Ishmael (Genesis 21:8-21)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 25, 2017, Proper 7)

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A Tale of Laughter

Last week we laughed with Sarah. “Who would ever have said” that a couple as old as Abraham and Sarah would have a child? When a messenger of God had visited Abraham and Sarah the year before and promised them a child, Sarah could not help but laugh. A bitter, cynical laugh. She did not believe it.

But no matter. Soon she conceived and bore a child. And Sarah laughed again. This time a joyful laugh, full of life. She could not believe it! She exclaimed, “God has brought laughter for me; everyone who hears will laugh with me” (Gen 21:6). Even the child’s name is full of laughter. Isaac means, “He laughs.”

The joke is on Sarah! Quite literally, by the story’s end, when Sarah holds him in her loving hands. The joke is on Sarah, and she’s happy to laugh along and to spread the laughter among others. The good news according to Sarah is that life comes after us even after we have given up on it. The good news is that we are made fools—but fools for God, fools whose lives stage the grand comedy of life, where God fills what is empty and barren and raises to life the lifeless and the lacking.

The Bible Is No Fairy Tale

Last week would have been a great way to end the story. The barren woman bears a child. Bitter laughter turns sweet. Abraham finally has the son whom God promised.

But the Bible is no fairy tale.

Oh, that’s the way it looks outside the tent of Abraham and Sarah. Outside the tent, in the public eye, it’s a beautiful story of birth and blessing: Abraham and Sarah and their miracle child Isaac. I imagine it’s the kind of feel-good story that would make the local headlines today. There’d be interviews of the proud papa, who’d say things like, “We’re just so blessed. You know, it wasn’t a thing we did. God just blessed us.” There’d be snapshots of the merry mother, her face glowing, her mouth wide open in laughter.

But every story has a flipside, and this one is no exception.

Step inside the tent, and the picture-perfect family is broken almost beyond recognition.

Family Breakup

Years back, Sarah had concluded that she would never have a child, and so she made a decision that was not uncommon in her day: surrogate motherhood. What happens next reminds me of the dark histories of old southern plantations. Sarah and Abraham decide to have a child by the womb of their Egyptian maidservant, Hagar. But once Hagar has conceived, Sarah almost immediately regrets her decision. In her eyes, Hagar has become “uppity” (cf. Gen 16:4-5). In response, she treats Hagar so poorly that the pregnant maidservant runs away to the wilderness. Eventually, however, she returns and bears Abraham a son.

So by the time that Isaac is born, there are actually two sons in the household. And two mothers.

And that’s where the trouble brews. Isaac is three or four years old. He doesn’t understand the family dynamics. All he knows, we can imagine, is the joy of companionship. So when his half-brother, Hagar’s teenage son, introduces him to the fun of games like hide-and-seek or build-a-fort, Isaac doesn’t think a thing of it.

But Sarah does. She boils with jealousy. Her resentment is so great that she cannot even say the names of the maidservant or her son. “Cast out this slave woman,” she orders Abraham, “[along] with her son; for the son of this slave woman shall not inherit along with my son Isaac” (21:10). The demand distresses Abraham, of course, for the son of the slave woman is his son too. But after he receives a word of assurance from God, he consents to this family breakup. The next morning, Hagar and her son leave home and wander into the wilderness.

God in Laughter, God in Tears

How quickly the laughter of last week has faded. The Bible is no fairy tale. It knows that many stories of celebration have a dark underbelly. On the other side of last week’s birth and blessing is bitterness and brokenness.

Indeed, Hagar and are son are driven to their breaking point. As they run out of water in the wilderness, Hagar gives up. She places her son in the shade of some bushes and then sits down a ways on the opposite side so that she will not have to watch the death of her own child. Then she weeps.

