Peanut Butter and Spiritual Gifts

The First United Presbyterian Church

“Peanut Butter and Spiritual Gifts”

Rev. Amy Morgan

May 31, 2020

1 Corinthians 12:4-13

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;

 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;

 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,

 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,

 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.

 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

 12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.

 13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body-- Jews or Greeks, slaves or free-- and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.

Acts 2:1-21

When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place. 2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting. 3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them. 4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.

 5 Now there were devout Jews from every nation under heaven living in Jerusalem. 6 And at this sound the crowd gathered and was bewildered, because each one heard them speaking in the native language of each. 7 Amazed and astonished, they asked, "Are not all these who are speaking Galileans? 8 And how is it that we hear, each of us, in our own native language? 9 Parthians, Medes, Elamites, and residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, 10 Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya belonging to Cyrene, and visitors from Rome, both Jews and proselytes, 11 Cretans and Arabs-- in our own languages we hear them speaking about God's deeds of power."

 12 All were amazed and perplexed, saying to one another, "What does this mean?"

 13 But others sneered and said, "They are filled with new wine."

 14 But Peter, standing with the eleven, raised his voice and addressed them, "Men of Judea and all who live in Jerusalem, let this be known to you, and listen to what I say. 15 Indeed, these are not drunk, as you suppose, for it is only nine o'clock in the morning. 16 No, this is what was spoken through the prophet Joel:

 17 'In the last days it will be, God declares, that I will pour out my Spirit upon all flesh, and your sons and your daughters shall prophesy, and your young men shall see visions, and your old men shall dream dreams. 18 Even upon my slaves, both men and women, in those days I will pour out my Spirit; and they shall prophesy. 19 And I will show portents in the heaven above and signs on the earth below, blood, and fire, and smoky mist. 20 The sun shall be turned to darkness and the moon to blood, before the coming of the Lord's great and glorious day. 21 Then everyone who calls on the name of the Lord shall be saved.'

Many of us get a little anxious going to the grocery store these days. But this feeling isn’t new to me. Shopping has made me anxious for years. Not because of COVID and face masks and social distancing. Because of variety. That’s right, the astounding variety of products available on every shelf brings on anxiety that leads to what psychologists call “decision paralysis.” I look at the two simple words on my shopping list: “peanut butter.” And then I look up at the 45 different varieties of this product from which I must choose just one. Creamy or Crunchy, SUPER Crunchy? Organic, Natural, Old Fashioned? What does that even mean? And then there are 12 different brands to choose from, and 8 different prices. And I stand there hyperventilating, thinking, “I just want peanut butter!”

It seems that spiritual gifts come in the same dizzying variety as peanut butter. Uttering wisdom or knowledge, healing and working miracles, prophecy, discernment, speaking and interpreting tongues. And this list Paul gives to the church in Corinth is only one of several lists in the letters of the New Testament outlining different gifts of the Spirit. Other possibilities include teaching, administration, evangelizing, and more. It seems like just about anything could be considered a spiritual gift. The Corinthian Christians are looking down at two little words, “spiritual gifts,” and looking up at a dizzying variety of options. Instead of drinking in the Holy Spirit, they were hyperventilating on it.

Variety may be the spice of life. But it can also be overwhelming, and confusing, and intoxicating.

On the day of Pentecost, when the disciples start addressing the diverse multitude gathered in Jerusalem for the holiday, the variety of languages they were given the ability to speak caused such a commotion that some people thought they were drunk. Variety is disorienting and disconcerting. Trying to follow a conversation in two languages is challenging. Imagine listening to people conversing in more than a dozen languages at once! It would probably sound more like a keg party than a church service.

Some scholars believe that Pentecost is the culmination or reversal of the Tower of Babel. At Babel, God confused the languages of all the people because they were using their ability to communicate for the purpose of making themselves equal to God. At Pentecost, God blesses the variety of languages and diversity of humanity by giving them the ability to communicate “God’s deeds of power” in multiple languages. God doesn’t reduce all the languages into one homogenous tongue. God doesn’t pick one and make everyone speak and understand it. As one commentator puts it, “Unity, not unvarying uniformity, is the law of God in the world of grace, as in that of nature.” Variety remains, but understanding is empowered. This is the gift the Holy Spirit enables at Pentecost.

Many of us may get a little anxious going to the grocery store these days. Some of you may share my fear of decision paralysis. But some in our community, in our country, have a great deal more to fear than I do. I don’t pretend to understand all of the complexities of why this is so. The simple label of racism doesn’t seem adequate. And it doesn’t seem to be stemming the injustices suffered by our black and brown brothers and sisters.

