January 24, 2010

THE NORWEGIAN LUTHERAN MEMORIAL CHURCH

January 24, 2010

ENCOURAGING OUR GREATER GIFTS

I Corinthians 12: 12 – 31a

Pastor Esther Dant

Grace and Peace to you from our God and from our Lord and Savior Jesus Christ.

It is good to be with you in your beautiful church.  So much tradition here and so much care for your heritage.  How beautiful.

I am so thankful Pastor Kristen could visit her mother.  It will bless her and her family.  She encouraged me to choose whichever text I would like.  The gospel – Jesus returning to his hometown to give his first sermon, reminds me of a trip back to my very small hometown in southeastern Iowa.  An old high school boyfriend owned the feed store and said if he saw me driving by when I was in town and didn’t stop, he’d know I had become a stuck-up city girl.  On one trip I walked into the store and there was our neighbor, Pete.  “I hear you’re going all over the country giving speeches.”  “Yes, “ I said.  I traveled for Stephen Ministry of Saint Louis.  “I hear you’re giving motivational speeches,” he said.  “No, Pete, I give talks about learning how to do caring ministry for others.”  “Oh, well that’s good,” he said, “I wouldn’t want you to come in here and try to motivate me.”

As we look at the gospel by verse 28, we hear of the instant anger against Jesus after his very short sermon.  One commentary suggested a sermon title for the text might be, “Pardon Me, While I Offend You With My Sermon.”  Then I thought about being a guest in your church and decided against it.  Kristen and I talked through where you stand and when you turn to the altar and when you sit, but I’m not sure I’m getting it all right.  I may offend you anyway!  Considering all this I have chosen to preach on the I Corinthian text where we are encouraged to be kind to each other.

I love this text.  It’s called Paul’s best know image of the church.  The church is to be the Body of Christ to each other, but the Corinthian church is having conflict as can happen at churches.  In my 17 years of travel for Stephen Ministry, I heard many stories about congregational life.  Hard and good.   One woman came up after a presentation and said the things that were said to her after her husband died were so hard for her, she funded the entire Stephen Ministry training for her church.  Another woman was sitting with her husband in the doctor’s office when they were given the wrenching news of his terminal cancer.  Their pastor was with them.  He turned to her and said, “We have nice widow’s group at our church.”  Stunning.  But the depths of good care are also the stories of congregation.  Another woman told of her husband dying suddenly in a skyscraper in downtown Chicago.  Their children needed to fly in from other states.  A woman from her church went to her home.  She told her she couldn’t talk to anyone.  She needed to just go to her bedroom. “I know,” the other woman said.  “I will just sit in your breezeway till your children arrive later this afternoon.”  The woman never came out of the bedroom, but she never forgot the loving gift of the woman’s presence.  “She hardly knew me,” she said.

There are key phrases in our text to remind us how we are to be in our life in the church.  “We are to strive for the greater gifts,” Paul writes.  Don’t miss the deeper meaning of what a church is to be.  To help us understand this Body of Christ image, Paul uses the human body to describe how intimately we are to be connected in the church.  Ears, hands, eyes – none are rejected, all are needed.  When we lose one of these, there is major adjustment in our life.  When the church is in conflict over who is more important, there is a great toll it takes on its mission and ministry.  The Corinthian church is struggling and Paul has a vital message to help them with unity.  “Jew or Greek, slave or free,” he says.  “Norwegian or Italian,” we say.  We all have been given the same Spirit to encourage our lives.  One never is given a greater portion than another.  Although we may hear some make that claim.  This is every believer’s shared story.  Paul says these words to this arguing congregation to jolt their remembering of the promise all were given at their Baptism.  All were given the same promise, no matter how different they were in social status, ethnicity or gifts.  All learn or we pray we learn, along the way if these promises of God to us in Baptism are not applied and lived out in our faith, are lives will be greatly diminished.

Paul also addresses the weak and the strong.  There is a book called ‘Stretcher Bearers’ that reminds us that at any time we might be carried on the stretcher that yesterday we were able to carry.  Our text says, “The parts of the body that are weaker are indispensible.”  My work at University Lutheran Church of Hope focuses on those who have become weaker.  They are those who have built our congregation, and served many years in many ways.  And they are now in the weaker time of their life.  That may be in body, but certainly not in spirit.  They are absolutely indispensable!

“If one suffers, everyone suffers.”  Our congregations’ hearts will ache when they hear the news of the murder/suicide in Hugo being the great niece of a member.  Our hearts ache globally at the devastation each day in the news of Haiti.  There is an amazing unity happening, an understanding of this text, ‘if one suffers, all suffer,” by people of all faiths.  Friday night’s two hour “Hope for Haiti,” brought the powerful, the wealthy to cover phone lines and spend time talking with the people calling in to pledge.  Stephen Spielberg spent time listening to a woman, who was a Presbyterian pastor, tell of children’s sermons needing to address, “Why would God do this?”  “It’s a hard time, but we can’t ignore it,” she said.  The wonderful music was original and familiar like “Bridge Over Troubled Water.”   In St. Paul, the High School for Recording Arts has created a song, whose refrain is, “Let’s do it together,” a song for Haiti. The school administrator was born in Haiti.  It has had 55,000 hits on YouTube.  People around the world are viewing it and liking it. President Obama’s article in Newsweek a few days ago was titled, “Why Haiti Matters.”  “It matters,” he writes, “because when we are in times of tragedy, the United States of America steps forward and helps.  That is who we are.  That is what we do.” 

Our sermon title is ‘Encouraging our Greater Gifts.’   One of the devotions I read is from Frederick Buechner.  Yesterday’s reading helped to gain more insight into these ‘greater gifts.’  Years ago, Buechner had just signed the contract for his first novel. It was the fulfillment of his wildest dreams.  But he said what he remembered more was when he left the room and was walking down the hall, he ran into a person he had known slightly in college.  He was working as a messenger boy, he told me.  Buecher remembered a great rush of sadness in all his celebration.  Nothing comparable had seemed to happen to him and Buechner wanted to say something or do something to make it up to him.  But he remembers they simply said goodbye in the lobby, each going their own way.  Something small and unforgettable happened to him that day, a small flickering of the truth - that there can be no real joy when others don’t have it.  It wasn’t pious thinking he had done.  It had come from outside him.  What he felt was something better and truer that he was, and it happened, as perhaps all such things do, as a gift.

I’m not sure why 31b has been dropped from our lectionary reading, “And now I will show you a more excellent way,” but when we feel ourselves being better and truer than we are, we know that God is walking with us and showing us a more excellent way to live.  Something better and truer is his care for us.  And that flows from us to others in ways we can only imagine.  AMEN!

The Norwegian Lutheran Memorial Church ·  924 E. 21st St, Minneapolis, MN 55404-2952 ·  (612)874-0716