Sermon: We're All In This Together

First Presbyterian Church

January 26, 2025, Epiphany 3C

1 Corinthians 12:12-31

 

We’re All in This Together

 

 

It was a nearly unavoidable song not that many years ago, when the Disney Channel first aired its infectious little show called High School Musical. First it was the television musical, then it became an actual high school musical, and now you can find television shows about productions of the high school musical. And wrapping it all up was the one inescapable, irresistible song that represented the show’s climax: “We’re All in This Together.”

That title happened upon a phrase and idea that has been batted around endlessly, it seems. You could go out and google dozens upon dozens of quotes that either use that phrase as a basis or comment upon the idea. While I don’t want to think about Lily Tomlin’s spin – “We’re all in this together alone” – I have to acknowledge, if this quote is accurate, that Johnny Cash might have put the best spin on the quote in his version: “We’re all in this together if we’re in it at all.” 

I’m pretty sure the Apostle Paul was not much for song and dance, and I doubt he played the guitar or sang songs about shooting a man in Reno just to watch him die. But he’d be able to appreciate at least the basic sentiment found in this pithy little saying. Being the eloquent preacher and letter-writer he was, however, it befitted Paul to find a clever and illustrative metaphor to demonstrate just how thoroughly we, the followers of Christ, really are all in this together. Borrowing a metaphor found fairly often in Greco-Roman philosophical rhetoric, Paul came up with the theme of today’s reading: the body of Christ.

That Paul chooses the body as a metaphor for the innerworkings of the people of God is striking and informative in ways that the apostle himself might not even have imagined. 

As noted just now, it wasn’t uncommon for teachers and writers in the Greco-Roman world to use such a metaphor to describe communal life, though no other biblical author makes use of it. Philosophers and political figures were particularly fond of the body metaphor in that culture. For a politician, for example, the metaphor of the body might well be used to suggest that every member of a society had his or place to fill. A body needs a head; that place was to be filled by the “elites” of society – the wealthy, the military elite, those in power. A body also needs hands and feet; here pretty much everybody else in society, those charged with the hard or dirty or dangerous work of society was to fulfill his or her role. Needless to say that metaphor never really has gone away even it if might be expressed in different ways.

Paul, though, takes a different angle on this metaphor. For Paul, what matters is the utter interdependence of the body – the degree to which the body needs everything in good working order. Parts of the body that might be regarded as weaker, or less “respectable,” are treated with greater care and covered or protected more carefully. In Paul’s scheme of the body, no part can claim to be independent of all the other parts. The eye can see all it wants to see, but without feet and legs to move, or hands to hold or to pick up, the eye is powerless. The head is useless without the rest of the body.

Many of us know what it is for our physical bodes to fail us or betray us. We see what needs to be done but we just aren’t capable of doing it physically. If one part of the body suffers, the whole body suffers with it. And so it goes with the body of Christ, the church; when one member of this body suffers, we all suffer with that member.

Paul wants us to understand, in verse 13, that in being baptized in Christ we are baptized into this one body, no matter the differences between us. Indeed, following on the first part of this chapter we heard last week, the differences we bring to the body are not accidental; they are necessary, they are by design, both in a given local congregation and in the church universal – we need all those different experiences, all those different backgrounds, for the body of Christ to function rightly and bear witness to the good news.

This is where it gets tricky, though. We are not always good at dealing with difference. We don’t always care for diversity, even as we need it. New Testament scholar Brian Peterson puts it bluntly in noting that “We often confuse unity with uniformity, because it is much easer to gather with people who are like ourselves than it is to reach across the divisions which mark our culture.”[i] We are more comfortable with a church where everybody looks like us, talks like us, is about the same age as us, reads the Bible in the same way as we do – or for that matter, votes like us, roots for the Chiefs like us, and all sorts of other things that may have very little to do with the life of the church. It’s a natural inclination, but it isn’t really all that Christlike. 

In verse 13 Paul refers to two of the great divisions he knew to be at work in the church – “Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.” Admittedly, “Jew or Greek” is not a huge dividing line in the modern church, and while slavery certainly does exist in the modern world still, such a dividing line doesn’t run through the modern church in quite the same way it did for Paul’s Corinthian readers. We do, though, have lots of dividing lines among us in the church today:

Black or white, or Asian, or Hispanic, or Native American…

Or how about Democratic or Republican?

