Scripture can be found here…
What happens when your gift is not acknowledged or accepted—or, worse, you are told, you don’t have any gifts at all?
Spoiler alert. Mild spoilers. The newest Disney film Encanto delves into the life and history of a Colombian family whose members all have magical gifts given to them on their fifth birthdays. Luisa is super strong, the family’s rock. Julieta can heal with the food she lovingly prepares. Camilo is a born entertainer, who can transform into the likeness of anyone at will. And Bruno? Well, we won’t talk about Bruno—not yet, anyway.
But the beating heart of the film is Mirabel. She is the outlier—the only one for whom the magic didn’t happen when that birthday arrived. Fifteen when we meet her, Mirabel has spent her life trying to bravely say that, it’s fine that she doesn’t have a gift—she’s fine, really. Until one day when the foundation beneath the family begins to crack, literally—the magical casita where they all live starts to break down—and Mirabel discovers that all is not well with la familia. What is happening? And can it be fixed?
What is happening to us? Can it be fixed? I bet the churchgoers at Corinth are asking themselves that, as they gather around listening to a letter written to them by their first pastor, the one who introduced them to Jesus and founded their assembly. The letter is loving and it is stern. It is clear as crystal and it is complicated. It was occasioned by a set of unfortunate conflicts that had become so severe that someone from the church wrote to their pastor emeritus about them. (It happens.) Here are just a few of those conflicts:
There were conflicts over leadership—who was the true leader, the real pastor; there were rivalries over things like, Who baptized you? And apparently, there was a “right” answer, which changed depending upon who you were talking to.
There were conflicts over the Lord’s Supper, which, in those days and at that time, included a full meal. The problem was: people who had more leisure—the wealthier, higher echelon members of the church—they showed up early for dinner, and they didn’t wait until everyone was there to tuck into the feast. As a result, the people who showed up later—the day-laborers, the working poor members of the church—they would arrive and find the food and the wine gone, and the people who’d gotten there first, drunk.
And there were conflicts over gifts—spiritual gifts. That is, the gifts people shared with the community, things like wisdom, and knowledge, and gifts of healing, etc. There were factions based on what gifts people considered the most important, the most special. People who had what were considered “lesser” gifts were looked down upon, made to feel “less than.”
How did they get there? Hard to say. I had a doctor once who answered my question, “How did this happen?” with “I don’t do ‘How did this happen?’ I do ‘What now?’ Paul is the doctor, in this case, and he has a prescription.
In the first half of chapter 12 Paul gives the first part of the prescription. It begins with a litany that you know well, one we shared together last week. I’d love it if you’d say it with me again.
There are varieties of gifts,
but it is the same Spirit who gives them.
There are different ways of serving God,
but it is the same Lord who is served.
God works through each person in a unique way,
but it is God’s purpose that is accomplished.
To each is given a gift of the Spirit to be used for the common good.
Together we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
~1 Cor. 12:4-7, 27
You see where he’s going here, right? If there are various gifts—everything from the gift of speaking up at the meeting to say the thing no one else wants to say, to the gift of knowing how to make cinnamon buns that are so delicious they make you want to cry a little—if there are various, wondrous gifts, but one Spirit who allocates them… well then, no gift is or can be superior to any other gift. Each gift is given as a part of God’s purpose for the community. The gift of the speaking and the gift of the cinnamon buns are from the same Lord.
And Paul goes along in that vein for a bit. Then he moves into our portion of the chapter, in which the next part of the prescription begins as an extended metaphor:
For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ… Indeed, the body does not consist of one member but of many. ~1 Cor. 12:12,14
The church is made up of individuals, sure. But we are one—and not just one in the way, say, a voting block is one, or people in a classroom together are one. One in Christ, which adds a depth of mystery to this connection, this oneness.
Then Paul becomes kind of fanciful: Imagine! he says, If the foot were to say, well, since I’m not a hand, obviously I’m not part of the body!
It’s silly. It’s playful. But see what he’s doing here. He is telling us that the foot does not feel valued. The foot does not feel that it matters to the rest of the body. He’s doing it in a way that makes it sound funny, almost absurd, but it’s very serious. He’s presenting the problem in a way that it can be heard and understood by everyone, without anyone being put on the defensive—not even the hands, who represent, of course, a hypothetical in-crowd. Later he presents the vexing problem from the point of view of the in-crowd. Imagine! he says, if the eye were to tell the hand, “I don’t need you.” Again, it’s absurd, and it’s pointed. Now the hand is the one being told, you are not needed. This passage shows Paul’s brilliance, because everyone who needs to hear it, can hear it, without feeling named or shamed.
So what happens if we were play this metaphor out, examine some of its logical implications?
Given: The Church is the body of Christ, and we are members of it. Therefore:
None of us can think of the church solely in terms of what’s good for me, what I want; everyone must think, what is good for the whole, for the body.
The Church is the body of Christ, Therefore:
Things that hurt one part of the body hurt the whole Church. I don’t know if you’ve ever noticed this, but it’s hard for one part of the body to relax and enjoy itself if another body part is in excruciating pain. At the heart of Encanto’s crumbling façade is an estranged child with a rejected gift. If we are one body, we are called out of ourselves, to consider the good of the whole body.
The Church is the body of Christ, Therefore:
Every gift that every person brings is valuable. Every gift that every person brings was given to them by God, and has God’s purpose behind it. These gifts have been given to be shared—we are, always, blessed to be blessings to others. Mirabel is raised believing she has no gift, because the magic didn’t happen on her fifth birthday. But ten years later, she is at the heart of the healing her magical family desperately needs. Everyone has a gift for sharing.
So, I invite you, again, to say it with me. Pray it with me. Let us be eager to discover these gifts together. Let us be willing to share them, for the common good.
There are varieties of gifts,
but it is the same Spirit who gives them.
There are different ways of serving God,
but it is the same Lord who is served.
God works through each person in a unique way,
but it is God’s purpose that is accomplished.
To each is given a gift of the Spirit to be used for the common good.
Together we are the body of Christ, and individually members of it.
~1 Cor. 12:4-7, 27
Thanks be to God. Amen.