Lone Rangers And Cookie Cutters
Sermon
ACTING ON THE ABSURD
Second Lesson Sermons For Sundays After Pentecost
To be asked to speak or pray in public sent shivers of terror down his spine. He had a small part in his high school play. He froze. When it came time for him to deliver his lines, he could not say a word. He never completely recovered from that humiliation and embarrassment. But if you needed a nurse during a painful or sleepless long night, he was your man. With dozens of people for dozens of years often late into the night, he administered the "sacrament of the coffee pot" as he listened and counseled with a wisdom from a source other than his own. You might say that every developed strength was a detour around or a direct result of a perceived weakness. No one has had more of an influence upon my life. He has a gift and it is of the Holy Spirit.
She felt God calling her when she served in a denomination that frowned upon, if not disdained, women ministers. But at forty years of age she quit her job and went to seminary 300 miles away from husband, home, and family. Two years later, even though she graduated at the very top of her class, she had no place to go. Undaunted, she returned to her hometown and sought out an underpaid part-time job. In eleven years, she carved out a unique ministry for herself, became ordained, and now serves as the Minister of Education in the best church about which I know anything. She has a gift and it is of the Holy Spirit.
He was short, a little overweight, and very poorly coordinated. He had the athletic ability of a hoe handle. He tried out for a baseball team of thirteen and fourteen year olds. He had not a prayer. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, he asked to be the manager. Some said, "Bat boy." But he was much, much more. He worked as hard as anyone. At practice or at a game, he was the first to arrive and the last to leave. He was the team's number one cheerleader. He encouraged everyone. When the team was down, he cheered them up. When they were behind, he challenged them. When the team posted a record of twenty wins with only one defeat and won the city championship, few had contributed more. He has a gift and it is of the Holy Spirit.
These three: one who used failure to find strength; one who persisted in God's call for her life; and the third who simply played the hand he was dealt, stand in stark contrast to two extreme radical attitudes current in the area of spirituality today.
One of these extreme attitudes is the "lone ranger" approach. The "lone ranger" approach to spirituality says that my giftedness and my spirituality are for me. I am independent. The journey is singular and has little or no room for a corporate component. Here one becomes a spiritual snake handler implying that one's gift is superior to another and is used to gather attention to one's self. I appreciate the honesty of a cartoon I saw once of a singer standing before a congregation. He announced, "This song has nothing to do with our worship theme, but it's a wonderful showcase for my voice." There are many dangers in the "lone ranger" approach, not the least of which is the tendency to divorce one's ethics or morals from one's spirituality. I mean, it is my gift, right? What is important is that I express myself, right?
The opposite of the "lone ranger" approach, though not too distant from it, is the "cookie cutter" approach to one's giftedness. The "cookie cutter" approach to spirituality says that everyone is cut from the same mold. Everyone is a carbon copy of the one before. The journey is corporate with little to no room for uniqueness or the freedom of personal expression. Everyone blends into a homogenous blob blindly following a dogmatic authority. Education ceases. Indoctrination is the plan. Dynamic faith bows to creedalism and worship is sacrificed upon the altar of the ritual of sameness. Everyone thinks alike, looks alike, talks alike, believes alike to the radical exclusion of anyone who does not.
Somehow, there has to be a balance, a middle ground. There has to be a place where an individual can exercise personal freedom in expressing one's uniqueness and function within a supportive group that accomplishes more together than it would have apart for itself and others. There has to be a place where one can exercise great individual freedom in the context of powerful interpersonal support directed toward a common goal.
That certainly was Paul's desire for the church at Corinth, the most abnormal of all the New Testament churches. In some ways, Corinth was normal, even like some of our cities. People came to this cosmopolitan city from all over the Roman Empire. Much like our own Washington, D.C., Corinth was a center of government and finance. The Isthmian Games were held there, similar to our Olympics. It was abnormal, however, in that many Christians came to their newfound faith from a background of the Greek mystery religions with their sensual practices and often bizarre initiatory rites. Certainly there was carry over from one to the other.
