Sermons for the Month

Sticking to Our Knitting
DATE: January 18, 1998
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

(Begin the sermon by standing in front of the first pew, holding a ball of yarn, tossing it quietly into the air while talking. As you're tossing the ball in the air, begin the message. The yarn itself should be variegated in color, offering a rainbow of hues.)

Know any yarn-spinners?

My grandfather was a yarn-spinner. Growing up, he would tell his grandkids stories of his exploits while serving in the Philippines during the Spanish America War. One time he found himself in a monsoon so heavy that there was nothing left for him to do but kick up his heels and swim to the top of a palm tree to get a breath of air.

When someone is especially gifted at telling stories, when someone is particularly able to entice others into the twists and turns of the tale, we declare, "Boy, he [or she] can really spin a yarn."

"Spinning a yarn" is drawing out the single, strong, unbroken thread of a story from out of all the words that could be chosen and tying them together in a way that creates a coherent whole.

"Spinning a yarn" isn't just retelling an event to others.

"Spinning a yarn" takes an event and makes it a part of each listener's life by drawing them in and winding itself around their own experiences, becoming an indistinguishable part of their past, present and future.

When the Magic Theater comes to Faith, the end of this month, we will all hear yarns of many of our Bigger than Life American heroes.

Whether spinning yarns or spinning wool, spinning is a copycat practice human beings have imitated from nature's most expert weaver, the greatest producer of yarn, the spider. If you've ever inadvertently walked through a big, draping spider's web, you know how those delicate strands can be sticky, clingy and tenacious. Getting a well-woven spider web out of your hair, your eyelashes or your clothing can be a frustrating task.

Even to a casual observer, a spider's web appears to be an impressive little building project.

Although not always perfectly symmetrical, the radiating support strands linked together with ring after ring of concentric circles is a remarkable sight.

When nature sprinkles such a web with perfectly spaced and placed dew-diamonds and lights it up with a morning sunbeam, the effect is one of dazzling beauty.

But whatever favorable impression spider webs have made on us in the past, they cannot compare to the ever mounting awe and wonder the simple, everyday spider web is encouraging in the most advanced laboratories of today's bioengineers.

These scientists have determined that the chemical makeup of an ordinary strand of spider's web is five to 10 times stronger than steel. That is, five to 10 times stronger than the material that holds up our tallest skyscrapers or supports our longest bridges.

No wonder bioengineers like those at Pasteur University in Strasbourg, France are determined to see if they can break the spider's genetic code so that they can create a biochemically engineered polymer that can likewise out-muscle steel, that can, like a spider's web, be pulled out to 20 percent of its original length without breaking. They have created carbon manotubes, which resemble spider silk, with a strength at least 10 times (and possibly as much as 100 times) stronger than steel. These manotubes, Professor Thomas Ebbesen argues, constitute "the ultimate fiber."

When you combine the innate strength of each strand with the engineering design of a spider's web, you have the single strongest structure known in nature. On a weight basis, spider's silk is stronger than steel. In fact, someone has computed that a pencil-thick strand of silk could stop a Boeing 747 in flight. Little surprise that it's so hard to scrape off your fingers and out of your eyes!

But what those bioengineers don't always realize is that there is already in existence another structure that successfully imitates the inter-woven strength of a spider's web.

This structure has reproduced the enduring elasticity of a spider's thread so well that it can stretch not just to 20 percent of its original length, but it can transcend time itself -- stretching its silken cords of connection back into the past and shooting them far into the future.

This structure, this intricately woven web, is the body of Christ, the community of faith, the church; and the Web-Weaver is the Holy Spirit.

How is the church a web?

The church is bound together by the continuing living presence of the Holy Spirit in its midst.

The Holy Spirit weaves a web of witness and commitment between believers, even across generations of believers, through the astounding power and diversity of the spiritual gifts each one of us has received.

