Mar. 6 Sermon: Bringing Gifts
Sunday March 6, 2011
Holy Covenant UMC
Rev. Kate Hurst Floyd
I Corinthians 12:12-31
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I started playing the violin when I was 7 years old, and I played all the way through college. I confess that I don’t have much natural musical ability, but I do have a naturally compulsive personality, so I practiced really hard to make up for my lack of talent. When I started out, playing the violin was a solo effort. But when I got older and better, I started to play in orchestras. And I joined lots of orchestras…school orchestras, regional orchestras, the local youth symphony, I even went to orchestra camp. I was that kid.
One year, our local youth symphony decided to perform works from Handel’s Messiah. Well, I was thrilled, because this is my all time favorite piece of music. One of the hardest pieces for everyone was “And the Trumpet Shall Sound”. Its words are drawn from scripture; 1 Corinthians, in fact. It involves the full orchestra, but features a bass aria and, of course, the trumpet. I don’t know if you can hear it in your head, and because of my lack of musical abilities, I’ll spare you the agony of my singing it, but let me assure you that this piece rests and falls on the trumpet. I practiced like there was no tomorrow. On my own, I clapped the difficult rhythms, over and over again. I watched myself in the mirror, to make sure my bow strokes were accurate and would mirror everyone else’s. I listened to tapes of the music so the melodies became second nature to me. And, of course, I played my part, in my room, countless times. I was excited about this concert and prepared to play my part.
Well, here we were, on stage, playing this magnificent piece of music, and it was going beautifully. We came to “And the trumpet shall sound”, and I was ready to contribute my part. I held my breath, waiting for the beautiful, triumphant sounds to come from the trumpet: And it was terrible. After his entrance, things just kept getting worse. He must have been flustered by his poor entrance, because he never recovered. Instead of inspiring people to give glory to God, the only thing people were thanking God for was that it ended.
What a disappointment! I felt for him, but I was also a little angry and frustrated. I had worked hard on this piece, wanting it to be just right, to be inspirational for the listeners, for all of our talents to blend together ……..But no. It was off key and off tempo, not glorifying anybody or anyone.
I decided it was a whole lot easier to play solos. When I played a piece individually, I wasn’t dependent on anybody else. When I worked on solo pieces, I was in charge of my own schedule. I didn’t have to coordinate with anyone else or meet the demands of a busy orchestra schedule. Also, when I played a solo, I got to be in the center, in the spotlight….which I loved. Probably not a surprise that I turned out to be a preacher. And I had the relief of knowing that if I messed up or wasn’t up to contributing my best effort, I wasn’t going to let anybody else down.
Paul would tell me that I was trying to exist as my own member, isolated from the whole, not recognizing the importance of connection.
We have his famous metaphor before us this morning, about what it means to be the body of Christ. Unified together through the gift and hope of the resurrected Christ; unity made tangible through the sacrament of baptism. We are one body. But in that body of Christ is great diversity. And when we believe that we can exist on our own, without others, we’re in trouble. We’re like a foot who thinks it doesn’t need to see; an eye who doesn’t need to smell; a violinist who doesn’t think she needs the harmonies of violas and cellos and clarinets. All diverse parts of the body are essential to truly be unified in Christ.
The church in Corinth was very divided, theologically, politically; wanting to follow different leaders, and believing that some people had superior gifts, and were thus superior Christians.
Their hot button issue was speaking in tongues: those who did believed they were better Christians, with a higher gift and calling than those who didn’t. But Paul levels them all out and says all gifts are essential for the body of Christ and one is not better than the other. In God’s eyes, all our diverse gifts are indispensable and we should not be ranking them.
Today, at Holy Covenant, we’re not so concerned about speaking in tongues; in fact, we’d probably be concerned if people started speaking in tongues. But it is easy to get ourselves into a soloist mentality. After all, we live in a pretty soloist kind of culture: pull yourself up by your bootstraps; succeed on your own; never show others your vulnerability.
And yet Paul, and our Christian faith, preaches such a counter word to the dangerous culture of individualism. The church, of all places, should be where we come together, in all of our diversity, in beautiful harmonies. And my goodness, we are gifted! As I look around this congregation, I’m overwhelmed by the ways God has gifted each and every one of us.
The hard part can be figuring out how to share those gifts here and bring them together in unity. For as beautiful as a symphony sounds, it’s a lot of hard work! It involves risk and practice and presence; a willingness to let go of control and be disappointed by a trumpet player; it involves sometimes being that trumpet player, and exposing our imperfections.
