The Gift of Gifts - Romans 12:1–13

                    

Good Friday and Easter show us the commitment and love of God and Jesus to us, on the gift of grace God showers on us. But God has given us so many other gifts as well, gifts like grace and forgiveness, gifts to use in life. This morning we’re reflecting on the gift of gifts, or talents, and why they’re given to us. Those who know the Heidelberg Catechism will recognize Paul shapes his letter in the same way; he begins with a discussion on sin, then moves to the salvation we receive through Jesus, and ends his letter, beginning in chapter 12, on living out our faith out in a spirit of gratitude to God.

Paul begins this last part of his letter with a call to give ourselves over completely to God. Paul uses the language of sacrifice and offering, the language of gift; we offer ourselves to God as a gift, becoming a possession of God. This takes a depth of humility and trust in God and Jesus that is not always found today, humbly giving our lives, our dreams, and our hopes to God to be used by him and for him, trusting that Jesus knows us better than we know ourselves, trusting that wherever he leads us, whoever he is calling us to be, and that whatever he calls us to do, that he’s working all things out for our benefit.

Paul gives us a powerful picture of the church as the body of Jesus made up of many members all connected to each other. Paul even says that we belong to each other, a shocking and uncomfortable image for many people today who believe that no one has rights over them and we’re only responsible to ourselves, and only grudgingly to a few others after first looking out for ourselves. God created us to live in community with others. Paul tells the church, made up of both Jews and Gentiles that they belong to each other. A part of your body cannot decide it doesn’t need the other parts, but the individual parts are responsible for serving the entire body, not just itself. We’re not individuals with our own agendas, we belong to God and each other. When we fail each other, we all hurt. Paul goes deeper in 1 Corinthians 12, “Now if the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason stop being part of the body…. in fact, God has placed the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. If they were all one part, where would the body be? As it is, there are many parts, but one body.”

As the body of Jesus here on earth, Jesus wants a healthy body with all the different parts working together to create a body filled with vitality and life. The Holy Spirit gives us different gifts and talents so that we can build a healthy church focused on Jesus as our head, helping each other discover our gifts, and then investing in each other to help us develop these gifts to their potential, giving each other the opportunities to use them and creating a healthy church filled with life and love and excitement about being Jesus’ body.

We’re all interconnected with each other, our strength and health as a church are impacted by each other as we’re connected to Jesus. This is part of the image of the Lord’s Supper; just as many heads of grain come together in the bread and many grapes come together for the wine, so we come together as the body of Jesus. We’re many very different people, but we come together and become more than we can be on our own, something more beautiful and wonderful. The church is not about serving us, we’re each given different gifts to be used to build up the body of Jesus, to build a healthy church community centred on Jesus and focused on helping each other discover and grow our gifts and bless each other to become a gift from God, given for the life of the world.

Paul lists a bunch of gifts here to help build up the church, prophesying, serving, teaching, encouraging, giving, leading, and showing mercy; but this is only the beginning of the gifts found in the church and each church will show different gifts according to the place and role Jesus calls us to be. But there are so many other gifts in the church, there are those who pray, there are those who live out of a sense of joy no matter their situation and revealing the power of the presence of the Holy Spirit in them. At its heart, the church is made up of people filled with the Spirit of God, Bonhoeffer writes, “everything in the church depends upon it being clear that the church is not an ideal to be achieved, but rather a spirit filled reality in which by the grace of God we participate.”

I’ve seen in Bethel gifts that touch others such as the gift of creating cards filled with scripture filled words of encouragement and little prayers; gifts are exercised quietly in the background in phone calls to friends who are experiencing difficult times, or meals delivered. In Montreal there was a man who struggled with mental disabilities and who messed himself during the worship service and a young father quietly walked him out of the sanctuary and into the bathroom and cleaned him up, offering the gift of dignity and compassion and showing all of us what being a servant looks like. These are things that touch our souls, shape our souls, giving us glimpses into who Jesus is, who we can be, should be, how to build someone up in respect and honour.

My greatest passion is to reach people who haven’t accepted Jesus as their Lord and to encourage everyone in the church to be part of this, but Paul reminds me that we first need to be a healthy body of followers of Jesus in order to be good witnesses to the difference Jesus makes in our lives. This means investing in each other, using our gifts to build each other up, to encourage each other, to be devoted to each other in love, honouring each other above ourselves in humility. I love Paul’s call here to “never be lacking in zeal, but keep your spiritual fervor, serving the Lord.” This flows out of being a healthy body of Jesus. At its heart and foundation, the church is a spiritual relationship with Jesus through the Holy Spirit that is lived out with each other for the purpose of blessing the world.

When we serve each other, helping each other to grow in our gifts to serve each other, we’re ultimately serving Jesus and revealing Jesus to the world. In using our gifts to serve each other, we’re imitating Jesus who came to serve rather than be served, and connecting to Jesus spiritually in deeper ways. Jesus served us by going to the cross in order to wash away our sins. He bought us with his blood to set us free to serve, to imitate him. We all have different talents and abilities, just like a body has different parts that do unique and important jobs. If we’re willing to use our gifts and talents for God, he blesses them and this helps the church to work together for Jesus.

There are times when churches there may be some gifts in short supply during a certain season of the church needed to help it grow more into who Jesus is calling us to be. This is the time to turn to God and ask for those gifts to be given to us. Gifts that we can ask for are the gifts to listen to those who have hard questions about faith and church without being judges, but loving them and allowing them to open their hearts as part of figuring out who Jesus is. Then there are the gifts of exploring culture and the place of the church and in wisdom in engaging culture with wisdom and grace. Jesus told us in John 14, “Very truly I tell you, whoever believes in me will do the works I have been doing, and they will do even greater things than these, because I am going to the Father. And I will do whatever you ask in my name, so that the Father may be glorified in the Son. You may ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it.” Our gifts are not static, we can learn and develop new gifts when needed, Jesus will give them to us, we’re called to be faithful in using them. This is part of being in the image of God, being creative and able to grow in new areas of our lives.

One of the gifts I really appreciate are the gifts of creativity because these members give me a glimpse into the creative aspect of God, glimpses into the glory and wonder of God, but so often these gifts are not as appreciated as other gifts like leadership, teaching, etc. yet when the tabernacle and temple were built, God especially raised up these gifts of creativity and wonder to help us experience the presence of God in deeper and unexpected ways. I am offering my study this summer as a canvas for those of who you who have these gifts of creativity in the arts to express what faith, the world, and what beauty and wonder look like to you. Our vacation time will be in the August, so it gives you some time to think and pray and create!

Bret Lamsma writes in Reformed Worship, “As we use the gifts that he has given us to praise him, we can’t help but grow as well. We grow in understanding about who God is and who he created us to be. Our faith in who God is grows. And our connection to God’s people and the larger story of salvation grows as well.” May we continue to grow together as Jesus’ body growing our gifts in love for God and each other.