The Spirit's Gifts

I Corinthians 12:4-13; Acts 2:1-21

by the Rev. Dr. E. Scott Jones

First Central Congregational UCC

12 June 2011

    On Thursday morning as I sat down to write my sermon, I first checked on-line to see what was going on in the world and what the latest news was. There I discovered that Clara Luper had died. Most of you probably don't know who Clara Luper is, but she is a significant figure in the recent history of this country and one of the people who helped to create the world we now live in.

    In 1958 Clara Luper was the adult sponsor for the Oklahoma City youth group of the NAACP. That August her youth, who ranged in age from 6-12 years old, decided to make a demonstration against the segregated lunch counters downtown. Clara had taught them about non-violent direct action, and their sit-in at the Katz Drugstore was the first use of the sit-in as an act of political protest and the beginning of a new phase in the civil rights movement nationally.

    Those elementary school aged children endured being punched and kicked, spit upon and covered by ketchup and hot grease. Eventually the Katz Drugstore was forced to integrate its lunch counter, and after demonstrations at other downtown restaurants, Clara and her youth found success.

    Clara Luper remained a prominent figure in Oklahoma civil rights activities and in her later years was a strong, public advocate for the rights of the lesbian, gay, bisexual, and transgender community. In my years back in Oklahoma City she was often too sick and infirm to speak in public or lead marches anymore, but I had the great honour of meeting her once, shaking her hand, and receiving words of encouragement from her. Reading of her death Thursday morning, I openly wept at my desk.

    Dr. King taught us that the universe bends toward justice. And to me one of the signs that this is true is that in Oklahoma City the section of Northwest 23^rd Street that runs alongside the State Capitol is named the Clara Luper Corridor. Someone once viewed as a radical and a troublemaker, someone subjected to beating who had been arrested twenty-six times, is now among the most honored and respected citizens of her city and state.

    The hymn we sang to open this service begins with the powerful lines:

Come, O Spirit, dwell among us, come with Pentecostal power.

    Pentecost is a celebration that each and every one of us carries within us the Holy Spirit of God and each and every one of us is gifted by God to achieve God's mission upon the earth. In our various services and activities, we work together toward the common good, so that God's will will be done upon the earth, as it is in heaven.

And Pentecost is a reminder that the Holy Spirit is not confined to all the boxes the church and society like to create. The Holy Spirit blows where she wills; she inspires whoever she wants to inspire; and she does things that surprise us. She works through the oppressed and the outcast like Clara Luper and her courageous and wise 6-12 year old youth group to change the world and make it a more just and better place.

    Pentecost is one of my favourite Sundays of the church year? For one thing, it is so much fun. The colors, the great music, the powerful symbols of fire and wind. And I know at least one church that likes to dazzle its congregation with pyrotechnics every year.

    But I enjoy it not just for the fun worship possibilities but for the moving theological and spiritual themes of the day. It is such a democratic day -- a reminder of our equality and our freedom. A day when the establishment is reminded how often God works to do something new and wonderful. It is the wild and fun birthday of the church and our world-changing mission.

    During the interim period, before I came as your pastor last July, you all created a task force to examine the issue of governance, understanding that the existing structure had some flaws. Of course all systems, including our old and our new one, have flaws. So the question before the task force was not so much to address particular flaws as to examine the entire question of church governance and ministry in the twenty-first century, given radical cultural and generational shifts, improvements in technology, new understandings of how social networks function, and changing demographics. The task force did their research and studied the most respected sources on contemporary church systems. They held multiple congregational meetings and meetings of various groups of church leaders before presenting their proposal. They spent more than a year working on the proposal and have spent almost a year now working on the first stages of implementation.

    As with any paradigm-shift within an institutional system, there have been some road-bumps in making the shift. If there weren't any, then we wouldn't be doing it right, because no difficulties would simply be a sign that we were replicating the old system but only changing the names. As a relative newcomer who still somewhat has the eyes of an outsider, I feel able to comment based on my experience wherein every church I have served as a Pastor or Associate Pastor has undergone a change in governance structure, that this congregation has gone the most slowly, carefully, and intentionally taking much time for process, feedback, and analysis.

