Different Gifts, One Body

Isaiah 51: 1, 6-8

Romans 12: 1-8

 We often say that the children of this church are our future. Not only do I agree wholeheartedly with this statement, I have also made the same comment a time or two. It is good that we know the children are precious and we need to be there for them. But I cannot help but think about the present when we start thinking about the future.  

Sometimes we put too much emphasis on the future and not enough on the present. While our children are our future, we are the present. If we do not do what is proper and right, there will be no future for our children. In the current political and economic climate, we have a few hard decisions to make which will affect our children’s future for some time to come.

In each generation there is a tipping point, there is a moment that defines the people. For some it was WWII and for others it was the feel-good era of the fifties. For others it was the social movements of the 60s or the free spirited 70’s. Some people think of the Wall Street crash in the 80’s and others think of Desert Storm in the 90’s. This last decade I’m sure many of my generation consider the wars to be one of the biggest things happening in the world and then there are others whose whole life was turned upside down by this Recession.

As a church in the middle of all these defining points in people’s lives, we should be making an impact as well. The scriptures from Isaiah and Romans tell us how we may do that. Isaiah speaks to us about looking to the rock from which you were cast and from the quarry from which you were hewn. Since we are church that was built from stone from a mountain quarry, this image is especially powerful. We come from a group of people who were willing to carry down huge piles of stone after they worked hard to cut them from the mountain to create this beautiful church. We come from people who were once four separate churches that understood God’s call to be one church and one body and so they formed the UCC.

In a more personal way, the rocks we are cut from are our parents and the quarry that we were hewn from is our family. We look to them, our past, to help us stay true to our path in the present. God tells us it is important to pay attention to where you come from and those that came before us. It is important to respect our roots and traditions even as we look to the future for new ideas and new ways to grow.   

It’s easy to be discouraged when we look at the past. Too often all we see is our failures. We see the fights with family members or that time we lost a job or when we hurt someone we loved by being selfish. In Isaiah we are told that we are to lift our eyes to the heavens, to see the wonder and glory of God Almighty. Why? Because even the worst of things will seem like nothing at all when compared to God. Our God who offers us eternal life and Isaiah said that if we accept, salvation will be ours forever, God will never forsake us. 

Isaiah does not leave us with just those words though. He says them again, “Hear me, you who know what is right, you people who have taken my instruction to heart: (That would be us and all Christians) He goes on to say we should not fear what mortals offer us, we should not be terrified by anything they will try to do to us. We should not fear because God is the creator of everything around us and God has complete control of what God created. There is a plan; there is a reason for it all. We may not understand now, but we trust in God for our salvation.          

In Romans, Paul is reiterating what Isaiah has said. What happens in this world is temporary and we are not to be tempted to bend to the dictates of evil because we have been given the gift of a higher power. If we do not conform, if we stay true to God’s path we will be able to see what he has in store for us more clearly, we will be able to understand more, and we will be strengthened even more as a result. Every action has a reaction. Every decision a consequence. Weigh your actions and decisions carefully against the measure of eternity.

Paul then tells us that humility is the only way to make it through this life without messing up too badly. When we are humble we hesitate to do what we want because we are not sure our wants are what are best. Instead, we look to the faith God has given to each of us, the grace he has bestowed upon us to help us figure out if what we are doing is God’s will or our own. We look to each other as a church to help us figure out what God wants us to do, to help us stay true to God’s will.

Paul reminds us that we are many people, but one body in Christ because the weight of every decision a church makes is upon all our shoulders. Therefore, if the church makes a fatal error in judgment, we all carry the burden for it. That means we should never let just one person make the decisions but it should be a collective of voices. And each person here should be given a chance to speak because each person is important to this church, each person will carry the burden of our decisions upon them. It is one of the reasons our committees and Consistory only last for a couple years so everyone may have a chance to lead us, to have a voice in what we accomplish.

We have different gifts, according to the grace given to each of us. The beautiful part about letting every person have a chance to speak is that we benefit from the different gifts of each person. Some of us are good speakers, but not good conversationalists. Some of us are very comfortable walking into hospital rooms to help the sick, but others of us are much better working with our hands. Some of us are good with money and are able to help us grow the church while others of us have a mind for details and are good at organizing church functions. We need each person here. We need the gifts we all offer because that is how a church grows. 

When we keep in mind that each person has a purpose, each person is important to the future of this church, it helps to keep our own pride in check. It helps us to acknowledge differing opinions and to accept that sometimes we will not win every battle just because are sure we are right and everyone else is wrong. No one person can be right all the time, no one has that ability but Jesus. This is why each voice is important because it is the collective of voices, individual in their own rights but coming together as a whole that make the Christian church as well as the UCC special. We want to hear from all of you. We want each of you to have a place here. You are welcome and you are appreciated and you are loved.

May the Lord bless each of you and may each of you use your gifts to help make the future of this church one that is bright and promising.

Amen.