A Feature, Not A Bug--June 5, 2024

A Feature, Not A Bug--June 5, 2024

"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." [1 Corinthians 12:4-6]

In our household, my wife and I have an unofficial rule for choosing presents to give to our kids.  The gist is this: we get them presents that are comparable in price, but individually tailored to the interests of each.  

In other words, we might get new cleats for our soccer-playing son, but because our daughter doesn't currently play soccer, we find something else in the same ballpark of expense and kind of gift that fits with her talents.  So we do NOT insist on getting her matching cleats for a sport that she doesn't play in the interests of "equality."  And we don't say, "Well, if you're not getting cleats, then you're not getting anything, because it's that or nothing." Neither do we say, "Okay, cleats for our son, and then for our daughter, we'll get the same cash value equivalent in shares of stock or a mutual fund that she can't use or enjoy, but will accrue value invisibly in an account somewhere." If the gift for our son is something he can use and enjoy and develop his skill with right now, then we want the one for our daughter to be something immediately usable, too.  No fair getting one kid a toy that can be played with right out of the box and the other kid a crock pot they won't want until they're an adult headed to a potluck dinner.

The guiding principles of our little rule, then, are as follows.  Every child in the family gets gifts of essentially equal worth. Those gifts are meant to be useful and enjoyable for the age and skill levels they have now, and they are meant to be suited to each one's particular interests and uniqueness. So far, it seems, that set of guidelines has served us all well on Christmas morning.

And to be honest, I think something similar is going on in Paul's description of the way the Spirit of God gives gifts to all of us.  The apostle insists that even though there is a variety of gifts given across the whole Christian community, and even though they correspond to different kinds of activities and ways of serving, they are all from the same Spirit and have the same "worth" to the whole.  The Spirit's gifts to each of us are diverse, custom-tailored to each of us, along with our interests, aptitudes, and passions, and they are all meant to be used in the here-and-now rather than just stored up in some imaginary heavenly bank account.  The Spirit may give soccer cleats to you so that you can play soccer well, and the same Spirit may give me a ukelele to make music, while the next child in God's family gets roller skates or a set of paints.  All come from the same Source, and all can be used for a wider good and the enjoyment of the recipient, and yet all are different.

That notion--that our gifts are all of equivalent "worth" even though they are not all the same thing--is a difficult tension for our minds to hold together, but it's the key for our life as the family of God.  For one, it means that the Spirit celebrates our diversity.  You don't hear Paul complaining, "I really wish we only had people with the gift of preaching, but we have to put up with a bunch of weirdos who have OTHER <ahem, lesser, cough, cough> gifts, like teaching or generosity or encouragement."  You don't hear the apostle grumpily saying, "The Holy Spirit would have preferred to make everyone like ME, but some stupid rule forces God to accept some token group of people who are DIFFERENT." No, just the opposite: it is the Spirit of God who intentionally gives diverse gifts to diverse people! The variety in the Beloved Community is a feature, not a bug.

All too often, we church folks measure worth, whether of individuals or congregations, in terms of how we compare in "sameness" to the folks down the road.  If I can't be like So-and-So, who everybody else thinks is a "success," then I must be a failure.  If our congregation doesn't have exactly the same kind of programs or projects or numbers of people in pews as the one in the next town or in a different neighborhood, we must not be "doing church" the right way.  Or, sometimes we do the opposite--we assume that WE are the successful ones, and anyone not doing things "our way" must be doing it wrong.  We have a way of looking for uniformity in our gifts, services, and activities, when Paul says that those are the very places we should be looking for diversity--and seeing it as a good thing in and of itself!

To hear Paul tell it, taking the Spirit's presence in our lives seriously will mean that we not only make room for those whose energies, gifts, and aptitudes are different from ours, but that we joyfully celebrate the differences they bring.  It will mean that we stop seeing ourselves in competition with others--both individuals in the next pew and congregations in the next town--and recognize all of our diverse contributions to a larger mosaic.  We can all be "team Jesus" (and we are) even when our gifts, personalities, interests, and skills point us in different directions.  That's not a tiny accommodation to diversity that the Spirit of God only makes grudgingly--it is the express purpose and design of the Spirit who delights in our difference and seeds us like a meadow of multi-colored wildflowers rather than a bed of identical petunias, each the exact same shade of white.

That frees us from needing to compare ourselves to others, whether as individuals or groups, and worrying about measuring up.  And instead, the question can simply become, "How do I contribute with the gifts, activities, and services that are mine to offer?" When you bring your piece, and I bring mine, together they become something more beautiful than either of our contributions alone.  And when we see those as gifts that the Spirit has given to each of us, we don't have to try to compare whose gift is more important, more valuable, or more necessary, than whose.  We are all children in a family--God's family--who have been given gifts of the same value but with different uses.  

All that is our to do is to open what has been laid in our laps.

Generous God, open our eyes to see the gifts you have given to us, to receive them as graces from you, and to use them each in our own way.