Pentecost 2008 (5/11/08) “Gifts of the Spirit”

1 Corinthians 12.4-13

“Now there are varieties of gifts,” St. Paul writes, “but the same Spirit.” He means, of course, the Holy Spirit—the one whose descent upon the apostles we recall this day; the one by whom each of us, in our baptism, was incorporated into the body of Christ, the church.

This morning I’d like to focus on this idea of “gifts.” That is partly to help you think about our forthcoming “Reaching Out with Our Gifts” luncheon on June 1—a time when we will both thank and recognize all our wonderful volunteers, and also think about how we might best use our gifts for the ministry of Christ through Peace Lutheran Church.

But it’s also because the idea of the gifts of the Holy Spirit is very much a Pentecost theme, as our second lesson clearly demonstrates. After all, in the Small Catechism we learn that the Holy Spirit is the one who “has called me through the gospel”—but also the one who “has enlightened me with his gifts.” Being a part of the baptized community means that you have been given gifts—you have been “enlightened” by those gifts, and called to “let your light shine.”

So I’d like to suggest three things about the gifts of the Holy Spirit. One could say much more, of course, but these three things, it seems to me, are the foundation of how we understand the work of the Holy Spirit in our lives and in our time.

The first is this: The gifts of the Holy Spirit are manifestations of the grace of God. It is unfortunately not obvious in the English words, but in the Greek of the New Testament, the word for “gift” is derived directly from the word for “grace.” You might even literally translate “gift” as “things of grace.” The idea is that the gifts God gives to each of us come purely and completely from grace. We do not deserve them; we did not earn them. In many instances, of course, a gift is something that we develop and learn to use; but they fundamentally do not come from us, but from God.

You know, I’ve always thought about music in that way, and particularly my own musical gifts, such as they are. There is not much reason that I should be particularly musical. My parents weren’t; my father couldn’t match a pitch, and mother wasn’t much better at it. My two sisters are not musicians at all. There wasn’t a lot of music in my house growing up. I don’t really have much training—a couple of years of piano lessons as a kid, and a lot of years singing in choirs, but no formal academic study.

And so for lots of years I’ve been acutely aware—and profoundly grateful—that music for me, singing especially, is simply a gift of the Holy Spirit. I hardly ever sing a note without breathing a prayer of thanks for that gift, thanks that God would give such a gift to such an unlikely person, and also that God would give me opportunities to use it in enriching ways.

But you see, all of God’s gifts are like that. We do not earn them or deserve them; we often cannot give any kind of logical explanation of where they come from. They are unexpected—because they are part of God’s grace. And we all have them, we all have been given gifts, all of us enlightened by the gifts of the Holy Spirit.

That leads to the second point, which is that there is a great variety of gifts among God’s people. Our problem is that some things we easily identify as gifts, and others we kind of overlook. Some gifts seem sort of flashy and showy, and others are really quite mundane.

My mother was a very unassuming person. She was never pushy—well, almost never. You would never pick out as the life of the party. But the older I get, the more I appreciate the gifts that she had to give. She was an incredibly compassionate person. She was a nurse by training, so she used her gift of compassion in that way. But looking back, I see it in so many other ways. For the last few years of her life, my grandmother was in a convalescent hospital. I’m pretty sure that except for times she was out of town, my mother never missed a day of stopping by to see Grandma. But it wasn’t just Grandma; Mom seemed to know instinctively which other residents didn’t get many visitors, and so she would always stop and chat with each one, just for a moment. It was an amazing gift she had, and an instructive one.

Some of you may remember that I spent a few years as secretary of the Sierra Pacific Synod—a job mostly rather mundane and boring, but kind of stressful during the synod assembly each year. Every year, the week after the assembly, I would get a note from a particular pastor thanking me for doing that job. After the second or third time, I expressed appreciation for his kindness in sending those notes, and told him how much they meant to me. His response has always stuck with me: “It’s a gift I have,” he said. “I could never be the synod secretary, but I can say ‘thank you.’” I know from talking to others that he was incredibly generous in his saying “thank you,” that I was by no means the only person who got notes from him.

That’s such a profound way of understanding the gifts of the Holy Spirit! Again, they are very diverse. Some are public and obvious; others are behind the scenes, quiet, almost invisible. But one cannot say that one is better than another; they are equally important, and the Holy Spirit, as Paul puts it, “gives to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.”

That leads to third point: the Spirit chooses to give these gifts for one reason only: it is for the common good—which is to say, the gifts the Spirit gives are to be used for ministry, for service. They are, to pick up on what we talked about last week, given to us so that we can be Christ’s hands, Christ’s heart, Christ’s body in the world.

Our challenge is to think quite seriously about how we do that. You know, I know a man here in town who is a computer service guy. He’s also a Christian, and one of the ways he lives out his faith is to devote ten percent of his working time to work that he does without charge for non-profit organizations. That’s someone who has a sense of using his gifts.

I want to invite you to spend some time over the next three weeks thinking about your own gifts. What are the gifts the Holy Spirit has given you? If you can’t figure it out, try praying about it, asking the Holy Spirit to show you what your gifts are. Sometimes, even often, gifts are things we take for granted, things so close to us we lose sight of their nature as gift.

Then spend some time reflecting on the sheet in the May Tidings, “Reaching Out with Our Gifts for Ministry.” If you need an extra copy, or additional copies for your household, there are some extras on the guest book stand in the narthex. Reflect on the sheet, and think about what gifts God has given you that could be utilized in our ministry here at Peace. Or, if you don’t see your own gifts reflected there, write something in. Get creative about it!

And then plan to join us for the luncheon on June 1—both to turn in your Reaching Out with Our Gifts form, but also to celebrate and recognize the great variety of wonderful gifts God has given us here—these gifts given to us by the Holy Spirit for the common good, these gifts that enlighten us and enable us to be the body of Christ here in Nevada County.

We all are called for service, to witness in God’s name.

Our ministries are different, our purpose is the same:

to touch the lives of others with God’s surprising grace,

so every folk and nation may feel God’s warm embrace.