Maybe rich or poor?

Native-born, naturalized citizen, immigrant waiting to be citizen?

Straight or gay?

How about married or single?

Progressive or mainline or evangelical or fundamentalist?

How are we, as the church, the body of Christ, at truly living in the diversity that makes us work? Or are we still inclined to hole up in like-minded enclaves of homogeneity?

Whether we acknowledge it or not, when any part of the body of Christ suffers, whether they look like us or think like us or sound like us or have anything in common with us other than Christ, we all suffer, and we don’t bear witness to the gospel the way the body of Christ is meant to do. And to the degree that we stand by and let that suffering continue, we are complicit in damaging the body and its witness.

Having worked through this body metaphor, Paul now returns to the diversity of spiritual gifts, or manifestations of the presence of the Spirit, that he had discussed earlier in this chapter. Again, the list is incomplete, but Paul now places those gifts in the context of the church as God appoints people to contribute: apostles, prophets, teachers, doers of powerful deeds, healers, helpers, leaders, speakers of various tongues. And just as the body would look rather ridiculous if it were nothing but an eye or a foot, so the church becomes rather ridiculous if it consists of nothing but apostles or preachers or teachers. 

But as Paul closes this thought, he actually “teases” us with something even better, a better, “more excellent” way for the church to live or for the body of Christ to function. 

The diverse and distinctive appropriation of gifts is characteristic and even needful in the church, and the diversity of members matters profoundly as well. And yet, there is something else that matters more than all of these, or more precisely is the very thing that makes this distinctiveness and diversity work. What is it that makes the body of Christ what it is meant to be? What is it that brings all those diverse gifts and abilities and manifestations of the Spirit together in a way that enables us truly to bear witness to the Christ we say we follow?

But that's for next Sunday. 

Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #409, God Is Here!; #318, In Christ There Is No East or West; #306, Blest Be the Tie that Binds

 

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[i] Brian Peterson, “Commentary on 1 Corinthians 12:12-31a,” Working Preacher (workingpreacher.org, 24 January 2016 2^nd reading), accessed 21 January 2016.

 

 

Sermon: Just As the Spirit Chooses

First Presbyterian Church

January 19, 2025, Epiphany 2C

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

 

Just As the Spirit Chooses

 

 A few years ago the internet humor site Unvirtuous Abbey posted a cartoon image that suggested the Apostle Paul at work writing one of his letters to the various churches under his care. The captioning of this image, however, took a creative slant: the imagined text of the letter under construction began thus:

Paul, an apostle of Christ Jesus, to the churches of the United States of America – grace to you and peace from God the Father and our Lord Jesus Christ: I don’t even really know where to begin with you guys…

 

It’s a funny line, and easily evocative of just how far much of the church in this country have strayed from being Christlike in any discernible way. The truth is, though, this isn’t that far from how the actual Paul began some of his letters, and how he was compelled to speak to the churches in other letters even when he was able to keep his opening more cordial. For example, in the letter to Galatians Paul barely manages to get through a fairly doxological opening statement before turning to chastisement in verse 6: “I am astonished that you are so quickly deserting the one who called you in the grace of Christ and are turning to a different gospel…”. Things were evidently that bad.

As for the letter we are reading today and in the forthcoming weeks, Paul actually manages to get though not only the formal greeting, but a nice blessing as well, before turning to the matter at hand at the beginning of this letter: “Now I appeal to you, brothers and sisters, by the name of our Lord Jesus Christ, that all of you should be in agreement and that there should be no divisions among you, but that you should be united in the same mind and in the same purpose.” Paul elaborates that the Corinthians have apparently devolved into factions around one leader or another in the larger church – Paul, Cephas (or Peter), Apollos (the evangelist introduced in Acts 18), or even – in a super-self-righteous move – Christ. Paul quickly admonishes the Corinthians for this, but the correction of this division will go much deeper and in fact constitute the bulk of this letter. There are many things going wrong among the Corinthians, and Paul is setting out to address them.

