The Gift of Difference--October 27, 2022

The Gift of Difference--October 27, 2022

"Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." [1 Corinthians 12:4-7]

Sometimes I just can't get over how truly, wonderfully revolutionary the New Testament really is.  And sometimes I can't get over how much the modern-day voices of Respectable Religion try to blunt, soften, or stifle the radical vision of the early Christian witness.

These verses from First Corinthians are a prime example: they absolutely revel in diversity and difference among the Christian community, and they insist that the point of our different gifts is for the good of all, not just for me and my self-interest.  By contrast, we live, I would say, in a time when a lot of folks--including "religious" ones--are afraid of difference and comfortable with selfishness.  A lot of Respectable Religious Leaders in our culture seem threatened by seeing a diversity of expressions of faith, ways of doing things, and perspectives for living out the gospel... and at the very same time are not at all bothered by the mindset that says, "We have to look out for the interests of OUR group first."  Put those two impulses together and you end up with a sort of homogenous tribalism that says, "We all need to be the same, and we only look out for 'our kind' of people."

Paul, on the other hand, keeps insisting that both halves of that equation are wrong: God intends for there to be diversity of gifts, ways of serving, kinds of activities, and expressions of our faith, and God intends for us to use whatever we have for the good of all, not just people who fit in my little sub-group.  [Sometimes I think if Paul showed up on the scene in contemporary American Christianity, a lot of pastors and churches would shove him out the door for all of his subversive "seek the common good" talk and his appreciation for diverse expressions of the same Spirit.  And I suspect that they would disaffiliate from the Apostle Paul confident that they were doing it for the sake of righteousness.]

But honestly, what we most deeply need is the refreshing perspective we get in these verses.  I'm tired of the same old selfishness and fear of difference that's floating around out there.  I'm tired of hearing Respectable Religious voices say that it is somehow our "Christian duty" to prioritize the interests of our own little tribes, traditions, denominations, ethnic groups, or nations rather than the good of all.  I'm tired of the knee-jerk reaction of fear or mockery that seems to bubble up any time someone outside of the cookie-cutter mold speaks about what God is doing in their lives--how women in ministry are still so often belittled, or how people from different cultures, languages, and ethnic groups are often treated like they have nothing to contribute, or how listening to those diverse voices is so easily dismissed.  And I'm tired of hearing so many voices who name the name of Jesus using their pulpits, soapboxes, and social media platforms to make their listeners afraid of "the other" rather than seeing "the other" as someone with gifts given by God, whose difference is also a gift of God.  We've all heard that for so long from so many places that I suspect we don't even realize how contradictory it is to Paul's actual perspective here.

What Paul invites us into has so much less fear and so much more joy than that.  He invites us to see the different perspectives, passions, and particular abilities of others as divine gifts to be celebrated, rather than something dangerous to be shunned or something tedious to be dismissed.  That has a way of both humbling us--because it leads us to realize that no one of us has all the necessary gifts alone--and also enriching and encouraging us, because it assures us that none of us has to live this life of faith alone.  We are made for interconnectedness.  We are made to share our strengths and to use them to shore up our collective weak places.  We are meant to see our individual gifts as something meant for the common good, rather than hoarded and leveraged for just the ones who are exactly like me.

In fact, I'm reminded, now that I think of it, of a beautiful insight of our older brother in the faith Martin Luther along the same lines. In his commentary on Galatians, Luther offers this insight, which just as easily could have been a commentary on these verses from First Corinthians: "If there is anything in us, it is not our own; it is a gift of God. But if it is a gift of God, then it is entirely a debt one owes to love, that is, to the Law of Christ. And if it is a debt owe to love, then I must serve others with it, not myself. Thus my learning is not my own; it belongs to the unlearned and is the debt I owe them… my wisdom belongs to the foolish, my power to the oppressed. Thus my wealth belongs to the poor, my righteousness to the sinners.”

What an amazing--and honestly, joyful--perspective!  And the thing is, there is nothing hold me, or any of us, back from living every day in that perspective. It's not something we have to achieve or work toward--it is simply a matter of recognizing what is already true.  God has given each of us gifts that are not simply our own, but belong to all, and we are able to receive the value of the gifts others bring as well--so long as we can see those others as people graced by God rather than folks to be afraid of.

Today, what could it look like to see our unique mix of passions, talents, perspectives, and abilities as gifts of God for the common good, and then to see what others bring as gifts of grace in the same way?  I honestly can't wait to find out.

Lord Jesus, free us from the fear of others with different experiences and abilities, so that we can be filled with joy at the diverse mix of gifts you have brought into our midst.