What I do know is that the gift of Pentecost is the gift of unity, of understanding in the midst of our diversity. I’ve read dozens of sermons, or what could pass for sermons, online this week, about the recent killings of black men and women by law enforcement. I can’t preach that sermon. It isn’t mine to preach.

But I can preach the gospel, which calls us today to use our gifts for the “common good.”

They only way I overcome my decision paralysis in the grocery store is to realize that, in the end, everything on the shelf is some kind of spreadable nut butter. I close my eyes, grab something off the shelf, and walk away quickly, knowing I have something in my cart that will do what peanut butter is supposed to do.

And that’s what Paul tells the Corinthian Christians: spiritual gifts do what they’re supposed to do. They work for the common good. It is one Spirit, on Lord, one God who activates all spiritual gifts. Gifts are given, not because you earn them or are well-suited for them or choose them. Gifts are given and activated “for the common good.”

I joke that I have a spiritual gift for finding things my son loses or that a friend’s spiritual gift is following directions. It may seem like pretty much anything could be a spiritual gift. Because people have all kinds of gifts. Some have the gift of gab. Some people are gifted liars. Others are gifted with charm and charisma. Some gifts contribute to our personal success or achievement, our ability to problem-solve or accomplish more than someone else.

But not all gifts serve the common good. Not all of them are manifestations of the Spirit.

Gifts that proclaim God’s deeds of power, gifts that build up the Body of Christ, are spiritual gifts. And spiritual gifts don’t work for our personal gain, or safety, or security, or well-being. They don’t serve to bolster our agenda or maintain the status quo. Spiritual gifts work for the common good, the good of everyone. So if there are some among us who are not well, that is where our gifts must be activated.

And they must be activated in the whole body. Any one person’s gift might feel inadequate. It might lead to personal failure or marginalization. It might feel confusing or chaotic. And that just might be confirmation of your spiritual gift.

Spiritual gifts aren’t useful in isolation. They aren’t given so that one person can do it all. As we ordain and install Jason this morning, we celebrate the gifts he has been given by the Spirit. But – don’t tell him I said so – he isn’t any more gifted or special than anyone else in the church. It isn’t his job to fix everything or know everything or do everything. In his baptism, Jason was called and equipped by the Holy Spirit to work in and for the Body of Christ. Just like each and every one of us. In our baptism into the one body, we drank the Spirit that gifted us to work together for the common good.

No pastor, no elder or deacon, no individual can do the work of the Body of Christ alone. We are gifted with variety so that the body can thrive. When we look at those three little words: “Body of Christ,” we should look up and see a wild variety of hands and feet, ears and eyes, arms and legs, heads and torsos. In our church body, we have hands that will help others up, ears that will listen, mouths that will speak wisdom, and brains that will figure things out. No one gift, no one part, is enough. And EVERY gift, EVERY part, is essential. We are one body, made up of all our individual parts, our individual gifts, given by the one Spirit for the common good.

Right now, there is a lot of debate about what it means to work for the common good. Is the common good about keeping people from contracting a deadly virus? Is the common good about rescuing the economy from devastation? Is the common good about maintaining our health system? Is the common good about maintaining the social and emotional well-being of our children? Is the common good supporting brave and hard-working officers of the law? Is the common good demanding justice for those who are killed unjustly? The variety of ideas about serving the common good right now is truly disorienting and confusing. We can’t understand each other at all. We might as well all be speaking different languages.

And so we must embrace the Pentecost promise of unity and understanding. If we don’t understand – if we don’t understand the problem, if we don’t understand the experience, if we don’t understand all the fuss, if we don’t understand what we’re supposed to do to help - we need to pray for the Holy Spirit to help us speak the same language.

And so before we post on social media one more criticism, one more article proving our point, one more angry rant about how our neighbors are behaving, let’s look at our own lives, our own behaviors, and especially our own gifts. The world doesn’t need our fear and anger and frustration. It needs our gifts, our wisdom and knowledge, our healing and discernment. It needs gifts for helping us understand God and understand one another, speaking and interpreting a variety of tongues. The world needs the body of Christ to be one body, drinking one Spirit, speaking into everyone’s hearts. This is a Pentecost moment, if ever there was one.

You are gifted, church. Each one of you. And the body needs you. The world needs you. Drink deeply of the Spirit, who activates your gifts for the common good.

To God be all glory forever and ever. Amen.