This Week's Sermons

Sermons for the Month
"A Serving Spoon"
DATE: March 29, 1998
SERVICE: Lent V
TEXT: Philippians 3:4b-14

"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

While setting the table for dinner one evening, a little girl entertained herself by bringing the utensils to life. Her mother listened as knives, forks and spoons carried on conversation and wrestled their way onto the table. Suddenly the girl looked over at her mother and declared, "If I had to choose -- I'd be a spoon!"
"A spoon," her mother replied, intrigued. "Why would you want to be a spoon? What would be wrong with being a knife or a fork?"
"Well," the girl explained, "forks are too grabby -- always stabbing stuff and taking it like it's theirs. Like in school -- I hate it when somebody takes a piece of my dessert with their fork and eats it." "Okay," her mother agreed, "what about being a knife?" "No, knives are scary -- like, they cut things, and you can't really eat with them, just slice stuff up," she responded. "But," the little girl continued, holding a shiny spoon in front of her face, "spoons can scoop up lots of stuff and even pass it around. They're just --"
"-- Nice and round and smooth and friendly," her mother suggested.
Her daughter's eyes lit up. "Right!" she said. "I'd rather be a spoon!"
Be a spoon!? It's not just a silly childhood reverie. It is a great image of a Christian lifestyle, a ministry in motion. That little girl's analysis of silverware was right on the nose. But it was also a revealing insight into the way various types of people operate in this world.
Wanna be a fork? We've all known plenty of "forks." These are the "gimme" people, those who never seem to have enough on their own plate to satisfy themselves. So they are constantly on the lookout for something more, something better, something different. The infamous "corporate raiders" of the "gimme-more" '80s were classic "forks." We are very familiar with those kinds of people here in Akron, particularly during the corporate raids and take-overs of the rubber industrty a decade or so ago. They stabbed up anything they could sink their tines into, whether it suited their tastes or not. In their greed, "gimme-more" fork people can't stop to savor the morsels they are collecting. The only craving they care to satisfy is the "stab-it-so-you-can-consume-it" desire.
Wanna be a knife? Knife people are fixated on what lies before them -- but only because they are trying to figure out how they can carve it up into a new shape -- especially a new form that they will wholly determine. Knife people are control freaks. Knives try to reconstruct reality so that it will serve their purposes, so it will suit their preferences. No matter what is placed before knife people, it is never quite right. The sharp blade of the knife goes to work, slicing off anything they find offensive, cutting down any big goals into tiny piecemeal projects, dissecting the heart out of ideas, never leaving anything whole.
Wanna be a spoon? Spoons are distinctly different, because instead of taking, spoons are designed to serve. A spoon offers sustenance to others. It is not just concerned with scooping up everything in its path for itself, or reconstituting everything to fit into a preconceived image. Spoons exist for one purpose only: to serve and save. Spoon people are adaptable -- they can operate in a variety of venues. Whether it's hot soup or freezing ice cream, they can scoop it up. Spoon people serve others, but they are also the best at stirring things up.
Ever notice that in good silverware sets there are always twice as many spoons as anything else? A service for four includes four knives, four dinner forks, four salad forks, but eight spoons. That is because everyone -- the utensil manufacturers included -- knows that spoons get used for more things and in more ways than do knives and forks. Because their shape is less specialized, spoons are more adaptable. You can eat steak, spaghetti or soup if you have a spoon. If necessary, a spoon can even do some cutting. Who hasn't successfully sliced through a reluctant, rock-hard cantaloupe with the edge of a spoon? Being a spoon -- a server, a saver -- sometimes means dishing up some pretty tough stuff. But a well-balanced, sturdy spoon can do it.
Paul, before his Damascus road experience, was a knife person. As a zealous Pharisee, he tried to surgically cut off Christianity, which he deemed an offensive growth on the body of Judaism. His strict adherence to the Law had already sliced his view of rights and wrongs, clean and unclean, chosen and cursed, into neat, predetermined pieces.
But after Paul relinquished his "confidence in the flesh" for his commitment to Christ, Paul found his honed edges beaten flat and smooth, his narrowness pulled into a wide bowl, his rigidity bent into a gentle curve. In other words, Paul was transformed into a spoon
In his new spoon form, Paul became committed to serving Christ by serving others. The sharp, pointed attacks of "Saul the knife" became the nurturing, nourishing scoops of service and salvation dished up by "Paul the spoon."
As a spoon, Paul demonstrated that he could not only "dish it out" but he also could "take it." In all his letters, it is obvious that Paul himself received sustenance and support from the Christian communities, the churches of faith, that he helped establish. Paul could "take" the abuse, the insults, the imprisonment, the cold, and the cruelty he experienced as a servant of Christ. In fact, he welcomed these experiences, viewing them as ways he could participate in Christ's suffering. Not even the prospect of death fazed Paul. For he was fully convinced from the eyes of faith that the gift of righteousness he had received would bring him to full participation in Christ's resurrection.
What kinds of changes would you have to make in your soul to stop all the frantic fork- stabbing and nasty knife-slicing that pierces your life? What would it take to replace those actions with scooping-out spoon-like service?