Paul’s work in his travels was frequently made more challenging by the difficulties of churches made up of diverse groups of people and the disputes, disagreements, or contests that too often arose between those groups. For example, by the time Paul is making his travels, the congregations to whom he preaches and writes are usually composed of both Jewish and Gentile converts to Christianity. At times the Jewish party would contend that the Gentiles needed to take up practices associated with Judaism (most notably the act of circumcision for males) before they could be fully accepted into the fledgling group of Christ’s followers. To put it more briefly, they felt that Gentiles should become Jews in order to become Christians. Paul, despite his own thoroughly Jewish heritage, argued against that claim, agreeing with those who called that an unnecessary burden.

The conflict Paul addresses here in today’s reading is a different one, not necessarily based on Jewish-Gentile dividing lines, but one that caused tremendous strain in the church at Corinth no less. In this case, this local church was struggling with the effects of spiritual pride and even a kind of competitiveness, in which some claimed that their specific and distinctive spiritual gifts made them spiritually superior to others. This kind of spiritual elitism never ends well, and Corinth was no exception.

After much chiding and critique earlier in the book on this and other matters, Paul now turns with chapter 12 to address “matters pertaining to the Spirit.” “Spiritual gifts,” the term you see in verse 1, is certainly part of the matter, but not the full extent of what Paul wants to address. 

First, Paul is compelled to remind his readers – a great many of whom in Corinth were Gentile converts to The Way – that all of them had been equal in ignorance before following Christ. The lot of them had been, as Paul describes, duped worshipers of powerless, speechless idols. Even as followers of Christ now, Paul challenges them to understand that they have much to learn, particularly about the Holy Spirit.

For example: no one who is speaking under the influence of the Holy Spirit could ever utter the phrase “Let Jesus be cursed!” You can’t do it. To be sure, there are times when even we followers of Christ speak decidedly not under the influence of the Spirit! But that’s a different story. Similarly, but not quite the same way, one cannot make the claim that “Jesus is Lord” except by the power of the Holy Spirit. Even being able to make the confession “Jesus is Lord” is evidence of the work of the Spirit. 

Understand what it means: anyone who confesses “Jesus is Lord” is doing so by a gift of the Spirit. There is no one who confesses Christ is Lord that is not gifted by the Spirit. If that’s the case, no one has any business claiming that any other believer has no spiritual gift. We all do. That’s how we can even be followers of Christ at all, by the gift of the Spirit. You didn’t think you earned your salvation, did you?

With that understanding, Paul turns to the issue of differences in spiritual gifts and other workings of the Spirit. One of the common threads of what Paul has to say is that difference or variety or diversity is inevitable and indeed is “baked into” the way that the Spirit “gifts” the followers of Christ. Each of us receives different abilities or talents or gifts, and that itself is a very intentional work of the Spirit. 

Paul sketches out only a few of these possible gifts or abilities in verses 7-10. By no means is this a complete list, but Paul mentions the speaking both of wisdom and of knowledge; faith; healing; miracles; prophecy; discernment; and the speaking and interpreting of tongues. And as Paul notes, the Spirit allots these gifts to the children of God quite according to the Spirit’s own choosing, and nothing other – “just as the Spirit chooses,” as verse 11 puts it.

Paul here is urging the Corinthians to understand that this dispersal of the gifts of the Spirit was absolutely no cause for pride. There is no basis for any claim that having any one spiritual gift made you in any way superior to or more important than any of your sisters or brothers in Christ. 

I have been called as the interim pastor of this church for a little more than a year and a half, after eight+ years at my previous call. I believe I do have some gift for the speaking of wisdom or knowledge, perhaps a way of describing preaching. Hopefully those three years I spent in seminary helped develop that gift to some degree. But if I were ever tempted to think that this specific gift was somehow “more special” or more important than other gifts, … well, let’s just say that many weeks or even months in this vocation have really caused me to wish I had a gift for healing or miracles instead. 

What Paul needs the Corinthians (and us) to understand is that we need all the gifts. This church can’t survive on preaching alone. Nor can it survive on any one of the gifts the Spirit might bestow. We need them all, both our own church here and the greater church around the world. And when we turn inward, when we start failing to welcome others into our church, or when we start drawing lines to keep some out and include only certain people, “folks like us,” then we are cutting ourselves off from some of the very gifts or manifestations of the Spirit that we absolutely need to survive, for the common good.

