Spiritual Gifts
“You are Peter, and on this rock I will build my church, and the gates of Hades will not prevail against it. I will give you the keys of the kingdom of heaven, and whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” Matthew 16 “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function,5so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually we are members one of another.6We have gifts that differ according to the grace given to us: prophecy, in proportion to faith;7ministry, in ministering; the teacher, in teaching;8the exhorter, in exhortation; the giver, in generosity; the leader, in diligence; the compassionate, in cheerfulness.” Romans 12The Romans and Matthew readings both describe a search for personal identity, i.e.- who is Jesus; and what sorts of faithful gifts identify healthy church members. In Matthew, as Peter confesses who Jesus is, he’s then given a gift by Jesus of learning about his identity and purpose. Peter gets the name The Rock and a set of keys to the kingdom of Heaven, a set of keys with the purpose to unlock the gift of forgiveness in the Christian church; God’s forgiveness which is the key to heaven, in fact.
Romans also gives examples of various gifts and gifted people that create a healthy church. Our church is blessed with gifted people, but we’ll come back to our gifts, because sometimes we forget how gifted we really are.
In Matthew, the two key gifts that Jesus gives to Peter are the key gifts of identity and forgiveness. Peter’s Christian purpose is forgiveness. We ought to notice that Peter isn’t handed a set of faith keys with two keys, one for heaven and one for hell. Nope, actually there’s only one set, and they are keys only related to heaven. Those keys don’t lock some dungeon door in Hades, or Hell somewhere. The keys do not work to condemn, the keys only work for heaven. “Whatever you bind on earth will be bound in heaven, and whatever you loose on earth will be loosed in heaven.” There’s no mention of condemnation.
The lesson of this, is that the gifts of identity and forgiveness given to the church are not empowered by condemning others, rather, the church is empowered to bind relationships with promises and love, to bind families and individuals to the power of Jesus.
As we are bound to one another in Jesus Christ, Paul says in Romans that we will discover that we actually will discover we have more gifts to use. Faith and Forgiveness are just for starters, the best is yet to come as the church works together with all sorts of gifts. Romans describes a few of these key abilities that we can discover within ourselves; perhaps we even have more than just one.
Romans 12:4 “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function…”
The Spiritual Gift List includes: Faithful Prophecy, Ministry, Teaching, Exhortation, Generous Givers, Diligent Leadership, Cheerful Compassion.” And then comes the next big question, well which gifts do I have. But perhaps this is the wrong question, maybe we should ask, which gifts can I share?
In “The Element- How Finding Your Passion Changes Everything” by Ken Robinson, he writes that, “Without the right opportunities, you may never know what your aptitudes are or how far they might take you…. (They) don’t necessarily become obvious unless there are opportunities to use them.”
Ken starts the book out with a story to illustrate this point… here’s the paraphrased version.
“A Psychologist asked (the young schoolgirl) Gillian’s mother about the difficulties Gillian was having at school and the problems the school said she was causing.” After 20 minutes of only talking to the mother he then said to Gillian…
“I need to speak to your mother privately now. We’re going to go out of the room for a few minutes. Don’t worry; we won’t be very long.” Gillian nodded apprehensively, and the two adults left her sitting there on her own. But as he was leaving the room, the psychologist leaned across his desk and turned on the radio.
As soon as they were in the corridor outside the room, the doctor said to Gillian’s mother, “Just stand here for a moment, and watch what she does.” There was a window into the room, and they stood to one side of it, where Gillian couldn’t see them. Nearly immediately, Gillian was on her feet, moving around the room to the music. The two adults stood watching quietly for a few minutes, transfixed by the girl’s grace.
At last, the psychologist turned to Gillian’s mother and said, “You know, Mrs. Lynne, Gillian isn’t sick. She’s a dancer. Take her to a dance school.””
“…Eventually, she met Andrew Lloyd Webber and created with him some of the most successful musical theater productions in history, including Cats and The Phantom of the Opera.”
“One of the key principles of (what the book describes as) the Element is that we need to challenge what we take for granted about our abilities and the abilities of other people.”
For example, how many senses do you think you have?
Most people will answer five—taste, touch, smell, sight, and hearing.
Some will say there’s a sixth sense and suggest intuition.
But what about… Our sense of balance?
“The fluids and bones of the inner ear mediate the sense of balance.” This is a very Physical sense. “Yet most people never think to include it in their list of senses. This isn’t because they don’t have a sense of balance. It’s because they’ve become so accustomed to the idea that we have five senses (and maybe a spooky one) that they have stopped thinking about it. It’s become a matter of common sense. They just take it for granted….
But taking things for granted was never a message from Jesus. Rather, Jesus wants us to develop all sorts of gifts as Christians that will help this church grow healthy.
Sometimes, the truth is, that we forget how gifted we really are…
Physiologists largely agree that in addition to the five we all know about, there are four more.
-The first is our sense of temperature (thermoception). This is different from our sense of touch. We don’t need to be touching anything to feel hot or cold….
-Another is the sense of pain (nociception). Scientists now generally agree that this is a different sensory system from either touch or temperature. There also seem to be separate systems for registering pains that originate from the inside or the outside of our bodies.
-Next is the vestibular sense (equilibrioception), which includes our sense of balance and acceleration.
-And then there is the kinesthetic sense (proprioception), which gives us our understanding of where our limbs and the rest of our body are in space and in relationship to each other. This is essential for getting up, (and) getting around”
In addition to senses, we are also gifted with various intelligences… and I don’t mean just being street smart verses book smart….
“Harvard psychologist Howard Gardner has argued to wide acclaim that we have not one but multiple intelligences. They include linguistic, musical, mathematical, spatial, kinesthetic, interpersonal (relationships with others), and intra-personal (knowledge and understanding of the self) intelligence. He argues that these types of intelligence are more or less independent of each other, and none is more important, though some might be “dominant” while others are “dormant.””
Remember Romans 12:4 “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function…”
“In his biography of Einstein, Walter Isaacson says, “As a young student, he never did well with rote learning…. When confounded by a challenge in his work, Einstein often turned to the violin to help him. A friend of Einstein’s told Isaacson, “He would often play his violin in his kitchen late at night, improvising melodies while he pondered complicated problems. Then, suddenly, in the middle of playing he would announce excitedly, ‘I’ve got it!’ As if by inspiration, the answer to the problem would have come to him in the midst of the music.””
You’ll notice much music in our worship, and as this church continues to develop opportunities for using our gifts together, we are going to have experiences like Einsteins’. May the inspiration we have always come from the gifts of God which shape our Christian identity and transform the possibilities of this world, beginning with forgiveness. Amen.
