One Light that Shines Brighter with Others

 

As we explore the idea of giftedness, many of us were taught as children not to promote ourselves.  My grandmother would say, “Well, someone is getting too big for his britches.”  In other words, don’t step into the spotlight, don’t bring attention to yourself, stay on the sidelines silently.  In kinder terms, “go along to get along.”  At the same time, God crafts you with unique gifts for the good of the world.  You are the only you there is or will ever be.  We hold these two truths in tension that you are called to shine your light AND you are called to combine your light with others for a blaze of grace and love brighter than our individual candle.  For me, this is what we practice in worship each week.  I can’t play the organ or piano.  I can’t be a whole choir singing all parts.  I can’t produce the beautiful sound of a congregational song or feel what my opening prayer sounds like/evokes in my soul when we all join our diverse voices together.  The invitation of faith is to consider how you are uniquely created in God’s image and invited into the beauty of community.  To be sure, community is demanding and difficult.  Annoyance, hurt, and frustration are the price we pay for relationships that provide love, acceptance, and affirmation.  We can Google an answer to almost any question (regardless of whether the information spit back at us in less than a second is true or trustworthy), but Google can’t hold my hand when I weep or laugh with me at a lame joke in worship.  And dig deeper because you were not fashioned or formed in a vacuum.  You had parents, mentors, teachers, fellow students, and random people who showed up in your life (perhaps for no other reason than to annoy you and teach you how not to be in the world).  In the coming weeks, we will explore more about what the people and places of your life gave you for better or worse.  But for today, ponder who first celebrated your giftedness?  Who encouraged you along the path as a youth or at your first job?  Who, today, is still helping you grow in the ways you share and shine your light?  May each of us celebrate the great cloud of witnesses past and present who are helping us grow into the image of God right here and now.  

Blending and Bringing Together

 

Yesterday, I asked you to ponder the list of spiritual gifts Paul names for the church in Corinth, chapter 12.  I encourage you to think of definitions and descriptions for the nine gifts named: wisdom, knowledge, faith, healing, powerful deeds, prophecies, discernment, tongues, and interpretation.  I invite you to add to this list with other gifts you see in yourself and others that contribute to the common good.  Part of what Paul is saying is that your gift is not just for your own benefit and accumulation.  You share and shine your light with/for the sake of others.  You share and shine your light in ways that combine with others who are doing the same.  As the Spirit blends and brings all our unique giftedness together, there is a brighter light of God’s love that shines forth.  Can you recall a time when you worked with others on a project that was a blessing?  I know our minds sometimes get stuck in high school with a project where you ended up doing 99.999% of the work, and everyone benefited from the A.  But that isn’t what Paul is saying.  He is pointing to a moment when each of us does what he/she/they can with God’s grace, and our gifts become greater than the sum of the parts.  Rather than keeping each gift isolated or apart, we bring them together in beautiful/life-giving ways.  In the mystery and marvel of the Spirit, when I bring my gifts, and you do the same, we find a new dimension that wouldn’t have been possible alone.   For example, when I share a piece of knowledge and then stop speaking to listen to others, I find that I learn from another person’s wisdom, experience, and faith.  My knowledge needs the gift of the other to properly function and continually grow.  Too often, we can be tripped up and trapped by the idea that it is only about our gift, and we want to be recognized.  But when my gift meets your gift with openness, willingness, and curiosity, God works in ways we never imagined or could have experienced on our own.  I invite you to think of a moment when this has been true for you.  How might our church continue to be a place where such creative collaboration is part of what we are about as we seek to cooperate with God in these days? 

 

Giftedness

 

Yesterday in worship, we listened to Paul tell the Corinthians that there are a vast variety of gifts.  There are gifts of wisdom and knowledge; faith and healing; powerful deeds and prophecies; discernment, tongues, and interpretation.

 

Did any of those nine cause your shy soul to say, “Tell me more!”?  If you had to write a definition of each of the above nine gifts, what might you say to describe each?  Can you give an example of a time when you witnessed or embodied that gift?  Where and when did you interact with wisdom, and where are you discovering knowledge in these days?  What does faith sound like, smell like, and feel like?  When have you witnessed a powerful deed or heard a prophetic word?  Do you feel a bit confused by discernment?  You might be suspicious of speaking in tongues, or tired of everyone giving you their opinion?  Review the list. Do you see some gifts as more admirable than others?  Do you find yourself rating and ranking?  Of course not, you say, I listened to the sermon yesterday and heard that was what the Corinthians were doing!!  Surely, we don’t prop up some people’s jobs as being more valuable than others.  Clearly, we have evolved beyond calling someone an “essential worker” and then treating and paying that beloved as anything but important.”  Some of you are catching the sarcasm in my writing.

 

I love how wisdom and knowledge are two separate gifts.  We often conflate and confuse these two as the same.  Not all knowledge is wisdom.  Sometimes people like to show off and pontificate.  They like to point out that a bottle of wine was made with the harvest of ‘08, which everyone knows was the best grapes of the last century.  By the way, I know nothing about wine, as if the previous sentence didn’t show that clearly enough.  Where do you notice a distinction and overlap between faith and healing? What does this dynamic duo suggest?  While each gift is distinctive, sometimes we can blend and bring together two or three of the nine gifts in unique ways.  For example, discernment and interpretation can dance together in helpful ways.