And it’s not even about our surviving, in the end. Our church, local or universal, is not put here on earth to serve ourselves. These flourishings of the Spirit that are made manifest in us are here to show God’s glory to those all around us. We are here to bear witness to the gospel, to be the vessel by which that good news is given to all the world around us. And those gifts of the Spirit are scattered out among us for that very end; giving glory to God that the world might see.

Beyond the matter of not indulging in pride over one’s spiritual gifts, there is also the matter of not dismissing what one contributes to the body as somehow being unimportant or not really mattering. If everybody in a congregation is determined that because their gift isn’t for preaching or prophecy it isn’t important, the church misses out on those less flashy gifts like faith or discernment and suffers for it. All the gifts are needed. 

This is part of the church “being an epiphany,” participating in showing Christ to the world. When we all pull together using each of our distinctive gifts for the work of the kingdom of God, we become a revelation of God to the world, through the working of the Spirit. We show Christ to the world. We show the world what it looks like when the Spirit is working among us. Or, when we start elevating some gifts and demeaning others, when we start indulging in pride about our own spiritual abilities, or when we cut ourselves off from the gifts we need in the church because we don’t like the people who have them? Or when we hold back the gifts God has given us for whatever reason? We fail to bear witness to God’s Spirit, and in fact do damage to that witness among the larger church.

Right now, this congregation is doing alright - better than many other congregations, believe it or not. It takes every spiritual gift that is present among the people of this or any congregation, and then some, to keep things afloat. We don’t have space for anybody to decide that their gifts or abilities don’t matter; we need them all. There is no one whose gifts or talents or abilities don’t matter. We need them all.

The abilities we bring to the body of Christ are not an accident. The Holy Spirit is working in us, each of us, all of us, so that we might bear witness to God and to the gospel of Christ to a world that desperately needs to be reminded of that story and to hear that witness. Being prideful about some gifts or dismissive of others is failure to show Christ to the world. We have no margin for error; we need all those manifestations of the Spirit to do our job in the world. 

For gifts of the Spirit, and the opportunity and obligation to use them together, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #292, As the Wind Song; #308, O God, in Whom All Life Begins; #733 We All Are One in Mission

The image referenced in the first paragraph...

Sermon: What to Put Away, What to Keep

First Presbyterian Church

August 11, 2024, Pentecost 12B

Ephesians 4:25-5:2

 

What to Put Away, What to Keep

 

 

Do you renounce all evil, and powers in the world which defy God’s righteousness and love?

I renounce them.

 

Do you renounce the ways of sin that separate you from the love of God?

I renounce them.

 

Do you turn to Jesus Christ and accept him as your Lord and Savior?

I do. 

 

Will you be Christ’s faithful disciple, obeying his Word and showing his love, to your life’s end?

I will, with God’s help.

 

 

These words are found in the Presbyterian Church (USA) Book of Common Worship as part of the recommended liturgy for a baptism, as part of the liturgy known as the “renunciations.” The questions are asked by the minister presiding at the baptism, and then answered either by the one being baptized or the parents or guardians of the one being brought for baptism. Presbyterians are hardly unique in this; some version of this is found in the baptismal rite of pretty much all the churches that have baptismal rites or liturgies. 

The very idea of renunciation of evil and sin is what is at the heart of today’s scripture reading, as the author of Ephesians continues with the practical instruction portion of this epistle. 

In all honesty there are portions of this passage that leave one wondering just what is going on in the churches to which this letter is addressed. The instruction about “putting away falsehood” is strong enough. The instruction about anger is actually useful (more about it later). The instructions about “unwholesome talk” (most translations say "evil talk"), getting rid of “bitterness, rage, and anger, brawling and slander, along with every form of malice,” coming in a run-list like this, begins to raise the eyebrows and provoke wonder about a possible reality show about the church in question. 

But really: “Anyone who has been stealing must steal no longer”??? Is theft a major problem in this congregation? Has “thou shalt not steal” not come up by this time? Or was that regarded as a regulation from the Jewish side of the Jewish-Gentile split in this congregation and therefore to be disregarded by the Gentile converts? Seriously, what is with this?

