Sunday, August 19, 2012

1 Corinthians 12:22-26: We Belong Together/Avengers

We Belong Together
1 Corinthians 12:12-27

Introduction

Near the end of the movie The Avengers, the villain, Loki is facing off against the giant, green monster form of The Hulk. As the Hulk grabs him, Loki yells out, “ENOUGH. You are, all of you, beneath me. I am a god you dull creature, and I will not be bullied by…” at which point The Hulk thwacks him against  the ground thwack…thwack…thwack and mumbles, “Puny god.”
We live in a world which lives in fear to ‘puny gods.” Fear, death, worry and shame stand over us and tell us that we are ‘dull creatures’--and we allow them to control us. But they are impostors. Fear and death and worry and shame are pretenders dressed up in fake divine costume.  As Captain America says, “There is only one God and I don’t think he dresses like that.”
Here is the mystery of the church: it is full of super heroes. We didn’t come out of our mother’s womb as super heroes. Oh, we tried to act like super heroes. But you know and we know that when you pretend to be super heroes, you just get beat up. However, when we were born again, when God gave us his spirit and it transformed us, each of us was given a super power. The Bible calls these super powers karis-ma or gifts. And with those super powers, those karis-ma-ta, we have the very real strength to overcome, to win, to defeat the puny gods.
Why is it that we prefer to live as Clark Kent instead of Superman, as Diana Prince instead of Wonder Woman, as Peter Parker but neglect Spiderman? Is it the costume? Or maybe, we have forgotten who we really are? When the world is at risk, do we honestly long for the cubicle, the classroom, the kitchen and the minivan? Or is there something else.
I have a theory. I suspect that in many cases it’s the other super heroes. We don’t like them. Sometimes Sunday morning just isn’t big enough to hold all of the super egos. So prickly! So sensitive! So bombastic! So self-protecting! Just like with the Avengers. As long as each one held tightly to this high opinion of their strength, their intelligence, their importance, Loki—the enemy--wins.
Just like in the church. When we hold tightly to our opinion of our strength, our gifts, our smarts, our importance, the enemy—the Devil—wins. But when we submit ourselves to the great God and work together, the church is a super power. The world is dying, evil is seducing heart after heart, but we are worried about what so-and-so said to us, whether they listened to what I said, or why they were looking at me strangely.
We are broken and selfish people. We are given super powers. Bringing us together to help save the world seems like a bad idea. What was God thinking? I mean, seriously, look at you…and me.
It is exactly this topic that Paul talks about in a letter he wrote to one of the first churches he started, 1st Corinthians. In the 11th and 12th chapter we find that the people in that church have discovered their super powers after becoming followers of Jesus. But, because they are selfish people, like you and me, they have used their gifts to make themselves look good and important. The gifts have, tragically, become simply sin magnifiers. Same sinful people, bigger explosion.
Now, in the second half of chapter 12, Paul says, in effect, “Children, let’s learn how to play nice with each other.”

We Belong Together Because We Share One Spirit (vs. 12-13)

12The body is a unit, though it is made up of many parts; and though all its parts are many, they form one body. So it is with Christ. 13For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks, slave or free —and we were all given the one Spirit to drink.
First: These super powers—these gifts—are given. They are not natural or innate. No one is born with super powers, but everyone who is born again has a super power. You don’t plop down a few bennies or your credit card or say a few rosaries or sacrifice your right ear or anything like that to get these super powers or to upgrade to a “better” one. We can’t take any credit for our super power.
Second: These super powers are really a person. It says “we were all given the one Spirit to drink.” But this isn’t like some gamma-radiation-mutagenic-viral-spiritual drink. It is not an “it” it is a “who”. The terrifying part of becoming a follower of Jesus is that you invite God (big-G God) to move-in to your soul, with access to the real you, with permission to re-work your spiritual DNA. By opening the door to the Spirit of God, he unlocks something new. The Bible has several lists of these super powers, sort of like an X-man catalog.
Third: These super powers should create a super team, not just a super hero. According to these verses, it doesn’t matter what bubble fill out in the “ethnic group” survey. “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether Jews or Greeks…”  So, it is not whether Filipino or Chinese or Swedish or Tanzanian blood (lahi).  We stand together in the blood-line of Jesus. And it doesn’t matter what your income or socio-economic condition, “For we were all baptized by one Spirit into one body—whether….slave or free.” Wherever we started, when we become a follower of Jesus, we belong together.
Do you think that the Spirit invested all of that power in you just so you could party harder? No! It was so we could party together, and work together, and cry together, and celebrate together while expanding the kingdom of God. 