In one way or another each of us present is here because someone in our past believed in us and lavished on us their spiritual gifts. Each of us is where we are today because certain people in our lives believed in us, sacrificed for us, and used their gifts to build us up.

I would like to ask you to bow your heads and in a few moments of silence express their thanks to God by saying privately: "Thank you, God, for [Mother, Father, friend, etc.]. [She, he] believed in me." (PAUSE) In Jesus' name, AMEN

Now think of one person in your web of faith who believed/believes in you and has invested their spiritual gifts in your life. They don't have to be present, or even alive.

I want to start the ball rolling by going interactive with my sermon. I am tying the end of this yarn ball to my finger.

In a moment, I am going to offer thanks to God for someone in this church whose spiritual gifts have helped build me up as a person and as a pastor. I will say, "Thank you, God, for [name the person]. [He/she] has been a strength to me by [name the gift or ministry this person has given to you]."

Afterwards I am going to toss this ball out into the congregation. If you get it, I would ask that you stand and do the same as you wish, giving thanks for someone who has ministered to you in a significant way. Then without letting go toss it to someone else who will stand and do the same.

Some of you may have things in your laps. You may want to set them down beside you and be ready to catch and toss the ball.

You may offer a prayer or not as you choose.

But whoever catches it, whether you offer a prayer out loud or not, pull the yarn taut, hold on to it tightly, and then toss it on to another person who will offer their prayer.

(Invite people when they catch the ball -- and before tossing it to someone else -- to stand and offer thanks to God for someone who has ministered to them. However, make it clear that standing up and saying something is not necessary; catching the ball of yarn and tossing it to someone else without saying anything is perfectly acceptable. )

Toss the ball. (When you feel it's time to bring this animation to a close, ask the last person to toss the ball back to you, completing the loop you began).

One of the ingenious facets of a spider's web is that it can transmit information to the spider whenever and wherever it is touched.

Everyone -- not just those holding onto a strand of the web -- now stand up and take hold of the strand of yarn closest to you.

See how the vibration of each individual's touch is immediately transmitted across the web to every other individual in contact with it.

Even as each of you express a unique spiritual gift, so the combined faith of this congregation expresses its own unique spirit.

To conclude, while you are all still standing, and still hanging onto that slender strand of yarn, each of you call out the first name of a person who believed in you at some difficult moment in your past. It could be a parent, a teacher, a Scout leader, a friend, a relative.

Now I want to throw our web into the future. I want to do this by reminding you there is one here today who continues to believe in you today and tomorrow without the slightest waiver of commitment or love.

Bow your heads and consider the most important person in the world who believes in you. Indeed, the only way any of us can enter the future and fulfill the mission God has chosen for us is if we realize that the most important person in the universe believes in us -- indeed, believes in us more than we believe in ourselves.

That someone is, of course, Jesus Christ. The future strength of our web of Faith is created as each of us confesses faith in Christ and experiences Christ's ongoing, future-leading presence in our lives. He has given each of us our spiritual gifts to work together, not to glorify our individual selves, but to build up this body, this web, the church, the Christ-body community.

Now repeat after me, "Thank you, God, for believing in me. (Pause) Thank you, God, for believing in [name your church here]."

As members of the church, we can rightly claim for ourselves membership in the first and most powerful web site on an internet that was established more than two millennia ago.

While the technological world boasts of the connective powers and possibilities available on its infant electronic Internet, its capabilities can't compare, its vision can't match, when compared with that of the church's web connections.

Our web site is unmatched in power, unhampered by time or space, unscathed by the attempts of hackers and attackers to destroy its connective tissue.

It's all brought together by the master Web-Weaver, the Holy Spirit, who has woven a web of love-relationships into the strongest structure known in the universe, the church of Jesus Christ.

My grandmother had a saying. When someone was involved in things they shouldn't be, she'd say, "They should stick to their own knitting."

It's time for the church to stick to its knitting –

knitting a web of love-relationships into the strongest structure known in the universe, a structure so strong even the gates of hell can't prevail against it.

AMEN

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