Practicing Your Pentecostal Passion
January 24th, 2010January 24, 2009
Rich Smith
1 Corinthians 12:1-11
The day of the Annual Congregational Meeting is always a good day to invoke the memory of the saints, and this morning I want to appeal to Saint Robert – known to those of us who have been here longer than four years as the late Bob Boynton. He was one of the beloved leaders of this congregation for many years, and we still miss his gentle voice and uncanny wisdom and the way he guided us through some trying times.
One of the things he said, which I questioned at the time, was in a discussion about how we might increase our membership, and he suggested that we should sell the church building, move into a gymnasium, and that I should become a Pentecostal preacher! Now I think Bob was being somewhat facetious, but one thing is certain: if you do find a Pentecostal church meeting in a gymnasium, it is likely to be lively and growing!
While I suspect that those of us comfortable with our more traditional and staid New England Congregational style would not be much at home in a Pentecostal setting, I do think they are on to something, and do manage to tap into the yearnings of those raised in a rock music culture to be more expressive and emotive in their ways of worship. After all, there is more palpable enthusiasm at a rock concert that in a lecture hall.
I am not going to propose we make such a radical shift in style, although after last week’s gospel/bluegrass service you may wonder. I thought I heard Lena speaking in tongues at last night’s Jazza Cabaret, but I am informed the technical term is “scat.” I do think we might want to take seriously what it would mean for our common life as a church if we were to recognize that we might in fact already be – if not Pentecostal — then at least charismatics!
Now don’t let that scare you. Being a charismatic and being a Pentecostal are not necessarily the same thing. Some charismatics are Pentecostal, but by no means all. We learn this in our scripture lesson this morning, as Paul writes to the Corinthian Church. The early days of Christianity, as we are discovering thanks to Elaine Paigels and others, was a very diverse time. There wasn’t a great deal of unity or agreement among the believers about theology or practice or even what it meant to be Christian. We sometime like to think that if we could just be like that early church, where something was going on that attracted converts by the thousands, that everything would be wonderful. Well, in many ways we ARE like the early church, especially in our diversity and multitude of opinions. Someone once observed that where two or three Congregationalists gather there will be four or five different opinions! That’s actually something we value – not having an orthodoxy. And there really wasn’t one in the early days, either — other than the simple creed “Jesus is Lord!” — but it meant that things didn’t always run smoothly. One thing they DID believe in those early days was that the Holy Spirit was active in their midst bringing them together, energizing them, and very importantly, bestowing spiritual gifts. The Greek terms for a spiritual gift is charismata, from which we derive the terms “charismatic” and “charisma,” and even “charm.”
These early believers somehow felt gifted or empowered for certain things. The text describes them as “the utterance of wisdom, the utterance of knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking in tongues and interpretation of tongues.” Now Paul is pretty clear that all of these abilities are given by the Holy Spirit, and that all are equally important. “There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; varieties of service, but the same Lord; varieties of working, but the same God who activates them…”
The problem in Corinth – or one of several, if you read the whole letter – was that some of them who had received the gift of glossolalia, speaking in tongues, were making the case that it was the most desirable gift, and were claiming a special status for themselves. For Paul, it is astonishing that what is a gift from the Spirit should become a basis for boasting. Gifts, he points out, are a grace, not given for personal aggrandizement, but for the good of the whole body, the whole church, and should be accepted and practiced in humility. They are for the common good, not the individual.
This is illustrated later in the letter when he talks more about speaking in tongues. It doesn’t do any good at all, he said, unless an interpreter is there to tell everyone else what the person was saying. And we also need to remember the original context of the Pentecostal experience – it happened on the Pentecost following the resurrection, when pilgrims from all over the known world were gathered in Jerusalem for the festival, persons who spoke many different languages. As the story goes, the Spirit came upon the apostles in such a way that they were able to speak in all the different languages of the people gathered there – who each heard the good news in their own tongues. And so speaking in tongues was originally not unintelligible gibberish, or a private ecstatic spiritual experience, but rather a miracle of communication.
So, there are many gifts, one Spirit, “one love known in many ways.” No one should boast because they received one gift over another. They are all important, and necessary for the building of the church.
It’s the same for us today, here at Westmoreland. Some of us may wonder whether or not the Spirit takes a personal interest and individually selects unique gifts for us, or whether there is a kind of divine lottery, or whether it could simply be explained by genetics. Interesting questions, for which I don’t really have an answer, and in this case I’m not sure it matters as much as the plain fact that each of us has indeed been gifted, we each have something special and we have each been called, by virtue of being here, to use those gifts for the common good, for the upbuilding of the body, the Church. We each have a gift, and thus by definition, we are charismatic! It’s simply a matter of whether or not we recognize it and then how we practice it.
We may call the gifts by different names, but I have no doubt that the classic gifts of the Spirit are present here.
