I’m not a great fan of Starbucks.
I was in Toronto on Friday and, as you probably know, it’s really had to find a Tim Hortons there, so I ended up being unfaithful and going to Starbucks. Anyways I was in Starbucks and all I wanted was a “medium double cream.” Do you think I could find anything even vaguely like that anywhere on the board? There was cappuccino or latte or frappaccino, or whatever, but no just plain “coffee.”
In the movie, “You’ve Got Mail,” Tom Hank’s character has a theory about Starbucks, he says, “The whole purpose of places like Starbucks is for people with no decision-making ability whatsoever to make six decisions just to buy one cup of coffee. Short, tall, light, dark, caf, decaf, low-fat, non-fat, etc. So people who don't know what they're doing or who on earth they are can, for only $2.95, get not just a cup of coffee but an absolutely defining sense of self: Tall. Decaf. Cappuccino.”
Sometimes I think that our society is addicted to choice. It isn’t just coffee. It’s everything; music, food, lifestyles. We used to have North American young people come to Pakistan on short-term mission work and some of them would get depressed, seriously depressed, because they couldn’t have their favourite breakfast cereal in the morning. It was so much a part of their identity, their sense of self, that they felt threatened if they couldn’t have their Wheaties for breakfast. We use choice as a way to define our individuality, to set ourselves apart from everybody else.
Last week we looked at “unity” and we talked about the challenges involved in being a church like the one in Ephesus, made up of all kinds of people from different ethnic, language, social and religious backgrounds. At the end of that passage, in Eph 4:4-6, Paul uses the word “one” seven times in a row. He gets quite carried away with it, “4 There is one body and one Spirit— just as you were called to one hope when you were called— 5 one Lord, one faith, one baptism; 6 one God and Father of all, who is over all and through all and in all.”
Paul is really emphasising the oneness - the unity – that’s at the core of being part of the church. But there are dangers involved in emphasising unity. It’s only a short step from emphasising unity to demanding uniformity.
[At the beginning of the year we were praying for Abdul Rahman. He was the Afghan who was in the news when he was arrested in Kabul and charged with converting from Islam to Christianity. You may find this hard to believe, but most of the people in Afghanistan thought he should be executed as a criminal for converting. If you talked to anybody on the street at that time, 95% of them would have said he should die. Some people in positions of power realised that wouldn’t be good for Afghanistan’s relationship with the West, so they wanted him declared insane. That way they could avoid the call for the death penalty. You see, this man had broken the uniformity of his society and the only argument was over whether he was “mad” or “bad.” If he was “bad” then he should die. If he was “mad” then he should go to an insane asylum. The possibility that he was free and just chose to be different wasn’t an option. The society put too high a value on uniformity to allow that.
The same is true of the Karen people who have started arriving in Hamilton. They’re paying the price for breaking with the uniformity of Burmese society. Their forefathers chose to side with the Allies in the Second World War, and many of them have left Buddhism for Christianity. In Burma, that makes them enemies of the state.]
So, an overemphasis on unity can be dangerous, especially when it comes with violent consequences for those who are different – as it does in most Islamic, Hindu and Buddhist societies.
Last week we saw that the reason for our
unity is not in what we do, or what we wear or what we eat. Our unity is rooted
in the fact that if we belong to Jesus, then we belong to each other and to all
other Christians everywhere. We also saw that we can help make that unity a
reality by focussing on the truth that as Jesus draws us to himself he also
draws us closer to each other; and by developing four attitudes in our lives;
humility, gentleness, patience and tolerance.
This
week we’re going to look at the other side of the equation. The unity that God
calls us to isn’t uniformity, we don’t all have to be the same, although
sometimes we Christians behave as if we do. In the 80s Steve Taylor had a great
satirical song called, “I Want To Be A Clone.”
I asked the Lord into my
heart
they said that was the way to start
but now you've got to play the part
I want to be a clone
They told me that I'd
fall away
unless I followed what they say
who needs the Bible anyway?
I want to be a clone
Their language it was
new to me
but Christianese got through to me
now I can speak it fluently
I want to be a clone
Be a clone and kiss
conviction goodnight
cloneliness is next to Godliness, right?
I'm grateful that they show the way
'cause I could never know the way
to serve him on my own
I want to be a clone
Right
after Paul has that long list on “ones” he obviously realises that there is a
danger of people using this call to unity to force each other into moulds. So
the next thing out of his mouth is Ephesians 4.7, “But to each one of us grace has been given as Christ apportioned
it.”
The Good News Translation puts it this way, “Each one of us has received a special gift in proportion to what Christ has given.”
The focus has totally shifted from one end of the scale, “We’re All One,” to the other end of the scale, “We’re All Different.” We’re all one because God is one. But we’re also all different because each one of us has received something special from God.
We need to take a moment to look at that word “grace” again. It crops up all over the place in the Bible and it’s really a very important idea. When the Bible talks about “grace” it means getting something good that we don’t deserve. When you win a race you deserve to get a medal. When you work hard you deserve to be well paid. But grace is about getting something you don’t deserve.
