January 24, 2010
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
There’s a punk-pop band sensation in the music industry called, “Just Kait.” Just Kait is a band featuring, well, just Kait. This 17-year old high school senior literally plays and records every instrument—drums, bass and guitar—and lays down her own vocal tracks as well.
Last summer, Just Kait had two pop-culture accolades slapped onto her hit single “Sick.” MTV made the song a Discover and Download feature—a publicity wildfire given to only the hottest new up-and-comers. And the E! Channel used the high-energy song to back its summer network commercial series.
I read that in a Just Kait music video, Kait changes her wardrobe, including glasses, hats and wigs, as she is filmed playing all three instruments in the band.
Doesn’t the word band imply a group of people coming together around a common purpose? Did Kait grow up unable to play nice with others on the playground? Maybe her first word was mine.
The church is so not like this band. The point here isn’t to bad-mouth Kaitlyn DiBenedetto. What she is doing is pretty amazing. It’s just that being a one-person band isn’t what our text is all about. The problem in many churches is that there are too many people trying to play a whole bunch of instruments at the same time by themselves. In 1 Corinthians 12, we see that all of us are in the band, and we all have an instrument to play. The quality of the music depends on each of us, as individuals, using our gifts for the benefit of the whole. It would make more excellent music.
Discovering Gifts
In writing to the Corinthians, Paul stresses the diversity of gifts within the congregation. It seems to be the nature of God to give. God is the source of all gifts within the church. God doesn’t give all the same gifts, but we are blessed with a rich diversity of gifts. Three times in this passage Paul stresses the difference of gifts that are given by the one God. Paul speaks of our different gifts, which we often consider to be a source of conflict and division, to be a sign of God’s grace.
In verses 15-16, Paul stresses that all of us need one another’s gifts. There is no hierarchy of gifts as mentioned in verses 23-24. Those gifts that we consider to be humble or lacking in import are essential for the functioning of the church, the “body of Christ.” Then, in verses 25-26, Paul says that we ought to care for one another in our diversity of gifts. Paul thus offers us a powerful image of the graciousness of God as seen in the diversity and unity of gifts in the church.
As you know, one of my important tasks as a pastor is to recognize, to honor, and to call forth the God-given gifts of each person in the congregation. A few years ago, there was a book entitled, Now Discover Your Strengths by Mark Buckingham. It’s about how to work with people in a way that plays to their strengths rather than to their weaknesses.
Too often, says Buckingham, we managers attempt to manage people on the basis of their weaknesses. Businesses spend much unproductive, costly time and effort attempting to strengthen employees’ weaknesses rather than developing their strengths. “You can pull out people’s gifts more easily than you can put in gifts that people don’t have,” says Buckingham. You can get more “bang for your buck” by putting people in those positions where they already have the talents they need to succeed in that position. Business wastes lots of money and time trying to coax and train people to do well in positions for which they have few talents.
The most productive employees are those who spend most of their day doing those tasks that they like to do most. It’s no surprise that we most like to do those tasks for which we are best qualified. Innate talent is the most important quality to look for in an employee.
And yet, here is one more insight from Buckingham: few of us really know our strengths. We are much better at identifying our weaknesses than our talents. We spend most of our educational and growth time in attempting to work on our weaknesses than we do in developing our strengths. And most of this time is wasted.
Therefore, it is crucial for an organization or a church to find ways to discover each person’s strengths and to put each person in situations where he or she can utilize their strengths, and to continue to strengthen their strengths.
Gifts from God
God has wisely given us a diversity of gifts in the church and blessed us with far more gifts than we have been able to utilize. We have a tendency to recognize a limited number of gifts appropriate to the church—teaching, counseling, working with youth and children, visiting the sick, singing in the choir and so forth. But everyone has a gift given by God to use in the church.
One pastor shared about a time when he was able to recognize the God-given strengths of a businessman in his church. He was brusque to the point of bluntness and no one had ever thought of him for any job in the church—he was a hardboiled business guy who was too rough and direct for nice church people.
Well, this man retired and found retirement difficult. So one day, when he was telling his pastor that he was struggling with depression because of his retirement from his powerful and prestigious business position, the pastor suggested to him that he come work in the church’s clothes closet and food pantry. In retrospect, the pastor didn’t know why on earth he thought that might be a good idea. Maybe the Holy Spirit put the idea in his head!
So he goes to work there three mornings a week. And there he meets people who are down on their luck, people having a tough time, like a mother who had her electricity turned off because she was late paying her electric bill. Well, he heard about it and the next thing you know he was on the telephone talking to the president of the electric company (a golf buddy of his) telling him that he ought to be ashamed of his company turning off the power of this woman’s house. She got her electricity back that very same day.
