapter 13, is the often heard lesson regarding love, with the popular closing verse of Chapter 13, “And now faith, hope, and love abide, these three; but the greatest of these is love.” (1 Cor 13:13) This morning we hear from Chapter 12, the “pre-qual” to Paul’s moving and thoughtful words about love. This is important because without an appreciation for all the gifts of ministry, all the gifts of the Spirit, the uninformed person will find a life of love very difficult to achieve. Without an appreciation for the sovereignty of God we will find ourselves searching to fulfill the future we were so confident was the absolute truth. But Paul says to us, “Not so fast, my friends!” Paul explained in his letter that God, through the gifts of his Spirit, gives to all people in different ways: “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good…All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.” (1 Cor 12:7, 11) God decides the gifts given to each of us; and our mission is to discover and use the gifts given, living into the grace and promise of the Spirit. We are charged by God to thoughtfully explore the possibilities of our gifts and to share these blessings, for our good and for the common good of the community.

Although confident in his future plans, before my good friend served his minimum commitment to the Navy and left to pursue a career of his own choosing, he had a thoughtful talk with his father. His father gave him some helpful advice and my friend was wise enough to listen. He determined that he could make a positive contribution to the Navy, and so he stayed; he stayed for more than 20 years and made a career of serving the Navy and the people of the many communities in which he and his family lived. He retired a few years ago and returned to the Midwest where he grew up and had deep family roots. A few weeks ago, just before the New Year, I learned that my good friend was in a single car accident and he did not survive his injuries. As I read remembrances written by family and friends, and learned their many stories of his generosity of spirit toward others, and as I reflected on the many stories of my own experiences with my friend, it was evident that my friend abided by the advice given by the Apostle Paul. The future was not what my friend and I had imagined it to be so many years before, but my good friend faithfully discovered his gifts and spread the love of God to those he met along life’s journey. Jeremy Taylor, a 17th century Anglican Bishop and theologian, spoke of the grace given to others through love when he wrote the following words: “Charity is the great channel through which God passes all his mercy upon mankind…Certain it is, that God cannot, will not, never did, reject a charitable [person] in [their] greatest needs and in [their] most passionate prayers; for God himself is love, and every degree of charity that dwells in us is the participation of the Divine nature..” (Holy Living and Dying, p. 343) Taylor articulates the abundant blessing of God’s love for us and reminds us that we participate in this grace through the gifts given to us from the Spirit of God. This weekend we remember the courageous character of Martin Luther King, Jr. and we give thanks for his many gifts and for the gifts of the thousands of people who joined him on the long and difficult journey to achieve equality and justice, a journey that sadly must continue well into the future. As we take up the challenges and opportunities of this New Year and as we prepare to join together next week in our Annual meeting, may we renew our commitment to each other, the community, and the world; and may we be blessed to realize the grace of God’s gifts given to us through the Spirit for the common good of God’s children. AMEN.

In memoriam, CDR Leonard Hugh Borgdorff, USN (Ret.)