Isaiah 62:1-5

Psalm 96:1-10

1 Corinthians 12:1-11

JOHN 2:1-11

Sermon – 1/18/04

Secular people may think that “the season of gift-giving” is over now that Christmas is past. Christians know better. Gift-giving by God knows no limits by season, and so it is that St. Paul recognizes and celebrates spiritual gifts in the selection from his first Letter to the Corinthians from which we just heard.

Even more fundamentally, all Christians are given gifts by God at baptism [as we will shortly be reminded (at the 10:30 service) in the prayer of thanksgiving right after today’s baptism.] These seven universal gifts are: the forgiveness of sin, being “raised to the new life of grace,” being sustained in the Holy Spirit, “an inquiring and discerning heart, the courage to will and to persevere, a spirit to know and to love God, and the gift of joy and wonder in all God’s works.”

The sad thing is that some Christians leave those gifts of God untouched, unused, still wrapped; but still they have received them and have the opportunity to unwrap their limitless spiritual potential at any time. Forgiveness, grace, strength, discernment, courage, love and joy are priceless gifts to experience and be empowered by anywhere, any time for any Godly purpose.

St. Paul today talks about nine special gifts of the Holy Spirit, one or two or some of which are sprinkled among people who may or may not be considered “gifted” with spectacular artistic, athletic or money-making abilities (the kind that usually attract attention.) God gives out spiritual gifts to rich and poor, famous and obscure alike. Some of whom have uncommon wisdom. Some have the special spiritual knowledge which we might call foreknowledge of future events. Some have extraordinary faith which goes beyond being profoundly devout. Some have a gift of healing far beyond what they could learn or have learned through scientific study. Others have an irresistible call to be prophets, to speak God’s word of judgment and/or guidance and inspiration to the world today. Some have a gift to discern between good and bad spirits to see what spiritual force may be behind a seemingly inspired person. Some may have the ability to speak in tongues, in private, ecstatic prayer languages to God—and others may have the ability to interpret those tongues so that the listeners may be edified.

These are all special spiritual gifts given by God to whomever God chooses and all, as Paul notes, “for the common good.” All baptized Christians have received the basic ration of seven spiritual gifts I mentioned first, and some have received or will receive one or more of the special gifts. Someone sitting here this morning may have profound wisdom, uncanny episodes of foreknowledge, breathtaking faith, the healing touch, a prophet’s soul, spiritual discernment, ecstatic speech or its interpretation. Someone here may discover tomorrow or next year that she or he has been given such a gift by God, and so the questions are, “do you try to run away from or ignore your gifts—universal baptismal gifts or special personal spiritual gifts—or do you use them; and if you use them, to what ends do you use them?”

Gifted people, if you don’t believe you have been called by God for a special purpose, if you think you’re nothing special, listen to these words from a fellow gifted person:

“Everybody can be great. Because anybody can

serve. You don’t have to have a college degree to

serve. You don’t have to make your subject and

your verb agree to serve. You don’t have to know

about Plato and Aristotle to serve. You don’t have

to know Einstein’s theory of relativity to serve.

You don’t have to know the second theory of

thermodynamics in physics to serve. You only need

a heart full of grace. A soul generated by love.”

This gifted person also wrote, “Every man must decide whether he will walk in the light of constructive altruism or the darkness of destructive selfishness. This is the judgment. Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, ‘What are you doing for others?’”

We can’t claim we have no gifts; we do. We can’t claim we have no opportunities to use them; we do. We can’t claim we have no higher purpose to which to dedicate our gifts; we have that too. We only have to look for an example to the author of those quotations, a man who could have lived a life of brilliant obscurity and safety, but chose instead to live a life of service to others and for the common good on a large scale and at extremely high risk to himself personally. For that choice, he paid the ultimate price. But because of his choice, and the choices of those who followed his leadership, we today live in a country and a world which are both more free and more fulfilled and more aware of how they fall short of perfect freedom and fulfillment, than they were when The Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. wrote those words.

Some Americans consider the third Monday in January to be a holiday just for themselves, and some others think of it merely as a holiday for certain other people, while some think of it simply as a chance for a ski weekend. Well, this is a time to remember “X games” of a sort: not extreme skiing or snowboarding, but extreme faith.

That’s what it took for a tired seamstress in Montgomery, Alabama to refuse to give up her seat on a bus to a white person under penalty of law on December 1, 1955. Things “happened” to black people who stood up to the system of white supremacy. But Rosa Parks had extreme faith that resistance to a racist law was both right and necessary, and in the weeks that followed, 50,000 black citizens of Montgomery stood up and boycotted the city buses for over a year, using their extreme faith in God that non-violent resistance was right, necessary, strong, Christian, and would change things while holding out the opportunity for the beginning of the transformation of the oppressor even as his power was being challenged.

This particular process of transformation of both individuals and society by faith-based action began in that place and time under the leadership of an unknown Baptist minister who was just short of his 26^th birthday. America celebrates what would have been Dr. King’s 75^th birthday this weekend. The process of transformation of individuals and society by faith-based action still has far to go. Today is a day to applaud what has been accomplished, to give tribute to the people of all colors whose sacrifices made progress possible, and also remind ourselves that Dr. King’s dream has not yet come true.

He wrote,

“As long as there is poverty in the world I can

never be rich, even if I have a billion dollars. As

long as diseases are rampant and millions of people in

this world cannot expect to live more than twenty-eight

or thirty years, I can never be totally healthy even

if I just got a good checkup at Mayo Clinic. I

can never be what I ought to be until you are what

you ought to be. This is the way our world is made.

No individual or nation can stand out boasting of

being independent. We are interdependent.”

The Baptismal Covenant challenges us: “Will you seek and serve Christ in all persons, loving your neighbor as yourself?” And, “Will you strive for justice and peace among all people, and respect the dignity of every human being?” These are questions not for the past but for the present and the future; these are questions not just for famous Christians, but for all Christians. And all Christians can stand up, with the universal and unique gifts we have been given by God and say, “I will, with God’s help.”

(The Rev.) Francis A. Hubbard

St. Barnabas Episcopal Church