Sermons for the Month

Thriving in the Real World
DATE: January 14, 2001
SERVICE: Epiphany II
TEXT: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11
“To all of you Saints here this morning, grace and peace to you from God our Father, from His Son, Jesus Christ and His Holy Spirit. AMEN

City mice can't cut it. No, they can't even squeak by.
You know the classic children's tale: A cosmopolitan city mouse decides to leave her home at the zoo and visit her untamed country cousin.
But this mouse out of her house is a mouse out of place. She's long since lost her instincts to feel comfortable in the wilderness. She is safest in her home at the city zoo.
No surprise here. Most mice, and plenty of people, feel more comfortable and safer in familiar surroundings. No one likes to be in a situation for which he is unprepared ... especially if he might end up as someone else's dinner.
It's not unlike how we feel sometimes when we leave the safety and sanctity of our worship place and return to the workplace: we often don't quite know how to be a witness, how to use our spiritual instincts in an environment that is sometimes hostile to our faith.
It's a principle biologists are beginning to appreciate. For some time now, natural scientists have been forcing animals to act out the story of the city mouse and the country mouse - in an effort to save endangered species. Researchers are taking captivity-raised endangered animals, releasing them into their native habitat and hoping for successful survival in the wild.
With few exceptions, the project is not going well. "Zoos are becoming latter-day Noah's arks for endangered species," writes one scholar. "But captive breeding has been problematic. Animals born in captivity and then released into nature often have trouble finding food, fleeing predators and selecting mates."
Many animals need to learn complex behaviors if they are to forage successfully and avoid ending up as something else's dinner. Without exposure to older, more experienced members of their own species, young captive-bred animals are at a major disadvantage. They are like children raised without culture or tradition. They don't know how to be wild in the wild.
When a group of animals is released into the wild, as many as 80 percent may be eaten by other animals. In some particularly depressing cases, all the animals have been destroyed.
You can try to teach survival skills to captive-bred animals, but you aren't going to have much success. For one thing, animals don't learn as well or as quickly from people as they do from members of their own species. It takes a condor to teach a condor.
The question is: How do you give endangered animals the skills they need to survive in the wild?
This is not much different from the question Christians ask when they step out of the church door and into the world: How are we going to survive out there? Paul has the answer.
We must exercise our gifts, says Paul, or there's little chance of changing the culture. Use 'em or lose 'em. Unfortunately, the transforming gospel often gets hidden away inside the church and seldom gets carried by Christians into the wild world where it's needed most.
These gifts seem rare, but they are present. They may be endangered, but not extinct: The gifts of

wise speech, v.8

knowledge, v.8

faith, v.9

healing, v.9

miracles, v.10

prophecy, v.10

discernment, v.10

tongues, v.10

interpretation of tongues, v.10.

Would Paul agree that the church is a zoo? In the Corinthian church, it often appeared that the inmates were running the asylum, to mix metaphors. Yet, his point is that unless the church is skillfully equipped, a premature release into the world will be an unmitigated disaster. Perhaps this is what Martin Luther King meant when he said: "Modern man is presently having a rendezvous with chaos, not merely because of human badness, but also because of human stupidity."
That's the downside. The upside is that the church qua zoo is a sanctuary, a safe place to live, learn and grow in God and the Spirit. We have teachers who can instruct us. It is here that condors can teach condors.
Indeed, most great agents of change, as was Martin Luther King, sat literally or figuratively at the feet of others from whom they learned. Gandhi, although a Hindu, got his inspiration from the teachings of Jesus. Martin Luther King, in turn, regarded Gandhi as his spiritual leader. Jesus himself mentored the disciples, who mentored or discipled others who discipled others. And so on. So what does this look like?
Bill Hybels, senior pastor at Willow Creek Community Church, gives an example. Every week, a group of men meet to repair cars. Members of the church donate vehicles to the church, and these men of the "Car Ministry" repair them and give them to the needy, usually single mothers.
The ministry began when a young man in the congregation saw a need and realized he had the gifts and the passion to meet the need. He brought together other Christian mechanics and together they got to work for what the apostle Paul would call "the common good."
Hybels says that "These men have found not only fulfillment that comes from serving in their area of giftedness, but they have also forged strong relationships with the other men who serve alongside them ... . They're finding that when you pour yourself out into serving others, you always seem to walk away filled up."
Nearer to home, Ken Nouse made soup for families waiting with a loved one for the end of life. Ken gathered others to do the same. Then Ken's family benefited from the ministry he started. When he died, he asked that memorials be given to Faith's Soup for Hospice ministry. Judy Lee reports that over $14000 in donations have been received from all over the city. That is Ken's legacy. That is a legacy that Faith dare not relinquish.
We sharpen our spiritual skills in the company of those who have been there, done that. No wonder that Paul stresses the communal nature of the gifts of the Spirit. They are given of one Spirit, one Lord, one God (vv. 4-6). They are to be used for "the common good" (v. 7). And the body, or community, that receives these various gifts is one (v. 12).
King once said that "Evil is not driven out, but crowded out ... through the expulsive power of something good." That's what spiritual gifts are all about. King also said, however, that "history will have to record that the greatest tragedy of this period of social transition was not the strident clamor of the bad people, but the appalling silence of the good people."
It's past time for the church to make noise. To leave the church howling and growling.
We need not fear leaving sanctuary zoo today, and living in the wild tomorrow. The predators are out there, but we have the instincts to thrive and survive, and the will to tame our cultural wilderness for Jesus Christ.
AMEN