[I’ve used this illustration before but it bears repeating. Bono, the lead singer of U2, says the idea of karma is central to all religions:
“What you put out comes back to you: an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth, or in physics—in physical laws—every action is met by an equal or an opposite one. It's clear to me that karma is at the very heart of the universe. I'm absolutely sure of it. And yet, along comes this idea called grace to upend all that "as you reap, so you will sow" stuff. Grace defies reason and logic. Love interrupts, if you like, the consequences of your actions, which in my case is very good news indeed, because I've done a lot of stupid stuff…
It doesn't excuse my mistakes, but I'm holding out for grace. I'm holding out that Jesus took my sins onto the cross, because I know who I am, and I hope I don't have to depend on my own religiosity.”]
Grace is not about what we have done. It’s about God freely giving us good things, just because he wants to.
[Paul was always amazed whenever he thought about what God had done in his life and through his life. He had persecuted the church. He had helped kill Christians. And yet God used him in a mighty way to build the very church he tried to destroy. That’s grace.]
And it says that, out of that grace, “Each one of us” has received from God. There is no-one sitting here this morning who has given their lives to God who has not received a special gift of grace from Jesus. That’s what “each one” means. There are no exceptions. There are no ungifted people in the church. It may not be easy to see the gifting because other things distract us, but there are no ungifted people.
[One of the things that Teresa Simms-Obidi
does is work with families of children who are handicapped in one way or
another. She was telling me a while ago that she will stand up in front of a
group of parents and talk about Itunu for half an hour. She’ll talk about the
music he likes, all kinds of things, and she will never mention the fact that
he is autistic. Then she challenges the other parents to do the same thing. And
so often they can’t. They can only see their child through their disability,
not their abilities.]
But “Each one of us has received a special gift….”
And these gifts aren’t sort of “spread out” across the church and you get what you can. Jesus gives them individually, to individual people.
[When I was growing up in Scotland there was a tradition known as the “rushie”. After a wedding, when the bride and groom had come out of the church and gotten into the car to leave, the groom would roll down the window and throw out a handful of coins. The local kids knew this and so we would hang around the front of churches on Saturdays when there was a wedding, even if we had nothing to do with the couple, simply to get some of the money. But you had to be fast. That’s why it was called a rushie. If you weren’t fast you didn’t get anything.]
That is not how Jesus gives his gifts to the church. He doesn’t toss them towards the church and let the fastest and strongest get all they can. He comes to each individual and gives them gifts suited to who they are. “Each one of us has received a special gift in proportion to what Christ has given.”
That’s why I had us read the parable of the talents earlier in the service. In Matt 25:14-15 Jesus talks about a man who went on a journey and “called his servants and entrusted his property to them. 15 To one he gave five talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one talent, each according to his ability.”
The man didn’t put all the property out on a table and let them fight over it. He gave it out individually to his servants, because he knew them and he knew what he was giving them. That’s the way Jesus gives out gifts to his people. He treats us as individuals and gives different gifts to different people.
And
it says that the gifts are given out “as Christ apportioned” them. The grace
gifts we have received are from Christ and, like the man in the parable, he
chooses where they go. That means that not everybody is equally gifted.
In
Matt 25 it says, “To one he gave five
talents of money, to another two talents, and to another one
talent, each according to his ability”
Now,
this is an unpopular idea with some people. Surely God should be fair and give
out gifts equally to everybody! But a quick look around the human race will
tell you that different people not only have different kinds of gifts, some
have way more gifts too. We even call them “gifted” people.
There
are a couple of consequences associated with this.
One
is that, since Jesus is the one who hands out the gifts, we don’t have the
right to impose our expectations on people. Parents especially need to hear
this. It is God who gives out the gifts to his people. It doesn’t matter if you
want your child to be a lawyer or a doctor. If God has made them to be a
carpenter you need to let them be that.
This
applies to ourselves as well. Part of growing into maturity as an adult is to
come to the realisation that there are some things you can do and some things
you can’t do; some things you’re gifted at and some you’re not. Part of
maturity (which will be the topic of next week’s message) is being at peace
with who you are.
I
always give thanks that I am married to Marilyn, because we are so different.
We make good team-mates. I am a big picture person. Marilyn sees the details.
My primary gifting is with ideas. Marilyn’s primary gifting is with people. If
I look at the wider circle of my relationships on the Pastoral Team I see that
God has gifted Brian to work among the marginalized and that Jim is gifted in
areas of pastoral care while we heard recently of Tracy’s call to work with
children and families.
This
is all good. None of us has to be omni-competent.
And
it isn’t just the pastoral team either. God works through all the members of
his body, wherever they are, not just in the church. I mentioned Teresa’s
ministry among the families of handicapped children. Jeannette serves
care-givers who look after family members with Alzheimer’s. Adam Pitre, who
just got married on Friday, told me recently that he has started the process to
become a “Big Brother” so he can walk alongside a boy from a difficult
situation and help him succeed.
“Each one of us has received a special gift in proportion to what Christ has given.”
The
other consequence is shown in Jesus’ parable. If he gives you a gift, he
expects you to use it and those who are more gifted are also responsible to do
more with their giftings.
In
the New Year we will be spending some time looking in more detail at what the
Bible says about specific spiritual gifts, or at least groups of gifts. For now
I want to leave us with these general principles.
Jesus
gives gifts to all his people – there are no ungifted people in the church, and
there is no church that does not have gifts in it.
Different
gifts are given to different people.
Jesus
gets to do the choosing of who gets what.
We
are responsible before God to make good use of the gifts he has given us.
So,
be who Jesus has gifted you to be. Use the gifts that he has given you. Let
others be who they are and use what they have been given.