We Belong Together Because We Play An Essential Part (vs. 14-20)

Of course, there are some people who try what I call the Iron Man strategy. They say, “I don’t need anybody else and they really don’t need me.”  But we are an essential part in the team. Here’s what Paul said:
14 Now the body is not made up of one part but of many. 15 If the foot should say, “Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body. 16 And if the ear should say, “Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,” it would not for that reason cease to be part of the body.
17 If the whole body were an eye, where would the sense of hearing be? If the whole body were an ear, where would the sense of smell be? 18 But in fact God has arranged the parts in the body, every one of them, just as he wanted them to be. 19 If they were all one part, where would the body be? 20 As it is, there are many parts, but one body.
You may never have heard of tall Yelena Isinbayeva. As a young girl of 5 years old in Russia, she started training as a gymnast, setting her sights on one day going to the Olympics. However, at age 15 she was told she would have to leave the program, because at 5ft 8½ inches she was considered too tall for the sport. If you had stopped her life right there, people would have shaken their heads at tall Yelena, the failed gymnast. Why? Because there was a slot on the Olympic team and she didn’t fit.
But someone else looked at tall Yelena Isinbayeva and didn’t see a failed gymnast. Instead they saw a talented pole-vaulter. Within a year, at age 16, she had won her first competition, the World Youth Games with a vault of over 4 meters. Within five years, she had broken the world record and taken the gold in the Olympics.[1]
Every one of us is a Spirit-enabled gold medalist in something. But sometimes we disqualify ourselves or other people from the ministry by insisting that we fit into the pastor-slot or the missionary-slot or the children’s-worker-slot. 
But the Bible says God made a perfect place for you, in the church. Just like the Avengers, if Iron Man or Thor or The Hulk or Nick Fury backs out, the whole team suffers. I first learned this lesson from my favorite super hero: Curious George. This little monkey was always getting into trouble because of his curiosity. One time the Man with the Yellow Hat was putting together a puzzle and he found that there was a piece missing. Soon after that, Curious George developed a stomach ache and had to be taken to the hospital. They took an X-ray and, sure enough, there was the missing piece. Curious George had eaten it.
It happens to us also. We are the missing piece. When we don’t work together in the church, it is glaringly obvious: there is a piece missing. Like Curious George, it also hurts us when we try to hold it inside and not use it the way it was supposed to. But when all the pieces are working together, it creates a beautiful picture.

We Belong Together Because We Need Each Other. (vs. 21-26)

Let me put this a different way: Outside the church you can never be who God made you to be. We need each other! I am not enough to do what God wants me to do, even with my gifts. I need you and you need me. The Bible says:
21The eye cannot say to the hand, “I don’t need you!” And the head cannot say to the feet, “I don’t need you!” … 24 … But God has combined the members of the body and has given greater honor to the parts that lacked it, 25 so that there should be no division in the body, but that its parts should have equal concern for each other. 26 If one part suffers, every part suffers with it; if one part is honored, every part rejoices with it.
Alex Rodriguez, or A-Rod is one of the highest paid players in major league baseball: $29 million. Baseball insiders know he’s a big star with a career battering average of .301[2] I may be a newb at this baseball thing, but doesn’t it seem extreme to pay so much money for someone who misses 70% of the times he’s at bat. Even Shaq did free-throws better than that!
But baseball is like life. We don’t always get a hit—do it right. Even the stars get it wrong a lot of the time. By myself, I’d have to hit a home run every at bat. But we play as a team so that, if we string some hits together, back-to-back, we start scoring some runs and we can win the game.
It is like hospital gowns. You know hospital gowns, right? They have nice floral prints on the front, but down the back they are completely open to the air. People in  hospital gowns never like to turn their back on anyone because they are exposed. We all have strengths and weaknesses, like the hospital gown. And we keep trying show only our good side, but our back side is showing somewhere. But here's where the church comes is: when two people in hospital gowns trust each other and stand back-to-back, no one's weak point is exposed.

Conclusion

So, what is it that glues a church full of super-power wielding, but flawed, people? Just in the next chapter (chapter 13), Paul reveals what it is: Love. Let me read you the next few verses:
If I speak in the tongues of Nick Fury and have the aim of Hawkeye, but have not love, I am only a resounding gong or a clanging cymbal. 2 If I have the gift of secrets like Black Widow and can fathom all mysteries and all knowledge like Iron Man and if I have the strength of Hulk or Thor to move mountains, but have not love, I am nothing. 3 If I give all I have like Colson or sacrifice myself like Captain America but have not love, I gain nothing.  – 1 Cor 13:1-3 paraphrase.
You know what a super hero without love is? Pathetic. When we don’t love, we remain trapped in the control of the puny gods: selfishness and fear. Love is the proof that we are no longer trapped by sin, that we have truly been freed by God.
Maybe this morning, you realize that you’ve never had the thrill of the Spirit’s power flowing through you. Could it be you’ve never let Jesus in close enough to do the radical work he needs to do in your life.  He died on the cross to make it possible for flawed, weak people to be transformed into good guys and good gals.
Maybe you’ve been stressed out by church because you’ve been forcing yourself or other people to be an “eye” or an “ear”. There is a place for you in the church, maybe not what you or anyone else expected, but tailored for who you are and where you are. Maybe its time to start a program of guided experimentation: serving in different capacities for short periods until you find where your super powers click with the amazing mission of God.
Look around you now: this place is filled with super heroes. Every one here. Treat them with respect. Forgive freely, they’re flawed. Apologize frequently, we’re broken. And Love deeply.


[1] Adapted from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Yelena_Isinbayeva, retrieved on August 16, 2012

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