    Governance systems and structures can be boring things to talk and think about, and I'm sure that most of you really couldn't care less. And it is true that discussion of such things can get bogged down in policies and procedures and processes. So, it is important to remain focused on mission and the spiritual and theological motivations for church systems, and Pentecost is a good day to remember and celebrate those things. Good because this is the birthday of the church, and good because Pentecost reminds us of three key points: we each have gifts of the Holy Spirit, the purpose of those gifts is to work together toward the common good of God's mission, and, no matter how much we might try to organize it, the Spirit is going to blow wherever and whenever and upon whoever and however she wills.

    According to Paul's passage in the Corinthian letter, God uses each of us in unique ways to fulfill God's mission. And, thank God. There are so many things that are essential to keeping a church going that I simply have no interest in and no talent for. It takes absolutely everyone and all types. Paul is also quite clear that no one spiritual gift, no one contribution to the overall mission is more important than any other. All are equally valuable for the ultimate goal of God.

    Nor are our spiritual gifts only used in the institutional programming of the church. We must also come to grasp how the things we normally do can be the Holy Spirit working through us. The things you do in your jobs, in your volunteer time, in your neighborhood associations, and your families, those are also expressions of God's work, your spiritual gifts, and the mission of the church.

    In this letter we read,

There are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.

Paul, adds, "To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good." That common good is discerned in our life and work together. Just like any human system, whatever structure we embody rests primarily on people being well-intentioned and doing their best to work well with others. A more flexible system also requires a greater level of trusting one another. And in order for us to remain focused on the common good and to maintain our trust in one another, we have to be diligent about discerning where the Holy Spirit is leading us individually and collectively. So, it is imperative that Spiritual Formation go hand-in-hand with our attempts to reorganize our ministry.

Which is why the work of discernment through prayer and conversation and strategic planning and visioning and setting priorities and objectives together is so important. We must listen and trust one another in order to figure out where God is leading us. Together, through these spiritual practices, we will discern the mission and ministries to which God is calling us.

Which is why a goal of the current system is to empower more people by making it easier for them to become involved in leadership and service, particularly new people. My dream is that someone new to this congregation will immediately feel that their uniqueness is valued. That they will easily and quickly begin to make the contributions that they desire to make, that they will be inspired and invited to make. And not only will they contribute to the mission of the church, but will become part of the on-going conversation and process of discerning what the mission and ministry will be.

Pentecost reminds us that the Spirit will not be contained by our attempts to organize and structure and set rules and policies. One of the great stories of this congregation reminds us of that.

Dorothy grew up a Presbyterian at the First Presbyterian Church of Norman, Oklahoma. Her local congregation, that people that knew her best, recognized that the Holy Spirit was at work in Dorothy, calling her to ordained ministry. The women of that church raised funds to pay for her seminary education and helped to send her off to school.

She went off to Presbyterian seminary and the first day went to class and surprised the men assembled there. One of them told her that she was not supposed to be there. She informed him otherwise, she was there to learn to be a minister. He then explained that the class for women students, and there were very few, was in the hour after the men had class. You see, in those days Presbyterians did not ordain women, so women seminarians weren't actually studying and preparing for ordained pastoral ministry. Therefore, the rationale went, they should have a separate class than the men.

As you can imagine, this separate but equal treatment did not sit well with Dorothy, who organized the other women and began to protest and lobby for changes in the seminary. I think it was the third time the Dean called her into his office that he told her she was a troublemaker and that they were sending her to another seminary, the Congregationalist seminary in Chicago. He said the Congregationalists would be a better fit.

Last week at the annual meeting of the Nebraska Conference of the United Church of Christ, the conference recognized and celebrated Dorothy Murdock Hill's 70 years of ordained ministry. Quite a feat. And quite an accomplishment for a woman in 1941.

Dorothy's story, along with that of Clara and her children, remind us that the Spirit bloweth where she willeth, despite our efforts to organize and control. So on this Pentecost, as we celebrate our birthday and ponder our mission, we should remember that how we organize ourselves for ministry must be open and responsive to the Spirit, helping all people to develop their gifts, and working together for the common good.

My favourite Pentecost hymn does not appear in the hymnal of the United Church of Christ, it is "We Are the Church Alive" and comes from the tradition of the Metropolitan Community Church. Let me close with it, a reminder of the mission of the church, at this our birthday celebration:

We are the Church Alive, Christ's presence on this earth;

We give God's Spirit body in the act of our new birth.

As yielded open channels of God's descending dove,

We shout and sing, with joy we bring God's all-inclusive love.