If the gospel of Sarah last week was that God is in our laughter, then the gospel of Hagar this week is that God is in our tears. For no sooner have she and her son cried, than a messenger of God cries out to her: “What troubles you, Hagar? Do not be afraid; for God has heard the voice of the boy where he is.” Then her eyes are opened, and through her tears she sees a well of water! Where did that come from? Was it there before? Had she missed it in her despair? No matter…she fills her skin with water and gives her son a drink. There is no laughter this time around, but don’t be fooled. God is here in Hagar’s tears just as much as God was in Sarah’s laughter. In both blessing and brokenness, God fills empty bodies with life.

“God Hears the Outsider”

That is gospel enough for one Sunday. But there is something that niggles me still. Have you noticed anything missing in all this talk? I have followed the lead of the scripture and refrained from using one name. The name of Hagar’s son. Nowhere in today’s story is it mentioned. Sarah cannot bring herself to use it. God does not use it. The narrator does not use it. Why is it missing? Why can no one say the name of Hagar’s son? Is it because this story is painful enough as it is, and using the name of the boy would only give him a face, would only make the story more painful? It is symbolic of how Abraham and Sarah are coping with the experience? Is the story repressing this boy’s memory as his father and stepmother are?

What is his name, by the way?

Ishmael.

The name carries within it an entire history. Ishmael is the father of Islam. The name also carries within it a reminder that much of our world has forgotten or repressed: Ishmael means “God hears.”

Who does God hear? Not only Abraham and Sarah, not only the in-crowd. God hears Hagar. In one sense, the story of Ishmael and Hagar is a simple story of names. Ishmael means “God hears,” and Hagar means “the outsider.” What’s the story? Put the names together. God hears the outsider. God is in their tears as much as God is in the laughter of the blessed.

There Is No Way to Separate Islam from the Promise “God Hears”

Ishmael. It is a challenging name, because it contains both the history of Islam and the promise that “God hears.” In the name of Ishmael, there is no way to separate Islam from the promise, “God hears.” Who does God hear? Just us? Abraham Heschel, a compassionate and devout Jewish theologian, once wrote: “Any god who is mine but not yours, any god concerned with me but not with you, is an idol.”[1] Which is to say, a God who is exclusive to certain interests—Christian, white, male, whatever—that God is nothing more than self-worship. It is an abuse: God remade in our own image.

I know that this can be a touchy matter in our world today. Rather than speak in generalities, which often become little more than battle lines for one position over another, I’d prefer to share from my personal experience. A friend from Libya, to whom I helped teach English several years ago, recently sent me a short message: “Hi John, how do you do? I hope you are good. I ask Allah to protect you.” If we’re talking about protection, she needs much more than I do, living as she does in a much more turbulent world. But she prayed for me. Did God hear her prayer? Ishmael.

I wonder if Hagar or Ishmael prayed for Abraham and Sarah. They’d have every reason not to. But I have my suspicions to the contrary. Because when Abraham dies, guess who shows up? Isaac, yes—but also Ishmael (25:8-9).

Perhaps God Hears Others and Is on Their Side

I have a tendency in my reflections to twist scripture to fit me. In other words, today’s scripture would mean that whenever I am crying, or whenever I experience rejection, God hears me and comes to me. But I wonder if for once I shouldn’t stay put, and let the other characters be other characters. Perhaps the tears of Hagar and Ishmael are really the tears of others, of folks who are different than me, of Muslims and black folks and women. And perhaps I have hurt them. And perhaps God hears their hurt and is on their side. That’s what the name Ishmael would suggest.

And perhaps—perhaps they are praying for me, and one day by the grace of the God who hears and cares for us all, our broken histories will be water under a bridge of love, and we will gather together like Isaac and Ishmael after a long, tearful history and put it to rest. And perhaps there life will come from death, and blessing from brokenness, and the reconciliation of Christ will become flesh and blood among us.

Prayer

God of laughter,
God of tears,
Thank you for opening
The door to life
Whatever our circumstance;

God who is all ears
To the cries
Of the outsider—
Give us your ears
That we too might
Hear the cries of others
And share life with them.
In the name of this broken world’s reconciliation, Jesus Christ.
Amen.