As curious as this insertion may seem, what is even more remarkable about it is how it is used as an instructional point. “Steal no longer,” not because it violates the Ten Commandments or because it’s against the law or because it’s not nice; instead, the correction is “but [they] must work, doing something useful with their own hands, that they might have something to share with those in need.” “You need to stop stealing so that you can make money to give to the poor.” If you’re thinking that this sounds a little bit nuts, you’re not alone. It’s been a head scratcher for centuries. 

Perhaps it shouldn’t be, though. Maybe our definition of “stealing” is too narrow. I was reminded this week of an article I had first found a few years ago, a report produced by Heifer International on the worldwide coffee industry. (Yes, Heifer International's main work is to provide animals for families in need, but they do more than that.) By the calculations of this report, the coffee industry internationally is worth over 200 billion dollars. (I can’t even fit that number onto the calculator on my phone.) Those peoples around the world who grow the beans that make the whole idea of coffee possible see maybe 5% or (if they’re lucky) 7% of that. To put it another way, say you by a Grande Latte later today as a treat. You might spend around $3.65 (that’s a rough average for such a drink). Of that $3.65, the farmer who grew those beans might receive $0.02, maybe $0.03. To add insult to injury, the sleeve likely to be sheathed around your cup costs about $0.05. That piece of cardboard is valued more than the labor required to grow the beans that make your latte even possible.[1] And this is only one of dozens of possible examples of the exploitative nature of our economy.

Indeed, perhaps our definition of “stealing” is too narrow.

Anyway, while we have no idea how Robin Hood – the “steal from the rich, give to the poor” character of English lore – would respond to this bit of instruction, we can at least draw from it a lesson that applies across this instructional fragment. In this episode of “don’t do this, do that” across these passages, the “do that” responses have a very clear purpose. The hearers and readers of this letter are being taught what it looks like to live in Christ, just as much of the previous part of the book calls us to do. 

It ends up looking like this:

We put away falsehood; we speak truth.

We are angry, but we do not sin. 

We give up stealing, if that’s been a thing; we work to care for the needy.

We don’t talk evil; we use our words to build up and give grace.

We don’t “grieve the Holy Spirit of God,” we are brought together and marked for redemption by the Spirit.

We lay aside bitterness and wrath and anger and malice and all those things; we are kind and tenderhearted and forgiving with one another (the way God has, in Christ, forgiven us, in case we’ve forgotten).

Now as if these instructions weren’t provocative enough, not to mention plenty challenging, the first verses of chapter 5 drop this bombshell (we need to hear this one in the NRSV): “Therefore, be imitators of God, as beloved children, and live in love, as Christ loved us and gave himself up for us…”. Once again, it all comes back around to love, in some way or other. And again, all of the instruction of this mini-lesson is at the last caught up into this main point. To live in love is not to talk evil or to engage in lies or to steal or to do the things that grieve the Spirit that is all about holding us together. To live in love is to speak truth (even when it’s not all that pleasant to do so); to live in love is to keep your anger (which will happen, and even should happen sometimes) from leading you into sin, and not to let that anger fester and divide us; to live in love is not to steal, but to do honest work so that you have something to share with those in need; to live in love is to lay aside speech and action that tears us apart, and to take up the words and deeds that hold us together. 

There is challenge here, in that (for example) sometimes it is really, destructively wrong not to be angry. To be indifferent to the injustice that runs rampant in the world around us (think of that example from the coffee industry, for instance), or even to seek to profit from that injustice or take comfort in it or otherwise to justify its existence, is literally damnable. It is the stuff of Hell. And yet we see an awful lot of “Christians” doing exactly that in the headlines every day, do we not?

And yet, we are charged here not to let that anger lead us into sin, nor to let it fester and wreck relationships within the body. 

Part of the answer is easy enough to figure out: fight against that injustice, resist the prejudice against race or gender or orientation or anything that dehumanizes and demeans any of God’s creation. But even then, there will be those within the body – or at least calling themselves “Christians” – who resist that resistance tooth and nail. Where, then, would our author direct us; to do God’s will and resist the injustice at hand, or to make peace? 

