June 8, 2014
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Did you know that we all have some spare parts that have little or no use today? The fact is that about a half of percent of us are born with spare ribs. While most people have 12 sets of ribs, one half of 1 percent of us has an extra set of ribs.
But unnecessary bones are not the only spare parts in the human body. Take your tonsils, for example. Ideally, these tissues at the back of the throat act as a filter for bacteria and viruses. Problem is, they are prone to infection, which is why so many are removed from the throats of children. Fortunately for adults, tonsils shrink with age and generally stop acting up.
How about wisdom teeth? Technically, these choppers are third molars that appear between the ages of 17 and 25. Because they appear so late, when we are much wiser than children, they are called wisdom teeth. But only about 4 percent of us have room for them, which means that most of us have to undergo oral surgery. Perhaps they once had value as backup molars, but today they are just a pain.
What else do we have that doesn’t seem to serve a purpose? How about our pinky toes, our fifth, baby toe? Apes use all of their toes as they grab branches and swing from them. But for us humans, we don’t do much swinging. Instead, we stand upright using our big toe and the next three to be upright. The pinky toe is just for show.
Let me tell a story during the height of the Vietnam War and I was eligible with a low draft number to be drafted by the army. My mother who was not afraid of slaughtering chickens told me that she was willing to chop off my baby toes making me disabled to be drafted! To this day, I have horrifying thoughts about this! But what a loving mother would do to save her son!
Finally, we have the appendix. The little worm-like tube at the end of your large intestine might seem completely unnecessary, since so many of us have it removed. But recent studies suggest that it could be a storage place for beneficial bacteria. So maybe the appendix is actually useful after all; not useless.
Church Parts
If the church is like a body, as the Apostle Paul suggests, does this mean that the church body also has some useless parts?
The Apostle Paul is writing to the Corinthian Christians who are messed up, fussing with each other and who are generally putting each other down. Earlier in this epistle, Paul was addressing how the people were taking sides by aligning themselves according to what apostle baptized them (1:10-17; 3:4-4:7). Members of this church were going to the civil courts against one another instead of resolving differences within the faith community (6:1-8). There were strong disagreements over whether one should or should not eat food that has been sacrificed to idols (8:1-13; 10:23-11:1). And sadly, when this church was gathering for the Lord’s Supper, there were divisions and factions (11:17-34). The Corinthian Christians have about as much respect for others as we do for our baby toes.
Paul tells us that there is no such thing as a worthless member of the Christian community. In the Body of Christ, there are no spare parts. As we celebrate Pentecost, the birthday of the church, let’s learn more about Paul’s anatomy lesson.
One Spirit, One Lord
He begins by reminding us that, “no one can say ‘Jesus is Lord,’ except by the Holy Spirit,” a pointed reminder that the one Holy Spirit is the source of every statement of Christian faith. In the body of Christ, there are many gifts, but they’re powered by the same Spirit; many ministries, but they honor the same Lord; many activities, but the same God activates them in everyone (vv. 4-6). Whether you’re an “arm” or a “leg,” a “tonsil, tooth or toe,” your role in the body of Christ is given to you by the one Holy Spirit of God who appeared on Pentecost and gave the apostles the unexpected and amazing ability “to speak in other languages.” (Acts 2:4)
Here at FCBC, we speak a variety of languages—Cantonese, English, Toishanese, Cambodian, and even Chinglish. The Holy Spirit powers a variety of gifts, ministries, activities and languages in a variety of body parts. No one part is useless, because all are Spirit-powered.
But the problem is that we always prefer uniformity. You heard me share with you about the phenomenal immigration of Baptists from Burma or Myanmar in recent years to as many as over 120,000 in the US today. As the result of the sacrificial mission work of missionaries like Adoniram and Ann Judson, these Burmese Baptists are now filling our once empty and declining primarily white American Baptist churches across the country.
Rather than to warmly welcome these children of Judsons home in the US, some churches are having problems because they prefer uniformity. The Burmese are not like them. They eat food , wear clothes and speak languages that are different from what were before. You might hear someone saying, “If they want to worship that way, fine with me. But don’t bring it into my sanctuary.”
People like that see the new Burmese American Baptists as useless body parts. They are useless tonsils, teeth, and toes.
How about us? Perhaps because we have never had a sanctuary big enough to worship together regularly or maybe we know that our languages are different and difficult to understand—how do we perceive each other at FCBC? Have we felt at times when we felt that our diversity has so many different parts that we wished that some might just be surgically removed?
Paul challenges us to accept the reality that “to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good” (v. 7). Our three different worship styles can enliven each other’s services. English-speaking members can teach new immigrants English while new immigrants can teach American-Born Asians cultural values and practices. Seniors can mentor youth and youth can help meet some of the physical challenges of those facing old age. Seasoned couples can coach engaged couples. Adults can babysit children and young children can bring joy and laughter into our seasoned lives. In each of these activities, we see the power of the Holy Spirit working for the common good.