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[1] Abraham J. Heschel, The Insecurity of Freedom: Essays on Human Existence (New York: Farrar, Straus & Giroux, 1966), 86.

A Tale of Two Laughs (Gen 18:1-15; 21:1-7)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 18, 2017, Proper 6)

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A Story That Reawakens Our Faith

This morning’s scripture is a wonderful story. Like any good story, it captures our imagination. It sweeps us into its own world. It invites us to feel what the characters feel. At the same time, it reminds us a little of our own lives. As we read the story, we recognize parts of it that are our own story. In this way, it reawakens our faith. We discover that our lives are much more amazing than we thought, that faith plays perhaps a greater role in our lives than we had realized.

So in place of reading the scripture today, I’m going to tell it in my own words and in my own imagination. I’m going to share how it becomes alive to me, how it awakens my faith. Perhaps you’ll revisit the scripture on your own and discover other aspects and angles that awaken your own faith in other ways.

“Her Laughter Was Bitter”

Her laughter was bitter. It leaked out from a place of pain and sorrow. It was the kind of laughter that could collapse into tears or a whimper at any moment.

A child? At her age? Impossible. How dare they speak about something they knew nothing about? How dare they make such a casual, flippant remark? She and her husband had tried for years. Now they were both far too old.

It had been a long day. Maybe that, too, was why her laughter was bitter.

It all began when three strangers appeared outside their tent. Naturally her husband had offered them hospitality. The burning sun, the lack of water, the fatigue of a long journey—she and her husband had lived in the wilderness long enough to know the hardships of travel. Whenever they saw strangers, they could not help but welcome them. Hospitality was a reflex.

Her husband led the men to the deepest shade in their little grove of oak trees and had them to rest there. Cool water was brought for them to quench their thirst and cleanse their feet. It’s remarkable how something as simple as water can become the most delicious thing in the world, the most precious gift.

Then her husband had rushed into the tent, frantic, “Sarah! Make some bread, as quick as you can. We have guests.” Without waiting for a response, he ran back outside. A few minutes later, he was back in the tent, catching his breath. The cry of a calf rang out. He must have asked their servant to prepare some meat.

So here they were: she slaving over bread, the servant preparing the calf, and her husband doing nothing. She did not resent Abraham. She knew he was only catching his breath. But it stung her nonetheless: hospitality always seemed to require more of her than of him. This, perhaps, was another reason that her laughter was bitter.

Hours later, when she had finished with the bread and the servant had prepared the meat, Abraham served the men out under the great oaks. They had plenty to eat and plenty to drink. Sarah rested by an open flap of the tent, enjoying the evening breeze. The conversation of the men wafted inside:

“No children?”

“No children,” Abraham responded.

There was an awkward pause.

Then one of the other men spoke up, his voice strange and bold: “When I come back this way next spring, mark my words: your wife Sarah will have a son.”

Sarah knew how men talked late in the evening when they had a full belly and drink on their breath. Surely this was little more than a reckless, drunken claim.

Her laughter was bitter.

“Her Laughter Was Full of Life”

But the next day, and the day after that, the words echoed within her: “Your wife Sarah will have a son.” It was as though those strange, bold words had lodged themselves deeply in her womb.

Within a few months, those words took shape within her womb—literally. She had conceived. For days, her mind could not believe her body.

When spring arrived, she gave birth to a son.

For the first few days, she rested in a haze of exhaustion and disbelief.

But on the eighth day, she returned to the world. And holding her baby in her arms, looking into his eyes, she laughed—a full body laugh, the kind of laugh that begins deep in the womb and spreads to the furthest reaches. Her laughter was full of life.

And she exclaimed, “God has made me laugh! And everyone who hears this story will laugh with me! For who would ever have said that the two old grey-hairs, Abraham and Sarah, would have a child? Who? Yet here we are!”

And her laughter was full of life.

What did they name the child? Well, it should be obvious. They named him, “Isaac,” which means, “He laughs!” Who laughed? Everyone who heard!

And their laughter was full of life.