To be in service to brothers and sisters, instead of being in competition with strangers and "others."

To give up trying to "have it all," and instead commit to "sharing it all."

To cut out carving up those who are different from you, and instead adapt your attitude to meet their needs.

To stop worrying about what is on your own plate, and instead start paying attention to the nutritional needs of others who sit around you every day.

Being a spoon, being in Christian service to others, doesn't mean being a slave to any and all demands thrown your way. As a faithful witness of Christ's love, Paul knew there were times when the dish he was called to serve was hard for his audience to swallow. His letters to the Corinthians report the various groups fighting for theological pre-eminence and spiritual superiority. He knew that many didn't want to hear that the greatest spiritual gift of God was love. The proud Athenians, with their sophisticated pagan ways didn't want to have their patron-goddess revealed as just another lifeless silver statue. The proud, Law-touting Judaizers in Philippi didn't want to hear all they thought they had gained was loss. Yet, Paul also recognized that spoon spirituality is the essential ingredient for effective ministry.
The young people at Shively Christian Church, led at the time by Youth Pastor Dave Stone, were fiercely competitive with their neighbor, Shively Baptist, in all things, especially softball. They were also serious about their Christianity, faithfully attending the summer Bible camp led by the youth pastor.
One week, the Bible lesson was about Jesus washing his disciples' feet, from John 13. "If I then, your Lord and Teacher, have washed your feet, you also ought to wash one another's feet." To make the servanthood lesson stick, Pastor Stone divided the kids into groups and told them to go out and find a practical way to be servants.
"I want you to be Jesus in the city for the next two hours," he said. "If Jesus were here, what would he do? Figure out how he would help people." Two hours later the kids reconvened in Pastor Stone's living room to report what they had done. One group had done two hours of yard work for an elderly man. Another group bought ice cream treats and delivered them to several widows in the church. A third group visited a church member in the hospital and gave him a card. Another group went to a nursing home and sang Christmas carols—yes, carols in the middle of August. One elderly resident remarked that it was the warmest Christmas she could remember. But when the fifth group stood up and reported what they had done, everyone groaned. This group had made its way to none other than their arch rival, Shively Baptist, where they had asked the pastor if he knew someone who needed help. The pastor sent them to the home of an elderly woman who needed yard work done. There, for two hours, they mowed grass, raked the yard and trimmed hedges.
When they were getting ready to leave, the woman called the group together and thanked them for their hard work. "I don't know how I could get alone without you," she told them. "You kids at Shively Baptist are always coming to my rescue."
"Shively BAPTIST!" interrupted Pastor Stone. "I sure hope you set her straight and told her you were from Shively CHRISTIAN Church."
"Why, no, we didn't," the kids said. "We didn't think it mattered." Wanna know how to be a spoon, my friends? Dish up one or more of these "one anothers!"

"Love one another. Outdo one another in showing honor," Romans 12:10

"Live in harmony with one another," Romans 12:16; 15:5

"Greet one another," Romans 16:16;

"Agree with one another," 2 Corinthians 13:11

"Become slaves to one another," Galatians 5:13

"Wait for one another," 1 Corinthians 11:33

"Have the same care for one another," 1 Corinthians 12:25

"Encourage one another," 1 Thessalonians 4:18

"Be at peace with one another," Mark 9:50

"Bear one another's burdens," Galatians 6:2

"Be kind to one another, tenderhearted, forgiving one another," Ephesians 4:32

"Teach and admonish one another in all wisdom," Colossians 3:16

"[Bear] with one another in love," Ephesians 4:2

"Let us not become conceited, competing against one another, envying one

another," Galatians 5:26

"Be subject to one another," Ephesians 5:21

"Be hospitable to one another without complaining," 1 Peter 4:9

"No longer pass judgment on one another," Romans 14:13

"Pray for one another," James 5:16.

Sisters and brothers in Christ, these and other "one anothers" are what God through Jesus has spooned up in generous portions to our world. In fact, you may want to warn the knives and forks of this world. You may want to warn them, because of Christ, we spoons are destined to inherit the earth.
AMEN