ALL IN THIS TOGETHER

1 Corinthians 12:12-31a

Sunday, January 21, 2007

Pastor Norb Oesch is the former executive of the Pastoral Leadership Institute. If you’ve not met him, you’d be surprised at his height—he’s probably at least six foot, six inches tall. He cuts an imposing figure and he was visiting our house for dinner a few years ago. He was sitting in the dining room when our children came home from their events after school.

They stood in the kitchen for a moment. One of them looked into the dining room and saw the stranger and hesitated. Then another said, “I know I have to go in there; but I’m not going in there alone.” Maybe as you as a member of the Body of Christ—a Christian—as you look at all that is happening out there in the world, you can identify with the reluctance of my children.

With the news filled with stories of kidnappings and murders, battles and wars, disease and just general random chaos, it is tempting to stay in the kitchen. It’s easy to stay there and just peak around the corner at all that’s happening just outside our walls. However, that’s not what the Holy Spirit has called or gifted us to do. The Apostle Paul writes to the Corinthians—and to you and me—today about just what it is that the Holy Spirit does call and gift us to do: to be the Church, the Body of Christ, in the world. He calls us and gifts us to go out there. But He doesn’t call and gift us to go out alone—we’re all in this together.

When Paul—or any New Testament author—writes about us being the Body of Christ, he usually has one of two purposes in mind. Either he encourages us to live our lives as a witness to Christ, pointing to Him and His salvation, or he writes about how we can care for one another. As we reflect on these words to the believers at Corinth, we hear Paul encourage us to care for one another. Again, similar hesitation might come to our hearts—we can not care for everyone! However, Paul has good news. The Lord has brought us together and gifted us as members of a Body. We’re all in this together.

Aren’t we?

In this together, I mean. As you and I are painfully aware whenever two or more of us are gathered together, there’s eventually going to be an argument. Husbands and wives, parents and children, family members and even, good friends don’t see a task or a solution the same way. Disagreement can lead to disunity all too easily. I want my way and you want yours. Unity is often the first casualty as we human beings try to be in this together.

This was certainly true in Corinth. Although, when you first read these letters to the Corinthians you might wonder what Paul is so cross about. They sound so pious—each one focusing on their gifts and stories to work in the congregation. What does Paul want?

He wants them to be together. The members of the Corinth church have factioned and fractioned off into groups—cliques. They’ve divided along the gifts the Holy Spirit has poured out in their midst. Some who can speak in tongues have made that a mark of a higher faith—to put down those who don’t manifest that gift. They aren’t the only culprits—everyone has fractioned the Body of Christ to point not to Christ, but to point to themselves. They’ve even taken wisdom and knowledge and made these divisive—suggesting there is something “hidden” that Paul didn’t tell folks and that only they know about Jesus—and again, point to themselves.

It’s a mess. It doesn’t stop there. They’ve also made their stories into divisive categories. Some hold up Paul as their teacher, others celebrate Apollos, others other apostles—each one lifting themselves up by virtue of their story rather than lifting up Jesus and how He has connected His story to their own. Unity is the first casualty in Corinth and with it, faithfulness.

What divides us?

You and I live in a culture that has elevated the individual to almost divine status. “Be all that you can be!” is more than just a slogan for the Armed Forces recruitment efforts, it is our cultural motto. Those of you who came of age in the 1960s and 1970s may remember reading Friedrich Nietzsche—his words elevated the individual in the extreme and now, it seems his words are everywhere—recently his “that which does not destroy me makes me stronger” has been spoken in commercials, by characters in sit-coms and in movies. Emphasizing our stories and their components to focus on our success and our survival is the language of our culture—Paul calls us to hear a different voice: the Holy Spirit speaking through the Word.

Instead of wallowing and celebrating those things which divide us, we confess them. How radical is that? Then, we give them over to the Body. We give them to Christ and His Spirit to build us into the Body.