The Gospel according to Sarah

Today’s scripture is good news. It is the gospel according to Sarah. It is a tale of faith. But it’s important to recognize whose faith. It is not Sarah’s. Sarah had lost faith. That is why at the beginning she laughs so bitterly. In the Romans passage today, Paul talks about faith—not our faith but the faith of Christ. “While we still were sinners Christ died for us,” Paul says, as if to say, “Even when we are unfaithful to God, God is faithful to us” (Rom 5:8). That, in a word, is the gospel. And today’s scripture illustrates it beautifully as a tale of two laughs.

The first is a bitter and empty laugh—as empty as Sarah’s womb and as bitter as her years of disappointment. The second is full of life—for there is much more life now, the life of the newborn baby, to be sure, but also the life of Sarah herself. She has come back to life, you might say, not because she was faithful but because God was faithful. And not only has she come back to life. She declares that anyone who hears about her will laugh too! The laughter—and the life—will spread.

That, in another word, is the gospel. In the Matthew passage today, Jesus tells the disciples to spread the good news that the kingdom of heaven is near. In Sarah’s story, the good news is a matter of laughter. It’s contagious. God has made her laugh, and her laughter—she is convinced—will make others laugh too. The good news is not some point-by-point doctrine that we memorize, or some secret formula that certifies us as Christians. The good news is whatever has turned our tears into laughter, a laughter so great that it is contagious and spreads among others.

Who Would Ever Have Said?

“Who would ever have said!” Sarah exclaims, laughing in spite of herself. Who would ever have guessed it?

That is how Sarah expresses her story of faith, which at its heart is a story of God’s faithfulness to her. And my hunch is that this expression—“who would ever have said!”—might clue us in to our own stories of faith, which like Sarah’s are unbelievable. “Who would ever have said?” We ourselves could not believe it except that it has happened. God is faithful to us even when we have little faith ourselves.

From my own story, I might ask: Who would ever have said that a young man would find himself far from home and among strangers? From some of your stories that I know, I might ask: Who would ever have said that a man unloved by his father would grow into a loving and forgiving father himself? Who would ever have said that disability could make life better? Who would ever have said that the experience of discrimination would foster compassion instead of resentment? Who would ever have said that the kids would teach the grown-ups?

From the incredible stories that we find in scripture, we might ask: Who would ever have said that a disobedient son would come home to find a feast in his honor? Who would ever have said that those who mourn would laugh? That those who hunger would be filled? That those without anything carry within them the greatest blessing? That death would be followed by new life?

Who would ever have said these things? Probably no one. They’re unbelievable. And yet they happen. Like Sarah, we cannot help but laugh in wonder. And our laughter is full of life. And our laughter brings life. And that is the story of our faith. Or rather, the story of God’s faithfulness to us.

Prayer

God,
Sometimes your promise of life
Is unbelievable,
And like Sarah
We laugh bitterly;
May we trust in you
And learn to laugh fully,
Contagiously,
At your incredible faithfulness.
In the name of him whose love brings life from death, Jesus Christ. Amen.

Call and Response (Genesis 1:1-2:4a)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 11, 2017, Trinity Sunday)

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Talking to Plants…

Have you ever known someone who talks to plants? Not in a silly or make-believe way, but in earnest—in the same sincere way that some people talk to their pets. One of my friends in Sheffield, Katka, talks to plants. She asks them each morning how they rested. She speculates idly on the weather with them, and she commiserates as best she can when they are dry and thirsty or wilting and needful of sunlight. She shares with them her joys and her sorrows, telling them, for instance, about a wonderful book she has just finished or a cooking misfortune that she is still grieving.

When I first witnessed Katka speaking seriously to her plants, I must admit that I questioned her mind. Her conversation seemed rather silly and one-sided to me. But as I became more accustomed to it, my feeling changed. I began to hear in her odd dialogue the echo of something ancient and sacred. To talk to the plants as though they could listen, as though they could respond, as though they grew by love—was this not how everything began?