 

Today, look over the list and see which one sings to your soul.  Also, pay attention to where you resist seeing one of these as a gift.  Ponder which gifts you’d like the Spirit to cultivate and curate in you.  Today, think about how each gift can support the other gifts, shining God’s light these days.  Finally, I invite you to add to Paul’s list.  What gifts do you think are important for our common life together?  What unique way can you share and shine your light with family, friends, in our community, church, and country for the sake of our shared life?  May this question continue to stir and sing to your heart in this season of Easter.

In the Boat Prayer

 

In the Boat Part 4

 

This week, we have been playing with the images of your life as a sailboat ~ a vessel on the sea.  Today, I invite you to think about the weather around you.  Do you feel like the water is calm or chaotic?  Do you feel like waves are crashing down, tossing you to and fro, or that you are going nowhere?  What is the weather around you and within you?  And the reality is that sometimes there can be tension between what is around you and what is within you.  The weather may be sunny outside, but stormy in our souls.  Or maybe you feel the hurricane of culture, but feel a strange peace at the same time within.  During Holy Week, I introduced you to Hartmut Rosa and the idea of the uncontrollability of life.  You and I know we cannot control the weather (we can’t even really predict it!).  Rosa opens his book by talking about snow falling gently on his face.  He didn’t cause the snow to fall, he didn’t will it through his five-step plan, and he may not have even wanted it.  We don’t like to deal with or dwell on the uncontrollability of life.  Yet, this is a truth woven into your life and mine ~ individually and collectively.  Pay attention to the weather outside your window and gaze in the window of your soul today ~ describing and drawing what you are sensing as we all sail our boats on the seas of today.

In the Boat Part 3

 

Recently, I was introduced to a song, Sailboat, by Ben Rector.  I invite you to slowly read and savor these words.  Which of the lyrics leap off the page and stir your soul?  Which of the lines feel like they were written for you?  Which of the ideas and insights do you resist or feel like sandpaper to your soul?  You can Google the song if you’d like to hear it.

I feel just like a sailboat
I don't know where I'm headed
But you can't make the wind blow
From a sailboat

I have seen the sun
I felt the rain on my skin
I've been lost and found, yeah
Mostly, I've been waiting

I'm out in the waves and I'm hoping and praying
Please let this wind blow me home
And night after night, there's an empty horizon
My God, do I feel so alone
But sometimes life
And most times I feel just like a sailboat

And I'm pretty sure I'm heard
At least I know I'm speaking
But I feel like a fool
'Cause I can't hear you listening

But I'm not giving up
No, I will move on forward
I'm gonna raise my sail
God knows what I'm headed towards, yeah

I'm out in the waves and I'm hoping and praying
Please let this wind blow me home
And night after night, there's an empty horizon
My God, do I feel so alone
But sometimes life
And most times I feel just like a sailboat (Repeat/re-read this last stanza).

 

I know for me the line that stirs and swirls in my soul is, “I’m pretty sure I’m heard, at least I know I’m speaking.  But I feel like a fool, cause I can’t hear you listening.”  That, for me, is a profound and powerful insight into prayer.  I can’t always hear God listening to me.  I trust God is.  I know I am speaking, sharing, trying to sing to the sacred.  Sometimes my words fall flat.  Sometimes my words feel inadequate.  Sometimes I just sigh because the exhaustion of a world that moves too fast makes me dizzy and disoriented.  What responses do you have to the song above?  May these words be a balm to your soul as we are all trying to live in these Easter-days of life right now.

In the Boat Part 2

 

Afterward, Jesus appeared again to his disciples by the Sea of Galilee. It happened this way: ² Simon Peter, Thomas, Nathanael from Cana in Galilee, the sons of Zebedee, and two other disciples were together.  “I’m going out to fish,” Simon Peter told them, and they said, “We’ll go with you.” So they went out and got into the boat, but that night they caught nothing.  John 21:1-3

 

Nothing, nada, zip, zilch, empty nets to match their empty hearts grieving the death of Jesus.  Remember that fishing was not just a vacation, but a vocation for disciples.  They were not amateurs; they knew what they were doing.  But even “experts” fail and falter, because we are all human-sized.  Even professionals strike out, miss free throws, make math errors, or can’t see what was coming next.  Even the best and brightest can be boneheaded at times.  I know that not every sermon I preach, morning meditation I write, or prayer I pray is gold.  God doesn’t ask for perfection but for practice and presence.  God pays attention to us and invites us to be awake and aware of God in our daily lives. 

 

Do you have a moment when you feel like your nets are empty?  Physically, emotionally, spiritually, relationally, in our country or world?  Empty nets where we keep turning to violence as a way of peace.  Empty nets of hate speech and belittling people.  Empty nets of churches seeing others as competition or constantly criticizing those people.  Empty nets of cynicism or denying/ delaying joy because it doesn’t seem trustworthy.  What empty nets are you finding as you are fishing from your sailboat this week?

 

I wonder, what did the disciples do as they waited?  I wish John had told us.  Did they play Skip-Bo or Solitaire?  Did they talk or just listen to God listening to them?  Did they sing hymns? If so, which ones?  Did they munch on trail mix or pace the length of the boat?  Did they mumble and grumble about how life was handing them lemons?  We don’t know.  But we do know, you know, what you do when you are waiting.  Waiting is a theme and thread not just in Advent but in these Easter-ing days right now too, as we approach Pentecost ~ the bursting and breaking in of the Spirit into our lives/church/world.  What are you waiting for?  Maybe the question about waiting has a connection to your thoughts above about empty nets?  Or maybe not.  Enter this scene.  Sit on the boat with the disciples.  And let your sacred imagination loose with what you are doing as you wait in these days.  Amen.