Because of the way this past year has unfolded and because of the discernment process we’re in, I heard today’s familiar spiritual gifts reading from 1 Corinthians differently this time. I’m reminded of a way we talked about group dynamics when I was in Clinical Pastoral Education training years ago: If everyone in the group was just “in the room together,” doing their own thing, we called it “parallel play”. That means everyone was playing/working in the same room, but in isolation. We were not playing/working TOGETHER for a common good. On the other hand, there were times when we actually played/worked together collaboratively. We shared our” toys”-- our tools, our gifts, our different ways of seeing the world as we approached a common project or process.
I’m reading the 1st Corinthians passage today in a much more collaborative way than I think I have in the past. As Christians we’ve all been given spiritual gifts, and we certainly use these in our various personal lives and in the church. For example, those who have the gift of teaching, teach. Those who have the gift of healing, heal. And so on. Churches tend to do this corporately as well. So if we as a parish identify our main gift as music, then we focus on music. Other churches may focus on children’s education or foreign missions. Now, please don’t hear me wrong: All this is well and good. It comes from asking the question, “what are my/our gifts and how can I/we use them?” ‘Nothing wrong with that except I know it’s easy for us to get into some kind of Ego thing with this approach. Some can’t seem to find their gifts, and this is depressing to them. Others know what their gifts are, but always seem to be looking over their shoulder or on the other side of the fence, wondering why they can’t have someone else’s gifts.
A new approach to this that’s come to me this year, is to get the focus off of my gifts/our gifts and onto God’s mission: To acknowledge that God has a mission, and then to ask, “What is my part/what is St. James’ part in God’s mission.” If we come about it this way, the Ego thing just evaporates, and we see we are really part of God’s great cosmic work of justice and compassion. We realize our play and work cannot be parallel play and work: We’ve got to break down the divisions between us and all come to the table bringing all of our gifts, knowing that what we can be, do, and make together is infinitely more than we can by ourselves.
That’s why I am excited about the process we are in together. I look forward to learning new things from the short reports from the 3 committees later today. But more than that, I look forward to the opportunity we’ll have to listen to each other’s ways of looking at these three options. Of course we’ll all bring our biases to the table. That’s human nature, but it’s good for us to be aware of our biases. In recognizing these, hopefully we can be more open and listening to others’ ideas. I fully believe that today and as we continue in this process, we will hear things we’ve not thought of individually or in our smaller groups. As we sit together and listen, we really have a chance to discern God’s will and God’s mission and to learn from the amazing gifts and the many different ways of seeing things that are present among us today. In this corporate setting I believe we can hear a word from God through the mouths of one another, as the Spirit moves among us.
I pray as we witness the various ways God’s Spirit is manifested among us today, we will come to see more clearly God’s preferred and promised future for us and how we fit into God’s mission of justice and compassion for the world. Amen.
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