Working Together

1 Corinthians 12:1-11New International Version (NIV)

Concerning Spiritual Gifts

12 Now about the gifts of the Spirit, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, somehow or other you were influenced and led astray to mute idols. 3 Therefore I want you to know that no one who is speaking by the Spirit of God says, “Jesus be cursed,” and no one can say, “Jesus is Lord,” except by the Holy Spirit.

4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.

7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines.

Wednesday night, an NBA player missed 23 free-throws in one game and as of Wednesday night one of the best players in the NBA, Steph Curry,  had only missed 22 free throws all season.  There are teams that take advantage of this poor free throw shooting by intentionally fouling these bad shooters.  Thursday night, the Cleveland Cavaliers did the same thing to a different player but their lead went from 9 points to 16 points in less than two minutes.  We are talking about free throws.  It is an uninterrupted free shot at the hoop from 15 feet away.  8 year old children shoot more accurately than that!  Andre Drummond is the first player I talked about missing all those free throws and he shoots right around 34% from the free throw line (15 feet) and Steph Curry shoots right around 46% from at least 23 feet 9 inches (3 point line).  On a Sunday where our scripture talks about gifts, it is safe to say that Mr. Drummond does not have the gift of shooting the basketball from anywhere too far from the hoop.  So you may be asking now, “How is this Mr. Drummond in the NBA where he gets paid millions if he cannot shoot very well?”  Andre Drummond’s talent is in rebounding where he averages nearly 15.5 rebounds per game and he still averages 17.3 points per game.  For those of you who know the basketball lingo, he is a guaranteed double-double every time he steps foot on the court.  Meanwhile, Steph Curry only collects about 5.4 rebounds per game.  As you can tell, these two players have a very different skill set.  Each of them doing their part to help their team win.  Their gifts are very different.  The way they help their team is very different but both men are very skillful in different areas of basketball.  I tell you all of this to help us better understand verse 4-6: There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them.  There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord.  There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work.  

The scripture for today tells us very plainly about gifts: (verse 7) Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.  Social media and political agendas have led us to forget about the common good.  We are surrounded by slogans, memes and rude comments.  Racist, sexist, and ethnocentric pictures and comments flood our brains.  Political agendas by political parties and 24 hour news cycles feed us with what we want to hear based on our already preconceived biases.  For example, illegal immigration is a big talking point in today’s political climate.  Depending on what news station you watch we have been told that illegal immigration is a huge problem.  We are told that Mexicans enter the country illegally, have a bunch of kids and drain our social welfare programs.  We are told that many of them do not contribute to society and they have taken many jobs away from Americans.  Now, some of those things I just mentioned have some truth found in them but we use these overarching catch-all statements and think it applies to every illegal immigrant.  What if I told you that for the first time since the 1970s that more Mexicans are going back to Mexico than entering the country?  Based on Pew Research Study done between the years of 2009 and 2014, that is the case.  The study showed that during those 5 years, around 140,000 more people went back to Mexico than came in.  And do you know the two biggest contributing factors?  First, the slow recovery from the 2008 recession and the second: President Obama's stricter border measures have helped in significantly reducing illegal crossings by Mexicans.  I couldn’t believe it when I read it either.  All I have heard is how Mr. Obama wants to run this country into the ground.  All I have heard is how bad of a person he is.  Here is some honesty for you, I didn’t vote for the guy.  I don’t agree with a lot of what he has done but we must give credit where it is due.  We are blasted with so much twisted, sensationalized mis-information that we lose respect for those whom we don’t agree not based on fact but hearsay.  President Bush was treated the same way for most of his term as president so many people believe it is now ok that the other side does it.  I honestly believe that both of these men did their absolute best.  I often complained about President Obama’s executive orders because that is what my newsfeed and news channels told me to complain about.  I was told how ridiculous it was that he had 228 executive orders.  “That’s an outrage!” I thought.  Do the research.  President Bush had 291 in his tenure as president and it is unlikely that Mr. Obama gets to that count.  So I kept looking and I saw that Bill Clinton had an astounding 364 executive orders and Jimmy Carter had 320.  I thought that was a little ridiculous! It again confirmed my political bias.  Until I looked at the president whom many republicans harken as the “one of the best” in Mr. Reagan.  President Reagan had 381 executive orders.  I didn’t tell all of you this to either confirm your democratic notions or to slam your republican view.  This was an example from my own perspective in how my biases misconstrued my own understanding.  We often allow our preconceived notions to be validated before we do anything about proving wrong those preconceived notions.  This leads us to losing sight of the common good.  We very easily forget that each one of us is given a manifestation of God’s Spirit.

I have often heard people say that there are two topics we shouldn’t discuss in a large group: religion and politics.  But both of them play a large role in our lives.  We aren’t going to sit here and have a great group discussion on either one of those topics where we are all going to agree word for word on either of those subjects.  But we don’t have to.  God gave each of us gifts that are different.  By design this forces us to work together to accomplish anything.  That is the beautifully frustrating part of this life.  That we must rely on one another.  We need one another in order to be effective at whatever we are doing.  The reason these topics get so heated is because the focal point of the discussion is in found in our differences?  What if we started these conversations off with the commonalities?  What if we no longer refused to see the things we have in common with one another rather than our differences?  We do not need to avoid the difficult topics just know that the person at the other end of the conversation is exactly that: a person.  A person with their own set of prejudices, mistakes, sin and yet they too are loved by God and surrounded by His grace.  Start there. We are not better served by arguing religion and politics.  Instead, we are best served using our gifts to improve the common good for one another.  For example, what if Andre Drummond and Steph Curry played on the same team and Drummond rebounded 2-3 of Curry’s misses a game and allowed him a second three point shot?  Statistics say it is unlikely he would miss the second attempt.  That combination would mean 6-9 points more a game.  All these [gifts] are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as He determines  Work toward the common good even if that means doing so with someone you don’t agree with.  Amen.