The tricky part about moral instruction, such as the author of Ephesians has undertaken, is that sometimes it leaves you in a quandary like this. At such a time we’re called to remember that Ephesians, or any such part of scripture, is not the whole of scripture; more than a few words of Jesus, for example, should answer this quandary for us without too much difficulty: fight the injustice, do unto “the least of these” as Jesus says in Matthew 25. 

Nonetheless, the basic theme of this lesson holds: put away those things that do harm, keep those things that build up. Leave behind the destructive; continue with the constructive. Lay aside what harms, take up what heals. 

Sometimes, I guess, the challenge is to know which is which.

And I still don’t know what Robin Hood would say about this.

For the guidance of the Spirit in learning these things, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal): #15, All Creatures of Our God and King; #409, Spirit Divine, Attend Our Prayers; #300, We Are One in the Spirit

Nobody asked this guy (or any other movie version of him)

 

 

 

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[1] Statistics from Cory Gilman, “Rooted in Racism: Dark Profits in the Coffee Industry,” https://www.heifer.org/blog/rooted-in-racism-dark-profits-in-the-coffee-industry.html?msource=SIBLH20FB0003&utm_source=facebook&utm_medium=organic&utm_campaign=blog&utm_term=post&utm_content=SIBLH20FB0003, 3 August 2020  (accessed 5 August 2024).

Sermon: Grow Up

First Presbyterian Church

August 4, 2024, Pentecost 11B

Ephesians 4:1-16

 

Grow Up

 

 

I don’t know if I’ve mentioned this before in this congregation, but back in my youth I competed in what was at the time known as “Bible drill.” I think it used to be called “sword drill,” after words that crop up later in this book of Ephesians. (Remember, I grew up in another denomination.) Anyway, when I participated in it the competition involved being able to look up books of the Bible, and later specific verses, really really quickly. To cap it off there was also a portion of the event that involved being able to recite memorized verses. I was pretty good at it – enough so, in fact, that the summer after ninth grade I was in the statewide Bible drill championship. I finished second. By one stinkin’ point.

Preparing this sermon reminded me of Bible drill because a portion of today’s reading was one of those memorized passages I had to learn. Because I grew up in that other denomination, all the reading and searching and memorizing involved the King James Version. So my response, when called upon, came out like this (I will not attempt to duplicate my fifteen-year-old voice; it wasn’t pretty):

 

And he gave some, apostles; and some, prophets; and some, evangelists, and some, pastors and teachers; for the perfecting of the saints, for the work of the ministry, for the edifying of the body of Christ: till we all come in the unity of the faith, and of the knowledge of the son of God, unto a perfect man, unto the measure of the stature of the fullness of Christ: that we henceforth be no more children, tossed to and fro, and carried about by every wind of doctrine, by the sleight of men, and cunning craftiness, whereby they lie in wait to deceive; but speaking the truth in love, may grow up into him in all things, which is the head, even Christ.

 

I had it memorized, all right, but I’m not going to lie to you; if you had asked fifteen-year-old me what exactly all of that meant, I’d have probably looked at you blankly and given you a clear “I have no idea” shrug. 

After a theological discourse that takes up the first three chapters of Ephesians as we have it, the author turns now to what might be called “boots on the ground” instruction. This isn’t atypical of the letters of Paul upon which our author bases and models this volume: lay out the theology, then talk about putting it into practice in your location. Since this letter (despite its modern name) was probably meant to be distributed across many churches, the specifics of instruction might be somewhat less specific. The nature of the instruction is general, applicable across frankly all of these churches strung out across the Roman Empire, particularly that region sometimes called Asia Minor (modern-day Turkey). 

Paul certainly did some letter-writing from prison, and so our author (again, likely a student or associate of Paul’s working to consolidate his teaching and reputation) evokes Paul’s imprisonments in the instruction to his readers. The initial verses point to a call towards unity. Notice that is “towards” unity; even if not spoken, the author seems to glimpse that unity is not possible in all situations, and the instruction to come in the later verses of this reading will sometimes be exactly why it’s not possible to be in unity with everyone or everything. But here the challenge is to “make every effort” towards preserving the unity of the Spirit, and sometimes that means the ones with whom you can’t be at unity with any integrity at all are those who are outside the Spirit. Verses 7-10 seem to be an odd diversion that could be about the importance of the Ascension, the old theological claim (still reflected in the Apostles’ Creed) that Jesus descended into Hell, or who knows what else.