Paul came to Corinth around 51 A.D. and in eighteen months had a church going. As Paul and the young church exchanged correspondence, it became clear that the church's theology was a work in process. They had inquired of Paul his opinion as to what was permissible in worship, as evidently some members were displaying the more showy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, to the bewilderment of those who possessed it not. In order to bring order out of chaos, Paul addresses the situation in chapters 12--14 by beginning with a discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
He begins by emphasizing that all spiritual gifts have the Holy Spirit as their common source. In fact, no one can even become a Christian unless he or she is wooed and drawn by the Holy Spirit (v. 3). There are different kinds of gifts, different kinds of service and different kinds of working, but the same God works in all of them (vv. 4--6). Then Paul gives a "sampling" list, not an exhaustive one, of spiritual gifts. He not only lists the gifts in verses 7--10, but also in verses 28--31, and in Ephesians 4:11--12 and in Romans 12:6--8 as well. The lists are not identical, which indicates an expansive interpretation of their number. Paul is not trying to limit but expand our field of vision and wants to emphasize that everyone has at least one gift and many have many more.
Every Christian is gifted by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the key verse to our understanding is verse 7: "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (NRSV). No one is excluded. Dick van Dyke in his book Faith, Hope, And Hilarity tells the story of a woman who takes her five--year--old nephew to church. "Can you genuflect?" she asks. "No," the little boy replies. "But I can somersault!"1 Some can genuflect and some can somersault, but there is something each one can do.
Several years ago Newsweek magazine ran a story in which Stacy King, a professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls, was quoted as saying, "I'll always remember the night when Michael Jordan and I combined to score seventy points." What Stacy King did not mention is that Michael Jordan scored 69 of those points! But, still Stacy King did score one point and without that one point he and Michael Jordan would not have scored seventy points together. His one point was vital to their joint effort.
Realizing that every Christian has at least one gift, it becomes our responsibility to discover and develop our gift or gifts. We do both by doing. We develop and discipline the gift of music by using it. It is true with our gifts of teaching, leading, caring, earning money for God's purposes, administration, or whatever. As we use them, our gifts grow and we grow in our faith as well.
Grady retired. He had little to do as his wife still worked. With too much time on his hands, he began to associate with some questionable "friends" and on more than one occasion had too much to drink. Living next door to the small church of which he was a member but rarely attended, he noticed a group working to renovate an old Sunday school building. Always handy with a hammer, Grady wandered over and they put his hands to work. Two weeks later he had a new set of friends, helped to organize a work crew for other projects, and later rededicated his life to Christ. He put his gift to work and was more blessed than the church he helped. As Will Rogers once said, "Even if you are on the right track, if you just sit there, you'll get run over." Our gifts grow as we exercise them wherever God calls us to work.
He was the kindest, gentlest, and quietest man I ever knew. Although I was around him a lot, I remember very little of anything he ever said. I do remember him sitting behind a blazing bowl of Carter Hall and quietly reading his Bible. Although he was the last person in the world you would picture doing so, and a painter by trade, he was put in charge of a group of German prisoners of war during World War II. It was his job to plan their work and see to it that they accomplished it. Can you imagine a more difficult task? But he performed his job with such integrity and kindness that they called him "Pops." Prisoners of war called him "Pops"! Now this happened not in Northern Africa or Europe but in Huntsville, Alabama. That man was my maternal grandfather. Not my paternal grandfather. Not the one who was a preacher, or was he?
Thus, we are to use the Holy Spirit's grace--gifts to us wherever we find ourselves for the common good, to make this world a better place and, of course, to build up the church.
Gordon Cosby, of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., states that there is no gift a church needs that God has not given to one of its members. God has gifted every church to do everything he has called that church to do. In fact, God has gifted you to do everything he has called you to do. The Holy Spirit orchestrates all our gifts to be used in unison and harmony to create a beautiful symphony of praise and service to him. Some are trumpets, some are percussion, some are clarinets, others furnish the strings. I am prejudiced toward the trombone, having played one a while back. The piccolo! Do you ever think about the piccolo? Probably not! But just try to play "Stars And Stripes Forever" without it! Every gift is vitally needed in God's great concert of ministry.