…Is Sort of How It All Began

“In the beginning when God created the heavens and the earth, the earth was a formless void and darkness covered the face of the deep, while a wind from God swept over the face of the waters.” In other words, God does not create something out of nothing. God begins with some material: the nameless, anonymous elements of the dark deep and the windswept waters.

“Then God said, ‘Let there be light.’” That’s curious. It’s not a snap of the fingers or a wave of the magic wand. It’s not even a blunt command. It’s a call, an invitation, a request. “Let there be light.” And then, if you can believe it, there is a response. “And there was light.”

That was the first day. The third day is my favorite. If I thought that my friend Katka was crazy, the third day made me reconsider. If she’s crazy, she’s just as crazy as God; she’s no more foolish than the Creator:

“Then God said, ‘Let the earth put forth vegetation…’…. And the earth brought forth vegetation…. And God saw that it was good” (1:11-12).

Cause versus Call

In the past, I used to think of God as an architect or a master chef, a solitary expert who invented things and imperiously put them in their place. God was the Cause. Creation was a construction project.

But that’s not how the book of Genesis tells the story. According to Genesis, God looks less like a builder and more like my friend Katka, whispering lovingly to her plants. God is not so much a Cause as a Call. God does not impose, but rather invites. If God were simply an architect or a chef, someone who worked from scratch, then there would be little need to say anything. It’s almost too easy to miss, but the very fact that God speaks signals that creation is not simply a divine construction project. Creation is a dialogue, a call and a response.

Mechthild of Magdeburg, a German nun of the thirteenth century, once prayed: “I cannot dance, Lord, unless you lead me.” It is a beautiful and accurate image for the mystery of creation. Life is a dance with God. God makes the first move—an invitation—and creation responds. God takes the first step, and creation follows with a step of its own.

Mechanics versus Meaning

Our modern world obsesses over creation as a matter of mechanics. How did it happen? What was its cause? It reads Genesis the same way it would a science textbook, looking for facts and figures and proofs.

The Bible, on the other hand, holds creation reverently in its fingertips, like a mystery, like a gift. It cares little for the mechanics but much for the meaning. What is the truth of creation? Where is its beauty? Is it good or bad?

If we read the creation story as the Bible tells it, as a tale immemorial steeped in mystery and meaning, its message becomes pretty obvious. Any English teacher worth her salt will tell you to pay attention to the words and images that are repeated in a story. These often point to its theme, its subject, its message. The repetition in the creation story is unmistakable.

There is a call. There is a response. It is good.

There is a call. There is a response. It is good.

What is the meaning of creation? It’s not that God created this before that, or that before this. It’s not that God created the earth five thousand years ago or five billion years ago. It’s not that humans evolved from apes or dinosaurs never existed. It’s that God—a little bit like my friend Katka who talks to plants—began talking to things. God called, cajoled, invited. “Let there be! Let there be!” And things responded. They grew, they bore fruit, they moved this way and that in a beautiful dance. Such was God’s delight at this dance of life, that at the end of every day, God ended the dialogue with a word of blessing: “It is good.”

The Trinity: Call, Response, and Conversation

Today is Trinity Sunday, a day when we celebrate the mystery of God in the three persons of God, Jesus Christ, and Holy Spirit. Many a theologian has lost his job—a few even their lives—trying to explain the trinity. I trust that you will not be so harsh an audience!

In today’s scripture, God is clearly the Call. God is an invitation, a summons, a request—“May I have this dance?” If God is the Call, then Jesus is the Response. Jesus takes God up on God’s invitation: “Thy will be done.” Or, “Yes, let’s dance!” Theologians call Jesus the “incarnation” of God, which is just a big fancy word to say that Jesus is the body of God, which is itself a creative way to say that Jesus is the existence to God’s insistence. God insists. Jesus exists. God calls. Jesus responds. And the Holy Spirit? The Holy Spirit is the conversation: it is a listening posture; it is the trust and vulnerability that empower conversation.