Take “the utterance of wisdom.” As we approach today’s Annual Congregational Meeting, there are always a lot of voices raised, some more wise than others, voices without a trace of panic, voices which take a long and comprehensive view, a prayerful view of who we are what we are called to be. Churches need these voices, and God indeed places them among us. I recall some years ago hearing about a special congregational meeting that was called at one of my former churches. Seems that my successor had chosen to perform a “holy union” ceremony for an elderly couple who wanted to spend their remaining days together in companionship, with divine blessing, but weren’t as interested in going through the legalities of getting the state’s blessing. Believing that the eyes of God were more important than the eyes of the state, the minister performed the blessing. This did not please everyone in the congregation and so a meeting was called to decide what to do about it. Almost before it could get going, the oldest member, a woman in her 99th year, stood up and said, “This ain’t none of our business….I move we adjourn!” And so they did. The utterance of wisdom.
Others, I am sure, will engage in “the utterance of knowledge,” which is more than facts, but at least includes facts in their proper context. We rely on our church treasurers, for example to provide the knowledge we need to make decisions. When you see our financial reports you will appreciate that it takes someone with a gift to compile and make sense of all the data.
The gift of faith is one that Paul believes is given to all Christians, and if we believe him, then no one can say they are left out of the gift-giving. And by faith we mean not a set of beliefs to which you must sign on to, but trust – acting as if what you can’t prove is true. Things like the way of love and forgiveness and prayer cannot really be proven, but we go on living our lives as if they are. Some of us may exhibit more faith than others, but that’s okay. We’re at different places in our journey, and we need the example of those who move out in faith, who live as if God’s promises are true, who risk themselves in love. To sing “We Shall Overcome” in the way that we did last Sunday is surely to display the gift of faith! So is writing a check for Haiti!
And some have been given the gift of healing. I’m not referring to the evangelistic tent-meeting type of healing that you see in the movies or on cable TV, but rather that there are those among us who know how to offer a healing word and presence, who mediate conflict, who can forgive, who can sit with the hurting, the confused, the dying and somehow make God’s love real, who help create a sense of wholeness, all of which is not the same things as a cure. Many of these charismatics share their gifts through our Community Care program, who simply tender help to those who need it. Those in the Prayer Network offer their gifts unseen, but always felt. And some are not part of any organized group, but reach out to others in unheralded ways. I’m always gratified to show up at someone’s bedside in a hospital and discover that another Westmorelander has been there first!
And what about workers of miracles? Look no farther than the results of our Stewardship campaign, and the record high pledging in spite of the economic recession.
The gift of prophecy can be seen several ways, but one of them is NOT predicting the future. Prophets are rather those how can look at the present situation and speak a sometimes uncomfortable but courageous word, one we need to hear that if heeded has the potential to make a huge difference in the way the future unfolds.
And finally, what about that charismatic gift of “speaking in tongues?” I don’t see too many of us speaking in ecstatic but unintelligible gibberish – although this IS Washington and it’s an election year, so I’m sure it happens – but if we take glossolalia to mean what it originally meant, speaking in ways that communicate, then I know it happens. I’m always trying to learn how to do it better, through preaching and teaching and writing, and many of you write and speak for a living. The Spirit of God helps us say what we mean and mean what we say, whether through speech or pen or the Internet or even Twitter… and also through our actions in following the Word Made Flesh, those acts of compassion and caring that speak louder than words and communicate the Good News of God’s love. This gift is also known through music, the universal language. Through our choirs, organ and other instruments, and our singing, we hear at a much deeper level than words alone can communicate.
We are all charismatics – each having been given a gift for the common good. Part of our task as a church is to help people realize and claim their gifts and learn to use them, not for ourselves but for others. Maybe it’s our most basic task, to exercise the gift of discernment — for when we know what our gifts are and use them well, each of us – and our church and ultimately our world – will be transformed, growing more and more into the persons we are called to be.
How do you know what your gift is? A Google search yielded 1.4 million websites with the words “spiritual gifts,” and over 600,000 with online quizzes you can take, to help you figure it out. Many are based on fairly orthodox views of what these gifts are. But the best I’ve seen is a simple three- question “gifts inventory” in our own UCC Confirmation curriculum: What do you love to do? What do you do well? What makes you feel satisfied or proud? And then to consider how these may be indications of spiritual gifts, and how they can be shared with others.
That’s really what we want to do in the church – especially as new people join us and find their connection, their place in the community – but long-time members can be about this as well. While we will elect board members and officers this morning, and they are important to getting the church’s work done, I’m not sure most people join a church in order to manage ministry or serve on a board. I do believe that people are drawn to a place where they can do something that makes a difference and in that find spiritual fulfillment and transformation, and you can do that without having to be elected to anything, and when you do it, you are indeed practicing your Pentecostal passion!
I hope we can each realize where and how God has touched us with charismata, with a gift, and that when we exercise it for the common good, it will make all the difference! And together we will accomplish all kinds of works of wonder, as we turn despair into hope, hatred into love, and violence into healing.
In Alexander Irvine’s novel of a century ago, My Lady of the Chimney Corner, the heroine goes to a grieving neighbor, puts her hand on her head and says, “God takes a hand wherever God can find it and does just what God likes with it. Sometimes God takes a bishop’s hand and lays it on a child’s head in benediction. And then God takes the hand of a doctor to relieve pain, the hand of a mother to guide a child. And sometimes God takes the hand of a poor old creature like me to give comfort to a neighbor. But they’re all hands touched by the Spirit, and the Spirit’s everywhere lookin’ for hands to use.”
So may the Spirit find us and touch us as we find and practice our Pentecostal Passion! And may Saint Robert look down on us with joy!