I recently called an individual who was attending and showing an unusual interest in our church. "I am a hooker," she said. "Maybe you can use me at the church!" "I, er--uh?" I stammered. "Oh, not that!" she laughed. "I hook rugs the old--fashioned way. Possibly I can teach a night time crafts class." Every gift is important, even that of a "hooker." Some have one gift; some have many. No one has any room to boast. All gifts are given freely, an act of grace, to be used as God wills to carry out his work. You probably have gifts of which you are not even aware.
Derl Keefer states that a discovery has been made that when the roots of trees touch, there is a substance present that reduces competition. This unknown fungus helps link roots of various trees, including dissimilar species. A whole forest may be incorporated together in this manner. If one tree has access to nutrients, another to water, and a third to sunlight, the trees have the means to cooperate with one another to live.2
That sounds like the church! That sounds like a middle ground where one can express one's personal freedom and uniqueness yet live with and for each other to benefit the world.
The Holy Spirit gives gifts. William Bausch tells the story of a mother, realizing that two families in their neighborhood were experiencing difficulty, who told her children, "Don't give your father and me anything. Let's try to see that these families have a decent Christmas." One son, Chris, was the basketball manager at his college and was in and out most of the time. In one of his brief visits, as he was walking out the door, he pressed into his mother's hand some money and said, "Take this. It is for those families so they can have a better Christmas." As he bounded out the door, she saw a crisp fifty dollar bill. Aware of the immense sacrifice it took for him to save that amount, she ran after him and jumped into his car. She hugged him. Then for a moment, she was not sitting next to her twenty--year--old son but next to that same son at age five who forgave a friend for stealing his toy car. He said. "Better let me go, Mom, before I start to cry." The mother said, "I love you, honey, and God will bless you for this." "And with that," she said, "I climbed out of the car, leaving with a moment I shall cherish forever; the moment I saw Christ in my son."3
The Holy Spirit's greatest gift is Jesus!
____________
1. Michael Duduit, editor, The Abingdon Preaching Annual, 1995 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 51.
2. Michael Duduit, editor, The Abingdon Preaching Annual, 1998 (Nashville: Abindgon Press, 1997), p. 56.
3. William J. Bausch, Storytelling The Word (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty--Third Publications, 1996), p. 123.
She felt God calling her when she served in a denomination that frowned upon, if not disdained, women ministers. But at forty years of age she quit her job and went to seminary 300 miles away from husband, home, and family. Two years later, even though she graduated at the very top of her class, she had no place to go. Undaunted, she returned to her hometown and sought out an underpaid part-time job. In eleven years, she carved out a unique ministry for herself, became ordained, and now serves as the Minister of Education in the best church about which I know anything. She has a gift and it is of the Holy Spirit.
He was short, a little overweight, and very poorly coordinated. He had the athletic ability of a hoe handle. He tried out for a baseball team of thirteen and fourteen year olds. He had not a prayer. But instead of feeling sorry for himself, he asked to be the manager. Some said, "Bat boy." But he was much, much more. He worked as hard as anyone. At practice or at a game, he was the first to arrive and the last to leave. He was the team's number one cheerleader. He encouraged everyone. When the team was down, he cheered them up. When they were behind, he challenged them. When the team posted a record of twenty wins with only one defeat and won the city championship, few had contributed more. He has a gift and it is of the Holy Spirit.
These three: one who used failure to find strength; one who persisted in God's call for her life; and the third who simply played the hand he was dealt, stand in stark contrast to two extreme radical attitudes current in the area of spirituality today.
One of these extreme attitudes is the "lone ranger" approach. The "lone ranger" approach to spirituality says that my giftedness and my spirituality are for me. I am independent. The journey is singular and has little or no room for a corporate component. Here one becomes a spiritual snake handler implying that one's gift is superior to another and is used to gather attention to one's self. I appreciate the honesty of a cartoon I saw once of a singer standing before a congregation. He announced, "This song has nothing to do with our worship theme, but it's a wonderful showcase for my voice." There are many dangers in the "lone ranger" approach, not the least of which is the tendency to divorce one's ethics or morals from one's spirituality. I mean, it is my gift, right? What is important is that I express myself, right?