Joining the Dance

All of creation is a dance of the trinity, a dance into which we are always invited. We see this clearly in Genesis 1. Creation grows from a holy call and response, a “Let there be…and there was,” one step met by another step. Over the course of history, we have made a series of stumbles and missteps—the church calls this sin. The good news, though, is that God continues to call, and Jesus continues to respond, and the dance is being restored. The church calls this salvation.

And faith—faith is simply another word for responding with Jesus, for taking God’s hand and dancing. The blessing that God pronounces over creation—“It is good, very good”—is a call for our response. Faith is about countersigning God’s “It is good” with our own “Yes, it is good.” Faith is about taking God’s offered hand and dancing even as the world stumbles. We see this most clearly in Jesus, who proclaims life in the face of death, blessing in the face of brokenness.

We see the dance also in Katka, who takes God’s hand and affirms “It is good” as she blesses her plants. We see the dance among teachers who bless children, doctors and nurses who bless the sick, volunteers who bless the imprisoned, communities who bless strangers. We see the dance of faith wherever the Call of God is met with the Response of Christ. We see it wherever God’s blessing, “It is good,” echoes in us as it echoed in Christ: not only in word but in body and blood.

Prayer

Holy Dance,
In whom all creation finds life:
Sweep us off our feet
Into your rhythm of goodness;
Inspire us to trust
That your blessing
Is deeper than pain and brokenness,
So that we may respond like Christ
And accept your invitation to dance.
Amen.

Beyond Disorder and Order (1 Corinthians 12:3b-13)

(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on June 4, 2017, Pentecost Sunday)

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The Spirit of a Game

Imagine with me a crowd of children. It’s summer break. They’re outside. They have nothing to do. And they’re getting more restless by the minute. There are shoves and pushes, as some of the children try to assert their dominance. There are a few children running around aimlessly, screaming for no observable reason. More than anything else, there’s a growing tide of chatter. It gets louder and louder as everyone tries to speak over her neighbor.

The book of Judges has a great expression for this kind of scene: “Everyone is doing what is right in his own eyes.” Or in our own idiom, it’s every person for himself.

Now imagine that you are responsible for keeping this surge of youthful energy in check. You need to ensure that this exuberance does not erupt into total chaos. What do you do?

No two situations are the same. And I have relatively little experience to draw from. But I know what I would do.

I would throw a ball into their midst.

A ball is like magic. It transforms the crowd. You can almost see with your bare eyes a spirit swooping over them. Individuals become teams. Shouts and screams become purposeful communication—“Pass! Shoot!” Wild movements—running, jumping, sliding—become meaningful. Loose energy is focused into the joyful spirit of a game.

An Aside: 

Are Adults Immune to the Spirit?

As an aside: I share this scenario as though the wild energy of youth is a problem that must be solved. But I wonder, in fact, if scenes like this do not show how much closer children are to the kingdom of God than adults. Because if the world that we live in has shown us anything, it’s that a crowd of adults can become restless and chaotic too, each one speaking past the other, shouting over the other, every person for himself. And sadly, a ball will not do the trick anymore. It has lost its magic. We adults seem almost immune to whatever spirit it is that sweeps over children.

Chaos in Corinth

In today’s scripture, Paul faces a church that looks much like our imaginary scenario. Confusion and chaos reign at the church in Corinth. There is pushing and shoving as some people try to assert their authority. There is meaningless noise as some people babble on and on in tongues with no one to interpret. There is an every-person-for-himself attitude at the Lord’s Table; the rich eat well and the poor eat nothing.[1]

Paul’s response to this chaos? It’s the last response I’d expect.

A Mad response: 

The Spirit instead of Order

The kneejerk reaction, I would think, would be to enforce some order. Pick a leader, set up some rules and committees, and get to voting. Establish a game plan. When in the late 19th century the mechanical engineer and businessman Frederick Taylor confronted a world of industry that lacked uniform structure and standards, he issued a call for order: “In the past man has been first; in the future the system must be first.”[2] Over a century later, and his words have become reality. McDonaldization—where everything is prescribed, from the radius of your burger to the smile on your cashier’s face—has become the rule for much of our world, businesses as well as churches.

