WE ALL HAVE OUR PART TO DO

(Preached on Sunday, May 15, 2005)

To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.                                                                         -1 Corinthians 12:7

 

Wind and fire are powerful images.

Leslie Newbigin, an early bishop in the Church of South India, offers another powerful image for Pentecost.

In one of his books he compared Pentecost with the striking of oil.  When a powerful flow of oil is tapped, there is a lot of excitement and action.

It is a big, extravagant (and potentially dangerous) moment.

It is cause for uninhibited celebration.  A wild scene.

But for that oil to be truly effective in making a difference in human lives, it must be tamed and delivered to where it is needed.  The well must be capped, and the oil directed through pipes, or the fuss is worthy nothing.

The pipes running across the land look boring compared with the scene when the oil first flows free.

But that is where the whole event becomes fruitful.

 

That first Day of Pentecost was like striking that oil well and hitting a gusher.

The Holy Spirit of God, the power for life, for creation, for unity, poured down upon the first followers of Jesus and wow! The Church was born!

The Church is that system of pipes that is designed to channel the power of that Spirit so that it can have a dramatic impact on the world.

The Church is important and necessary, but it is the Holy Spirit which is the oil, the energy, the power which the world needs.

It is the Holy Spirit which gives the Church its reason for being and its capability to carry out its task.

 

The Spirit does that by working in and through each and everyone of us.

The story of the first Pentecost affirms that truth.

The divided tongues of fire rested above each of them gathered in that upper room.

All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages.

Paul reminds the Corinthians, and us, that the Spirit of God is at work in each and every one of us for the common good.

We are each given gifts from the Holy Spirit that we are to use for the good of the Church and the work of God in this place.

All of the gifts Paul identifies are activated by the same Holy Spirit, and they are bestowed on each one of us individually, for the sake of God’s work in the church and in the world.

Paul goes on to use the image of the Church as a body where every part is important and necessary.

Another way to think of these gifts of the Holy Spirit and how important we each are to the work of God in this place is to think about a jigzaw puzzle.

A puzzle is made of many different pieces that fit together to form one complete picture.

Each piece of the puzzle is unique.

Each piece of the puzzle is necessary to make up the one picture.

It has its own shape, color, and size.

Each piece of the puzzle is necessary to make up the one picture.  No piece is greater than another.

If even one piece is missing, the puzzle is not complete.

If even one piece is missing, the puzzle is not as strong as it could be.

If even one piece is missing, the puzzle is not seen as clearly as it could be.

 

In the passage we read, Paul describes several gifts the Holy Spirit gives out: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, working of miracles, prophecy, discernment of spirits, speaking in tongues, interpretation of tongues.

Now that list is not exhaustive, for in other places Paul acknowledges other gifts of the Holy Spirit, such as administration, and teaching, and generosity.

We are used to thinking about the gifts of the Holy Spirit as being talents, or skills that we are given.

 

But the Bible teaches us that everything we have comes to us from the hand of God; everything in our lives is a gift.

So, let us think together about how this applies to the practical gift which sustains our lives in our society and culture today, our money.

That too, is a gift from God.

Money, like oil, like the Holy Spirit, is another manifestation of energy and power.

Money is the transfer of our energy expended in work and returned to us so that we can trade that energy for goods and services to help us live, secure shelter, and food, health care, education, entertainment, security, etc.

And our capabilities, talents, skills, energy, in fact, our very lives, came first from God.

That is how our money is a gift from God.

Now, as Paul tells us, the gifts we receive from the Holy Spirit, all of them, are given to us for the common good.

That means the good of the Church, but it also means the good of the world, of common humanity.

Of course, we also are to use our gifts to take care of ourselves and our families.

How do we do this?

 

There are guidelines from God on how to do this.

In the Hebrew Scriptures, what we commonly call the Old Testament, God instructed the people to bring to God’s Temple the tithe, that is, 10% of all their possessions and wealth.  And it was to be the first 10%, the best of the crops, the fruit, the animals, not the left-overs.

That was all God called for, 10%.

The people of God were allowed to keep 90% for their own use.  (And after the people set up a formal government, a king like all the surrounding nations had, they also paid taxes out of that 90%.)

The 10% tithe was given to the priests in the Temple and was intended to care for the priests and their families, take care of all the Temple expenses, and provide for the poor.

 

In our Stewardship Campaign this year, the Stewardship Committee is calling us to remember these biblical guidelines and to seriously pray and meditate on how these guidelines might inform our giving this year.

Some of us are probably already tithing and that should be celebrated.

But most of us are probably not.

The national average for per capita giving to Protestant Churches is about 3% of income.

That is about where most United Church of Christ members are as well.

To move from giving 3% of one’s income to 10% is a huge leap and would be very difficult to do.

So the Stewardship Committee has developed what they believe is a very doable challenge to help us begin moving in that direction and to begin thinking about our giving in terms of proportional giving, that is, as a proportion of our income.

That is what we are calling the 1% challenge.

What the Committee is asking each of us to do is to calculate what 1% of our annual income is: $300 on $30,000; $500 on $50,000; $750 on $75,000; $1,000 on $100,000.

The challenge then is to take that amount and add it to whatever our pledge was for last year and make that our pledge for the coming year, 2005-2006.

We are not raising our pledge by 1% of our pledge, but by 1% of our annual income.

In Miami-Dade County, the average household income is $50,000.  Most of us give as households.

If each of us accept the 1% Challenge and increase our pledge amount by 1% of our annual income, that will mean an increase in our pledges for this year of $32,000.