Variety
One of the clearest signs of the presence of the Holy Spirit is variety. Paul sees the Holy Spirit in “the utterance of wisdom…the utterance of knowledge…faith…gifts of healing…the working of miracles…prophecy…discernment of spirits…various tongues…interpretation of tongues” (vv. 8-10). Notice that none of these is considered to be any greater than another. And not one of them is useless.
Today, the Long-range Planning Committee will officially submit its report to the Deacons for their first review. The prayerful hope is that it would describe and project what FCBC will be like 5 years from now and what might we need to do beginning today to achieve that goal. One of the underlying themes is that we are rich in diversity. And as Baptists, we are even diverse in some of our interpretation of Scripture as long as we all are committed to the oneness in Christ and that it’s the same Holy Spirit who unites us together.
Paul says, “all of these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses” (v. 11). We need to emphasize those last five words: just as the Spirit chooses. If the Spirit chooses to activate a particular gift, service, activity or person, who are we to judge? I believe that the Holy Spirit has activated our church to be this “bilingual, bicultural and multi-generational fellowship of believers” to proclaim the Good News of Jesus Christ in the world.
The Christian church was born on Pentecost, and one of its fundamental characteristics is that it’s one body with many diverse members. “For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body,” concludes Paul, “and we were all made to drink of one Spirit” (v. 13).
Relational Ministry
There’s a story of a crab fisherman. He was asked why he didn’t put a lid on the bucket that held his day’s catch. He replied, “The moment one of them climbs out, the others reach up and pull it back down again.”
We do the same thing, don’t we? You come back down here with the rest of us! How dare you succeed? How dare you do well? The Apostle Paul warned, “But if you bite and devour one another; beware lest you be consumed by one another!” (Gal. 5:15)
While we are One Body in the One Spirit, the nature of the church still poses challenges to us as it did for the Corinthians. While there’s no quick fix for divisions in the church, one place to begin to heal our fractures is to begin to see ministry as relational instead of transactional.
So what’s the difference? Transactional ministry looks at a person and asks: What can they do for me? Sing in the choir, teach a Sunday school class, put money in the offering plate, support the missions of the church? Newcomers are welcome because of what they do, in transactions that we see as beneficial.
Relational ministry, on the other hand, looks at a person and sees a child of God. Newcomers are useful because of who they are, not because of what they do. We trust that they bring the gifts of the Holy Spirit with them, even though these gifts may be unusual to us, with new kinds of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing and maybe even miracles!
What might relational ministry look like when we relate with people at the 10:00 Cantonese and the 10:00 English worshipping congregations? Might we also see new kinds of wisdom, knowledge, faith, healng and maybe even miracles from what we have been accustomed to at the 11:20 English congregation?
Understanding and acceptance is what people are looking for in the life of the church. And that is what they’ll find in churches that see the Holy Spirit at work in a variety of gifts, services and activities.
Our challenge is to widen our vision of what the Holy Spirit is doing in the church today. The Christians in Corinth had a hard time seeing beyond divisions in their church over wealth and spiritual gifts, and so often we are blinded by our own local issues as well. But if we can begin to look for signs of the Holy Spirit in all who come to church, we will begin to see the true unity of the Body of Christ.
Remember, says Paul, “No one can say ‘Jesus is Lord’ except by the Holy Spirit” (v. 3). No one can pray, sing, study or serve without being touched by the power of the Spirit. This is not to say that everyone is perfect, without need of guidance, encouragement and discipline. Far from it. We all need to be supported and held accountable. But at the same time, we can begin to see each other in a new way—not as disagreeing opponents but as enriched relatives.
William Blake once said, “Unless the eye catches fire, God will not be seen. Unless the ear catches fire, God will not be heard. Unless the tongue catches fire, God will not be named. Unless the heart catches fire, God will not be loved. Unless the mind catches fire, God will not be known. Let’s catch the fire of the Holy Spirit!
In a church like FCBC with a variety of gifts, ministries and activities, the Holy Spirit is always present in a wide range of people. In the one body, there are many members. There are no spare parts. There are no useless parts.
We can all declare, “Jesus is Lord” because of the same Holy Spirit.
Let us pray.
Holy Spirit, what beautiful gifts you have given us! We are diverse, but unified, body of believers. We are unique yet, even in our differences, we are one. Let us celebrate the gifts you have given each brother and sister here. We need each other, no one is useless, and so we ask you to help us love and support one another. Use each person here to further your kingdom and the gospel. We are your hands, feet, little toes, head, heart and more. Let us serve, walk, guide, love and follow. Amen.