The opposite of the "lone ranger" approach, though not too distant from it, is the "cookie cutter" approach to one's giftedness. The "cookie cutter" approach to spirituality says that everyone is cut from the same mold. Everyone is a carbon copy of the one before. The journey is corporate with little to no room for uniqueness or the freedom of personal expression. Everyone blends into a homogenous blob blindly following a dogmatic authority. Education ceases. Indoctrination is the plan. Dynamic faith bows to creedalism and worship is sacrificed upon the altar of the ritual of sameness. Everyone thinks alike, looks alike, talks alike, believes alike to the radical exclusion of anyone who does not.
Somehow, there has to be a balance, a middle ground. There has to be a place where an individual can exercise personal freedom in expressing one's uniqueness and function within a supportive group that accomplishes more together than it would have apart for itself and others. There has to be a place where one can exercise great individual freedom in the context of powerful interpersonal support directed toward a common goal.
That certainly was Paul's desire for the church at Corinth, the most abnormal of all the New Testament churches. In some ways, Corinth was normal, even like some of our cities. People came to this cosmopolitan city from all over the Roman Empire. Much like our own Washington, D.C., Corinth was a center of government and finance. The Isthmian Games were held there, similar to our Olympics. It was abnormal, however, in that many Christians came to their newfound faith from a background of the Greek mystery religions with their sensual practices and often bizarre initiatory rites. Certainly there was carry over from one to the other.
Paul came to Corinth around 51 A.D. and in eighteen months had a church going. As Paul and the young church exchanged correspondence, it became clear that the church's theology was a work in process. They had inquired of Paul his opinion as to what was permissible in worship, as evidently some members were displaying the more showy gifts, such as speaking in tongues, to the bewilderment of those who possessed it not. In order to bring order out of chaos, Paul addresses the situation in chapters 12--14 by beginning with a discussion of the gifts of the Holy Spirit.
He begins by emphasizing that all spiritual gifts have the Holy Spirit as their common source. In fact, no one can even become a Christian unless he or she is wooed and drawn by the Holy Spirit (v. 3). There are different kinds of gifts, different kinds of service and different kinds of working, but the same God works in all of them (vv. 4--6). Then Paul gives a "sampling" list, not an exhaustive one, of spiritual gifts. He not only lists the gifts in verses 7--10, but also in verses 28--31, and in Ephesians 4:11--12 and in Romans 12:6--8 as well. The lists are not identical, which indicates an expansive interpretation of their number. Paul is not trying to limit but expand our field of vision and wants to emphasize that everyone has at least one gift and many have many more.
Every Christian is gifted by the Holy Spirit. Perhaps the key verse to our understanding is verse 7: "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good" (NRSV). No one is excluded. Dick van Dyke in his book Faith, Hope, And Hilarity tells the story of a woman who takes her five--year--old nephew to church. "Can you genuflect?" she asks. "No," the little boy replies. "But I can somersault!"1 Some can genuflect and some can somersault, but there is something each one can do.
Several years ago Newsweek magazine ran a story in which Stacy King, a professional basketball player for the Chicago Bulls, was quoted as saying, "I'll always remember the night when Michael Jordan and I combined to score seventy points." What Stacy King did not mention is that Michael Jordan scored 69 of those points! But, still Stacy King did score one point and without that one point he and Michael Jordan would not have scored seventy points together. His one point was vital to their joint effort.
Realizing that every Christian has at least one gift, it becomes our responsibility to discover and develop our gift or gifts. We do both by doing. We develop and discipline the gift of music by using it. It is true with our gifts of teaching, leading, caring, earning money for God's purposes, administration, or whatever. As we use them, our gifts grow and we grow in our faith as well.
