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Rector's Reflection
2nd Sunday after the Epiphany, C
January 17, 2010
I don't know about you, but sometimes I can get a real inferiority complex when people point
to folks like Mother Theresa or Joan of Ark as examples of what a Christian should be. To be
honest, I find fasting difficult enough; therefore burning at the stake does not even register. I
sometimes feel as though maybe I missed out on some measure of holiness that everyone else seems
to have. And then I hear from Paul that "to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom,
and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same
Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another
prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the
interpretation of tongues" and I wonder just where I fit in.
But as I look at this passage and look again, it occurs to me that what I am reading is a
proclamation by Paul that it is the Holy Spirit who is going to be the key to holding together any
community of faith. As much as WE may want to achieve something, we are not independent
operators. We are recipients of gifts... of charisms... and lest anyone miss it, the gifts are for the
common good. The gifts of wisdom and knowledge and faith and healing and the working of
miracles and prophecy and the discernment of spirits and tongues and the interpretation thereof,
come not from the ability of the believer but as a gift of God. These gifts belong not to the believer
but to the community of believers.
Another thing that strikes me about this passage is that the charisms that Paul mentions here,
unlike the job descriptions of teacher, exhorter, leader, etc. that are mentioned elsewhere, these
charisms may come and go. The Spirit may give one of these gifts to a person—not forever, but
when necessary to an occasion. Think of Peter's sermon at Pentecost (Acts 2:11-35). Peter was not
much of a preacher, but his words on that day were brilliant. They were utterances courtesy of the
Spirit.
The good news in this passage, as least as far as I can tell, is that the future of the church does
not reside in any one single person who possesses all of the charisms, but it resides in the gathered
Body of Christ, each member of which will be given the right gift at the right time by the Holy Spirit
who enables us to become something that we weren't, in order to accomplish something that we
couldn't before.
Susan+
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