We remember the life-long work of Diana Ming Chan who labored tirelessly as a social worker and then as an advocate for having social workers in the San Francisco Public Schools. I am sure there were resistance and opposition for such programs when resources are limited and budgets are tight. But Diana Ming Chan was one of those persons who can push things through, get beyond the resistance and the barriers and get something done. You don’t want to be the barrier when Diana Ming Chan was in the room. The Holy Spirit has a way to use every person in the church.
Isn’t God wonderful?
I pray that our church would do a better job of looking at each person’s life, assessing that person’s God-given strengths, and then helping that person use those strengths for the glory of God.
Different Gifts
All of our strengths, including the strengths that we don’t have, come as gifts from God. Now that sounds a bit odd. Even the strengths that we do not have are gifts that come from God. If God gave each of us all the gifts that we need, we wouldn’t need each other. It would be like, “Just Kait.” But knowing that we also don’t have certain gifts is also a gift from God. Let me explain.
Most of us evaluate other people on the basis of our own strengths. If I’m good at relating to other people, then I think that strength—relating well to other people—is the most important strength for others to have. I insist that the people who work with me have the strength that I have, partly because I am most comfortable around people who have similar sets of gifts to mine.
Paul must have encountered the same problem in Corinth. Paul says that all gifts are from God and that we all need a diversity of strengths in order to be faithful to the work of Christ. One strength is no more important than another.
Imagine there was a woman who wanted to sing in the choir. She tried that. She was eventually asked to leave the choir. Singing was not her strength. Then she tried running the Sunday school program. That was a disaster. Organization was not her strength. Then at a meeting one night of the Friday Night School, someone was lamenting on the difficulty of coordinating the evening dinners. This woman spoke up and said, “I can do that!” She had a gift for cooking and planning meals. Imagine how this woman can use her strength to benefit not just Friday Night School but mobilizing the rest of our church to participate in reaching out to our neighbors.
An Excellent Church
Paul said in the end of Chapter 12 that if we did all these things—recognizing that all gifts and strengths come from God, that all gifts are important and necessary for the benefit of the whole, that we ought to celebrate, enjoy, and utilize the diversity of strengths that we have in the church—that God will show us a still more excellent way. We become an excellent church!
A well-functioning congregation not only has inspiring worship, engaging biblical preaching, a good youth program, and all the rest. A well-functioning congregation also figures out how to identify, affirm, and utilize each person’s God-given strengths.
While I may be the senior pastor, I am blessed by the gifts and strengths shared with me by the church staff team. I can’t be a one-man band! I need the whole church staff to have a more complete collection of gifts and strengths to provide ministry for this church. I literally would not be able to do my job if it was not for Pastor Peter Lee’s strength of speaking Cantonese. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if it wasn’t for Pastor Chris Otani’s strength in Christian education. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if it wasn’t for Pastor Jane Lam’s strength in community outreach and evangelism. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if it wasn’t for Wendy Lin’s strength in managing the different operations in the church office. I wouldn’t be able to do my job if it wasn’t for others like Nancy Guan, Marian Hom, and Dr, James Chuck using their strengths in doing ministries.
The purpose for Paul’s letter to the church in Corinth was to settle some of the bickering and petty jealousy that led to division. The foot and ear can’t say to the rest of the body, “I do not belong to the body,” even though they are neither a hand nor an eye. Like it or not, both foot and ear, along with the eyes and hands, are all members of one body; this fact is indisputable despite the vain protests.
Here’s a story from another church.
“Can’t we get James off the personnel committee this year?” asked the chair of the nominating committee. “I had to admit that I had often wished James were not on the personnel committee. He was one of the most negative, sour, critical people I have ever known—never had a good word for anybody.”
“No,” said the pastor, “I think we really need James and his gifts on that committee.”
“Preacher, you’ve got to be kidding!” said the man. “James is so difficult to get along with. He is always complaining about somebody.”
“Well,” said the pastor, “that can be a gift on that committee. As long as James is on that committee, I never have to worry about you protecting me from bad, but truthful information. James will always tell it to me first, gladly. I never have to worry about hearing about the problems until it is too late to do anything about the problems. James will gladly tell me as soon as he hears any rumblings.”
Some of you are more traditional than I am. Some of you are more liberal than I am. Some of you are more conservative than I am. Some of you are more fiscally frugal than I am. Some of you are more progressive than I am. Some of you are more globally conscious than I am. Some of you are more localized than I am. And you can add your own.
But isn’t God great to give us so many different gifts and strengths? We need them all, even the gifts of criticism and negativity in order for the church to be all that it is called to be in Christ.
Let’s not be a one-person band. Let’s be an excellent church where all our gifts and strengths are complementing one another as the one Body of Christ.
Let us pray.
Thank you, God for blessing each of us with unique and special gifts that together represent the wonderful diversity of gifts, talents and abilities to be the Body of Christ. Teach us to work together and build on one another’s ideas in order to advance your Kingdom on earth as it is already in heaven. We pray to be an excellent church in the name of Jesus Christ. Amen.