Grady retired. He had little to do as his wife still worked. With too much time on his hands, he began to associate with some questionable "friends" and on more than one occasion had too much to drink. Living next door to the small church of which he was a member but rarely attended, he noticed a group working to renovate an old Sunday school building. Always handy with a hammer, Grady wandered over and they put his hands to work. Two weeks later he had a new set of friends, helped to organize a work crew for other projects, and later rededicated his life to Christ. He put his gift to work and was more blessed than the church he helped. As Will Rogers once said, "Even if you are on the right track, if you just sit there, you'll get run over." Our gifts grow as we exercise them wherever God calls us to work.
He was the kindest, gentlest, and quietest man I ever knew. Although I was around him a lot, I remember very little of anything he ever said. I do remember him sitting behind a blazing bowl of Carter Hall and quietly reading his Bible. Although he was the last person in the world you would picture doing so, and a painter by trade, he was put in charge of a group of German prisoners of war during World War II. It was his job to plan their work and see to it that they accomplished it. Can you imagine a more difficult task? But he performed his job with such integrity and kindness that they called him "Pops." Prisoners of war called him "Pops"! Now this happened not in Northern Africa or Europe but in Huntsville, Alabama. That man was my maternal grandfather. Not my paternal grandfather. Not the one who was a preacher, or was he?
Thus, we are to use the Holy Spirit's grace--gifts to us wherever we find ourselves for the common good, to make this world a better place and, of course, to build up the church.
Gordon Cosby, of the Church of the Savior in Washington, D.C., states that there is no gift a church needs that God has not given to one of its members. God has gifted every church to do everything he has called that church to do. In fact, God has gifted you to do everything he has called you to do. The Holy Spirit orchestrates all our gifts to be used in unison and harmony to create a beautiful symphony of praise and service to him. Some are trumpets, some are percussion, some are clarinets, others furnish the strings. I am prejudiced toward the trombone, having played one a while back. The piccolo! Do you ever think about the piccolo? Probably not! But just try to play "Stars And Stripes Forever" without it! Every gift is vitally needed in God's great concert of ministry.
I recently called an individual who was attending and showing an unusual interest in our church. "I am a hooker," she said. "Maybe you can use me at the church!" "I, er--uh?" I stammered. "Oh, not that!" she laughed. "I hook rugs the old--fashioned way. Possibly I can teach a night time crafts class." Every gift is important, even that of a "hooker." Some have one gift; some have many. No one has any room to boast. All gifts are given freely, an act of grace, to be used as God wills to carry out his work. You probably have gifts of which you are not even aware.
Derl Keefer states that a discovery has been made that when the roots of trees touch, there is a substance present that reduces competition. This unknown fungus helps link roots of various trees, including dissimilar species. A whole forest may be incorporated together in this manner. If one tree has access to nutrients, another to water, and a third to sunlight, the trees have the means to cooperate with one another to live.2
That sounds like the church! That sounds like a middle ground where one can express one's personal freedom and uniqueness yet live with and for each other to benefit the world.
The Holy Spirit gives gifts. William Bausch tells the story of a mother, realizing that two families in their neighborhood were experiencing difficulty, who told her children, "Don't give your father and me anything. Let's try to see that these families have a decent Christmas." One son, Chris, was the basketball manager at his college and was in and out most of the time. In one of his brief visits, as he was walking out the door, he pressed into his mother's hand some money and said, "Take this. It is for those families so they can have a better Christmas." As he bounded out the door, she saw a crisp fifty dollar bill. Aware of the immense sacrifice it took for him to save that amount, she ran after him and jumped into his car. She hugged him. Then for a moment, she was not sitting next to her twenty--year--old son but next to that same son at age five who forgave a friend for stealing his toy car. He said. "Better let me go, Mom, before I start to cry." The mother said, "I love you, honey, and God will bless you for this." "And with that," she said, "I climbed out of the car, leaving with a moment I shall cherish forever; the moment I saw Christ in my son."3
The Holy Spirit's greatest gift is Jesus!
____________
1. Michael Duduit, editor, The Abingdon Preaching Annual, 1995 (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1994), p. 51.
2. Michael Duduit, editor, The Abingdon Preaching Annual, 1998 (Nashville: Abindgon Press, 1997), p. 56.
3. William J. Bausch, Storytelling The Word (Mystic, Connecticut: Twenty--Third Publications, 1996), p. 123.