The natural response to disorder is order. But Paul does not respond this way. Instead he talks about the Spirit. Instead of giving the Corinthians a game plan, he invites them to rediscover the game. He doesn’t throw a literal ball among them, but he does his best to remind them of the spirit that sweeps over the faithful just as surely as the spirit of play sweeps over children with a ball.

If this sounds silly to you, you’re not alone. I think it’s madness. To respond to chaos with talk of the Spirit is like playing with fire. Spirit is the last thing you’d want to talk about. Spirit is indefinable, unruly, uncontrollable. Like the wind, it comes and goes where it pleases. Any reasonable business—McDonalds or otherwise—does not trust the spirit. They do their best to keep it on a leash, to channel it into their own interests.

The Risky Spirit and the Common Good

In a world that prefers order to disorder, the Spirit is a risk. When you throw a ball among the crowd of children, you do not know the result. You don’t know what game will follow. The spirit makes its own rules. My brother and I invented all sorts of games growing up, depending on what we had around us—trees, trashcans, sticks, steps.

Why does Paul take the risk? Why does he effectively throw a ball among the chaotic Corinthians rather than raise his voice and impose order top-down? I suspect that he does this because he ultimately trusts God more than he trusts anything we humans can organize on our own. I suspect that when Paul talks about everyone having a “gift,” he’s not just talking the talk. He actually means it. If he or the Corinthians write the rules themselves rather than play the game, then there is a danger that they will cancel out someone’s gift.

When Paul throws a ball among the Corinthians—and the ball, to be clear, is Christ—he trusts that the game will bring out everyone’s special gift. He has this confidence because the Spirit of Christ is a spirit of love that looks not to its own interest but to the interests of others; such a spirit would bring our gifts not into conflict but into concert. Just as a ball joins together a diversity of desires and abilities into a common joy, so too Paul believes that the Spirit of Christ joins together our special gifts into a common good (cf. 12:7). As Paul will say in the next chapter, our individual desires and abilities are but a “noisy gong or a clanging symbol” by themselves (cf. 13:1). But joined together in the Spirit of Christ, they become a symphony to God’s love.

Moving from the Game Plan to the Game

If Paul had less faith, he may have responded to the chaos in Corinth with programs and rules and a McDonalds-like blueprint for the church. Thank God he doesn’t. Perhaps such standardization would have resulted in a successful business or club. But it wouldn’t have resulted in a church.

A church, Paul knows, lives by the Spirit of Christ. That’s why he responds to the chaos in Corinth by inviting the Corinthians to get caught up in the one Spirit of Christ, that Spirit of selfless love that gives itself for the life of others.

As our church prepares for conversation about our plans for the next year, we would do well to take a page from Paul’s letter to the Corinthians. Rather than fret over the game plan, let’s get caught up in the game. Which is to say: let’s not worry about satisfying our own anxieties for order, but rather get caught up in the one Spirit of Christ’s love, a Spirit that meets around tables, a Spirit that shares the concerns of others and celebrates the gifts of everyone. When we get caught up in the Spirit, we may find ourselves playing by different rules than we ever did before, but if we’re playing in the Spirit of Christ’s love, then we can trust that the Spirit will lead us to a common good. The good news according to Paul is that when we share the Spirit of Christ with one another, we leave behind the old order—and disorder—for an adventure that is richer and more abundant, an adventure where every one of us becomes a gift to the other, and our many differences are transformed from clash and clamor into a beautiful symphony.

Prayer

Spirit of Christ,
Who lives beyond
Our disorder and our order;
Whose unruly rule of love
Joins us in a symphony
Far greater than our own;
Inspire our trust
In your way
Of sharing and selflessness,
That our special gifts
Might bear together
The common fruit of your goodness. Amen.

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[1] For reference to these problems, see 1 Cor 11:17-22; 14.

[2] C. Christopher Smith and John Pattison, Slow Church: Cultivating Community in the Patient Way of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL: InterVarsity, 2014), 131.