Gifts Received, Gifts Given
A Sermon given on Jan. 19, 2025
Renton United Church of Christ/Disciples of Christ
Mark Fredericksen, ND, MDiv
Based on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
A saying my mom was fond of reciting at me when any of my
pals would call me some awful name was, “Sticks and stones may break my
bones, but names will never hurt me.”
Have you heard that before? Did the saying do anything to make you feel
better? Naw, me either, because the ways that we can be hurt don’t only involve
our physical being but, too frequently, real injury can be
inflicted by words said. If they get repeated, they can dig a trench in our
psyche such that we adopt them and make them into who think we are. If those words dig into our very soul, they
may keep us handicapped or knocked down our whole life long.
As you heard, a big part of my healer’s mindset is holding
together the belief that we are complete human beings who have physical,
emotional, spiritual, mental, and socio-cultural parts. I think of our soul as being the underlying
processing unit that knits these connections together into the authentic person,
we are according to God’s design. Our soul provides the gears to make us what
we are. But if there are missing gears or damaged gears it’s going to impact
our ability to be authentic. Sadly, our society, culture, and technology have pulled
us in directions that discourage authenticity and because we can’t be ourselves
in the mold that God made us to be, we have a lot of problems like what we’re
having. I am sure that you probably would like to see the world a lot differently.
I’m assuming that you would like to
experience authenticity. It’s a hard
thing to come by in our society with our past histories and traumas. So, let’s explore a concept that we can work
with to help make a difference – if not for the world, maybe for ourselves or a
small corner in which we live.
There is a theological practice borne out of Judaism called
ZimZum. To explain it completely would
take several days in a retreat, but I’ll boil it down to its simplest idea. Instead of Creation being made by a power-exerting
God. ZimZum embraces the notion of a love-exerting God who opens a
space within Godself for a womb where the love spark for creation is breathed
in and grows. We, and all we know, are
growing inside of God. Through Christ we
see the potential love can create and manifest.
This means a) God is our mom, b) God intensely cares what happens to ALL
of us.
With those givens – we come to 1 Cor. 12. A wise loving God
knows what we need and has provided us with many gifts to enable us to thrive
and realize our full authentic potential both as individuals and as an entire species.
God is pumping love into the system as an empowering enlivening force for our
world. The Apostle Paul lists a few of
these as Gifts of the Spirit. Our souls crave and need all of them. I don’t believe it is in any way limited to
these 12 as there are other passages with different gifts listed. I also don’t think that we are limited to
having just one or two, which is not what some of the Spiritual Inventory makers
preach with their online questionnaires.
To reach our full authentic love-empowering selves we need to be open to
receiving all the gifts God is providing. One of
the questions that you might ponder or journal about at home is this: What are
the gifts you carry in your soul? And
what ones is your soul wanting you to have?
Call me an idle dreamer or an impossible romantic, but I
have believed in my heart and soul my entire life that love – a true agape love
– such as that demonstrated by Jesus, such as that preached about throughout
the New Testament, such as that God imagined to spark the universe -- you know –
the ideal we see being strived toward early in the book of Acts – if the Church
could model that/live that what would become of the wars, the greed, the grasping
for power, the racism, sexism, the hating, the monetizing of everything? Even
though the Church historically and at present has failed to live this out on so
many levels I still hold my small little candle of hope that I can do better,
that we can do better, that the Church can be better/do better, and that my
light and maybe ours together will be the light that the darkness cannot
swallow up.
To get there we have to daily recommit ourselves to seeing
and receiving the gifts God is placing into our lives in front of us. To see something we have to look for it. Get in the habit of assessing/taking an
inventory every day of all the good you saw – compassion shown, joy felt,
gratitude expressed, love demonstrated, kindness offered, and miracles worked. Since
the 1st of January, I have been keeping a Joy Jar. I have a small Mason jar and each day I try
to write on a small slip of Post-it note a joy I felt, and I put the paper in
my Joy Jar. I have found that when I’m
asking myself what I’ve enjoyed (note that word: En-JOY) my thinking changes as
well as my perception of what joy is.
Our culture has taught us to be so serious & critical that we don’t realize
we’re enjoying things when they’re right there in front of us.
In this process of looking for and taking note of what we
are receiving, the table begins to turn. We begin to think things
like – “Why couldn’t I do that!” I could
be more positive. I could smile
more. I could be more willing to offer a
helping hand. I have a gift for
listening – I could reach out to someone.
Let me tell you – I’m doing some work in the area of grief and loss. And what I’ve learned is EVERYBODY has loss
and grief. EVERYBODY. And the single best healing practice for it
is simply telling the story to someone.
Who hasn’t got time to listen?
Though I will admit that listening without offering fixes and advice is
a hearty challenge – and maybe it IS a gift.
One that you have?
But see? THIS is how the Holy Spirit spreads. We for
too long have been lulled into Christian complacency of expecting the Holy
Spirit (or God) to fix every wrong. But
the wrongs get fixed when we activate and use the gifts we’ve received. Are you sitting under a bushel? Letting your light be hidden? Feeling sorry for yourself or frustrated or
angry at the stampedes of hypocrisy and greed and violence it seems the whole
world is descending into? I’m convinced
it’s taking place because we all have been lured into shutting down, separating
ourselves, isolating & withdrawing, and hoarding what gifts we have and not
sharing what we have. What we’ve already
been given.
Finally, the last benefit of sharing our gifts is through
that experience we get insights into who God made us to be. We find out where our
authentic self has been living. And we take a step closer to being a full
loving representation of God-in-Christ to the world.