Still, though, these verses do introduce the important idea of grace given to us as a result of “Christ’s gift,” and the result of gifts being bestowed upon us, which in turn sets up a brief list of some of those gifts given among the people of God. Unlike other such lists in the epistles, this one speaks of specific roles played in the church by specific people, without necessarily implying that these are the only gifts the church needs to function. (The specificity of this list is one of those reasons scholars have for believing this letter to be written much later than Paul’s output, as these roles seem to be more formalized than in the mid-century span in which Paul worked.) 

The reasons for which these gifts are given are where “the rubber hits the road” in this reading. Note that while unity of the faith makes an appearance again, a lot more ink is consumed on the other listed aim of these gifts and their exercise among the body of Christ: an aim that might be best summed up as spiritual maturity. 

This is where the language gets rather twisted up in the KJV rendering that still lives in my head to some degree, and even the NIV or NRSV can be a bit difficult to untangle. Last week’s sermon made a quick reference to the modern-day, scholarly yet accessible-language Common English Bible (CEB), and it might be useful in wading through these verses as well; first verses 12-13:

 

His purpose was to equip God’s people for the work of serving and building up the body of Christ until we all reach the unity of the faith and knowledge of God’s son. God’s goal is for us to become mature adults – to be fully grown, measured by the standard of the fullness of Christ.

 

 

OK, that helps somewhat. All those offices help build up the body of Christ by building up those within it, and that is where the unity of the faith arrives. And the measure towards which that building-up points is nothing less than Christ in all completeness and wholeness and fullness. Nothing less is really enough.

Now hear verses 14-16:

 

As a result, we aren’t supposed to be infants any longer who can be tossed and blown around by every wind that comes from teaching with deceitful scheming and the tricks people play to deliberately mislead others. Instead, by speaking the truth with love, let’s grow in every way into Christ, who is the head. 

 

 

We could, of course, put an even more vernacular spin on this instruction.

Don’t be babies.

Don’t fall for everything you see on the internet. Or some “news” channel. Or from some televangelist’s megachurch. 

Don’t be misled so easily.

And perhaps the harshest of all:

Grow up.

That’s not a phrase we use these days as a form of encouragement. Typically it’s spoken in a tone that makes clear the speaker’s exasperation (or worse) with the one to whom the statement is directed. To get the full force of this reading we need to divorce the phrase from the commonly sarcastic tone we often apply to it and hear it as not only a form of encouragement, but the principal charge or calling that is laid before us – even more so than all that pursuing-unity talk, because that true unity in the Spirit only happens when we are growing towards that spiritual unity, that living into the measure of Christ’s wholeness and completeness and fullness. 

To top it off, verse 16 reminds us that all of this happens in Christ. Again, to borrow from the CEB:

The whole body grows from him, as it is joined and held together by all the supporting ligaments. The body makes itself grow in that it builds itself up with love as each one does its part.

 

 

The growing and maturing and moving towards unity all happens in Christ. This is one of those cases where the instruction given really is directed at the individuals reading or hearing the letter. Most of the time such instruction in the New Testament, gospels or letters, is corporate – directed at the whole of the church to do together. In this case, the responsibility of this instruction to seek unity and grow up is upon each individual, so that the whole church can grow and do and be what it is meant to be under Christ, the head of the church. 

Clearly, we aren’t there. It’s not just the too-many so-called “Christians” who crowd into each day’s headlines clearly demonstrating that they have not grasped the instruction of verses 14-15 about not being easily led astray and tossed about and fooled by deceivers. It’s all of us. Seriously, do we look like we measure up to Christ in all his fullness and completeness and wholeness? No, we’re not there. The point is to be on the way. And no matter how old we are, no matter how much hard-won wisdom we have earned, how much we have seen or experienced, we’re still on the journey. 

It is in the process of this journey that we learn to live lives worthy of our calling, to bear with one another in love, to build up the body of Christ, and yes, to grow up.

For growing up, Thanks be to God. Amen.

 

 

Hymns (from Glory to God: The Presbyterian Hymnal unless otherwise indicated): #317, In Christ There Is No East or West; #---, Lead Lives Worthy of Your Calling; #874, Help Us Accept Each Other