One of the biggest challenges often comes internally; we don’t think, like the Corinthians, that people who speak tongues have superior gifts. But it is easy to believe that our gifts aren’t as valid or useful as someone else’s. Thinking: oh, he knows enough scripture to lead a bible study, so he’s a better Christian. What do I have to bring? Crunching numbers on the finance committee? Or she must be more faithful because she reads scripture in worship…but I’m not gifted with public speaking, all I can do is move chairs around after service; Or believing that somehow the gift of preaching or being on ministerial staff, an intern…being the music director…means you’re a more valued Christian. Or maybe we don’t even know what gifts we have to bring, and this scares us. But Paul snaps us out of those comparisons and helps us realize that as the church, all of us are essential. If nobody paid attention to repairs of the church building, we wouldn’t have a space for musicians to lead worship; If nobody brought the gift of their presence to worship, the musicians wouldn’t inspire anyone; if people didn’t stop by women’s group and share their story, the leaders wouldn’t have anybody to be in relationship with. I could go on and on….Paul’s point is that in the body of Christ, every single one of us matters, equally. We learn from one another and our gifts, because they are from God, are equally valuable and the Holy Spirit uses each one of us. You matter. Your presence matters. Your skills, life experience, friendship, gifts, talents, time, witness, service, matters.
And we’re so much stronger when we choose to bring those gifts together, as a church community, as the body of Christ. Even when it means risking ourselves, pushing outside of our comfort zones, letting go of our need to be solo artists.
I don’t need to tell you the obvious lesson I learned as a young person playing in orchestras: the sound we could produce as a group was always more spectacular than anything I could ever produce on my own. I quickly realized that I was grateful for those times when my notes were off and I had a 15 person violin section to carry me. But just because it’s obvious, doesn’t mean it’s easy; I think it’s one we do well to remind ourselves of. And what beautiful reminders we have here! Look what happens when we share our gifts together: We engage in the Advent Conspiracy, witnessing in worship about spending less, giving more, and worshipping fully; a team of people plan our alternative giving fair, donating gifts of planning, publicity, materials, and crafts; we donated $3,000 for Haitian relief; you shopped, brought your friends, and gave your families homemade gifts, changing the consumerist culture around Christmas. Talk about a symphony! On bluegrass palm Sunday, people donate their gifts of leadership and playing instruments; the choir practices their parts and sings at multiple services; liturgists read scripture; and you come and bring your friends, and we worship God, beautifully, together. One person is inspired to feed people through The Night Ministry and shares that passion; a small group comes to the church and cooks a meal, takes it to Wicker park on a Saturday night. Then more people hear and sign up, and before you know it we’re cooking and delivering meals every single month. We contribute to a special offering and fund the ministry for months to come. We are gifted! And what we can do together is always more beautiful than what we can do on our own.
We play our different parts, but there are also different seasons in our lives in which we are called to share different gifts, in different ways. You may not be able to give financially because of your economic situation; but you can give your time to volunteer at Dignity Diner, making a difference in people’s lives. And other people, who for a season have less time to give, are able to step up their tithe and give more. We cover one another. You may be called to serve as the chair of an administrative committee, or be a lay leader, coming to the church multiple times a week and guiding our vision; other times, you may be called to rest and Sabbath and come and participate in worship. Each of us matters, and each of us should pay attention to where God is calling us in different seasons of our lives. Sometimes we bake a pie and cook up a pot of chili for a potluck; other times we come and receive. Because one of the best gifts is that no single one of us is the church, nor carries the church, on our own. But together, we always produce a symphony.
We carry one another through the seasons of our lives; as Paul says: the members may have the same care for one another. If one member suffers, all suffer together with it; if one member is honored, all rejoice together with it. Today, our special mission offering for communion goes towards our pastoral discretion fund; this is money that will go to those in our community who are in need; of groceries, gift cards, rent payment. It’s one of the ways we care for members of our body. I invite you to give, what you can; we may think, I only have $5, what can that do? But when each of us puts in $5, we’re able to feed a family for a month.
You gifts aren’t just welcome here, they are essential. Because through Jesus, what may look or feel like scarcity on our own, is always transformed into abundance. What unites us, after all, is not our individual abilities or inabilities, but our baptism in Christ Jesus.
We come today to his welcome table, feasting, all of us, on one loaf. We drink of the same cup, and we are full. Through Jesus, we eat a meal far more nourishing than anything we could ever prepare on our own. As we sing and play our gifts together, here as the church, we practice for that day when we all get to sing in that heavenly choir and feast, abundantly, at God’s heavenly banquet.
May it be so. Thanks be to God, Amen.
Tags: Kate