We confess that we have taken the gifts we have been given and used them to build up ourselves rather than point to Christ and build up His Body in this place, His Church. We confess that we have used our stories as reasons to divide and separate from others rather than to share grace and build one other toward maturity in Christ. We confess that we have used His gifts and our stories to stay in the kitchen and not go where we’ve been sent.

We confess all of that and seek to give our gifts over to the Body—let the Holy Spirit use us as servants, tools and building blocks to build up the Body. We give our stories over to Him so He can use them as places to show His love and grace to others and care for them—even our forgiven sins and healed wounds can be something the Spirit can use to comfort and build unity with others currently foolish or hurt. We give ourselves over to God so unity can be built.

Obviously this isn’t something we do willingly. This isn’t something we wake up one morning deciding to do or make a New Years’ resolution to accomplish. We would too quickly point again to ourselves if this were the case. No, we are in this together—a unity the Spirit builds—by grace.

Paul uses the image of own bodies for a reason. We didn’t build ourselves—it is His design. We don’t build the church, either. We’re used to volunteer organizations—individuals coming together for a common purpose or task—and we might think of the church as just one more of these. That would be a mistake that would overlook and miss God’s grace at work among us.

You might think you came to be a member here by your decision. Maybe you came today because someone invited you and offered to feed you. Maybe you came here because the weather was too lousy to try and drive to where you usually worship. On the surface, these seem to individual decisions and independent actions. Remember what Martin Luther taught us the Holy Spirit does: He calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us as members of the Body of Christ. He called you through what seemed to be random. He gathered you to be here by His call and gifted you for service uniquely in this place. There is a promise in our confession that He will keep us in this together—despite ourselves.

We’ve been celebrating Baptism this month. The doves on the walls representing gifts the Holy Spirit has brought together over the years—the yellow ones baptized someplace else, the white baptized here. Baptism is how the Spirit brought you into the Body of Christ. He brought you and me in so we could die to ourselves with Christ and be raised to newness of life with Him—our stories are forever changed and point to Jesus, so what we do in those stories also points to Jesus.

Your baptism is the “visual” proof –the basis for certainty—that what we’ve been talking about includes you. You can be certain that you are a member of the Body of Christ. You can be certain that your sin has been forgiven and your story connected to Jesus’ so that you live this new life already—a life that is in this together with all of those sitting around you—and those not here today but also members. You have an identity and a call to do what the Body is called to do—witness and care.

Remember Mount Olive’s mission statement? We are called by God—we’re in this together—to reach out, care for and build one another to maturity in Christ. We’re called to care for each other. Each one of us doesn’t carry the whole load; we carry each other and carry to load together.

Already, much is being done. Our Human Care team is busy with events and opportunities to care for others. Giving blood to collecting toys at Christmastime to praying for one another are all examples of how members care for one another. Other groups have partnered with Habitat for Humanity to build homes and members work with Aurora Interchurch to help the needy. Much is being done and I thank God for what is being done as the Holy Spirit has gifted you to work together to care.

There is much still to do. Paul lists ways we can care as he lists the different gifts. We can gather those gifts together to inspire new ways to think about caring. Paul talks about miracles and healing—oh, the old self would relish those grand gifts to point to us!—but while those gifts are given to all, there is a miracle you do have in your reach and healing you can do. You can heal people with forgiveness and be an instrument of the miracle of a life changed as that person is connected to Jesus’ love. Administration is simply a big word for serving—giving over your gifts for the Spirit to use for the good of the whole Body. Paul then just encourages us to help one another. Where there is a need, meet it counting on the Spirit to rally the resources of the Body.

Our culture would celebrate the sum of the parts as being greater than the whole—the Spirit brings all of the parts together to live as the whole, to act as the Body of Christ. The Spirit brings us all into this together so that what we do, points to Jesus and connects people to Jesus.

This, by the way, brings us back to Norb Oesch and the PLI which trains pastors so they can equip their people to be together in connecting people to Jesus. We don’t stay in the kitchen, the Spirit calls, gathers, enlightens, sanctifies and keeps us in faith not for ourselves and not to stay put, but to go and care. We don’t do it alone—we’re in this together.