Anointed By the Spirit

The divisions in the church at Corinth were many and ran deep. They were divided over who they would follow. They were divided over what freedom in Christ means practically: what should they do about circumcision and marriage and sexuality and eating food offered to idols. They were divided over how to relate to the culture of Corinth. Their economic and social divisions impacted the group dynamics, how they gathered for fellowship and to eat together.

Paul has written honestly about all of these divisions and given instructions to mend them. About 40 minutes into the reading of the letter, as the conclusion to his comments on how they are celebrating Communion, he gives the instruction, “So then, when you come together to eat, wait for one another – if any one is hungry, let him eat at home – lest you come together to be condemned. About the other things I will give directions when I come.” Whew! I can just imagine the sigh of relief in the room. It had been a lot. Everyone had been tweaked a bit by Paul’s corrections. But, he was coming, and for that they were surely glad. It would rally them together to prepare for him. The next section they would expect to be his greetings.

Instead he writes, “Now concerning spiritual gifts…” There is another issue. Another source of division. There are varieties of gifts, varieties of service, varieties of working, but there is One Spirit, One Lord, One God who inspires them all. Paul says the church is like a body made up of many parts, each with its own function, yet still one body. And he includes in the community particular parts of the body…

“If the foot should say, ‘Because I am not a hand, I do not belong to the body.’ And if the ear should say, ‘Because I am not an eye, I do not belong to the body,’ that would not make it any less a part of the body.”

Feet and shoes are unclean. John the Baptist to emphasize his humility in comparison to Jesus said, “I am not worthy to untie his sandals.” Across the Middle East, even today, the Arabic the words for “foot” and “shoes” are curse words, and if you have to say them, you apologize first. You are not to allow the sole of your shoe to be visible to others, not even at home. Yet, Jesus washed the disciples’ feet, and even the feet of the community are part of the church.

The ear and the eye, though, they are honored parts of the body. The ear is not quite as highly regarded as the eye, though. “What if,” says Paul, “the whole body decided to be eyes?” You wouldn’t be able to hear or smell. The worth of an organ isn’t in its worth as an individual, it is in its role for the common good, for the whole body. And “God arranged the organs in the body, each one of them, as God chose.”

Eugene Peterson paraphrased it this way in The Message, “Each person is given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone benefits. All kinds of things are handed out by the Spirit, and to all kinds of people! …By means of Christ’s one Spirit, we all said good-bye to our partial and piecemeal lives. We each used to independently call our own shots, but then we entered into a large and integrated life in which Christ has the final say in everything.”

Our primary identity is not determined by our last name, or our family, or our profession, our nationality, our politics, or our social status; our primary identity is our baptism. Paul says, “For by one Spirit we were all baptized into one body – Jews or Greeks, slaves or free.” Each has been anointed by the Holy Spirit to contribute to the life of the body. The work of the Holy Spirit in and through the church is by means of spiritual gifts, distributed by God.

Paul’s list of spiritual gifts is not an exhaustive list. He is concerned here about the worship of the church in Corinth, so these are gifts related to worship and to speech. If you were in the church in the 1970’s and 80’s, even into the 90’s, you may have taken a spiritual gifts test.

Here’s how the tests work, mostly. You read a statement like, “I am skilled at organizing people to accomplish many tasks and objectives” or “I seek to inspire others who are having difficulties in their faith” and you rate yourself on a scale from “Very Inaccurate” to “Very Accurate.” At the end of the test, those statements have been related to a list of gifts, and your answers are tabulated to determine your gifts. Then, in my experience, the curriculum has everyone share their gifts. Sometimes the group is asked to affirm how they see those gifts in the person. Sometimes those gifts have been connected to work in the church that needs to be done and people are encouraged to sign up for volunteer positions.

Here’s the problem, though, we all might be given any of those gifts at any time when they are needed. The Spirit is active. I have also heard people use their spiritual gifts inventory as a reason NOT to serve. I don’t have the gift of teaching, so I can’t help with Vacation Bible School. I don’t have the gift of mercy, so I can’t visit someone who is sick. Yet, when Hurricane Katrina devastated Southern Louisiana and I was helping in a Red Cross shelter, people I knew who surely would not have tested that they had the gift of administration were organizing fundraisers, people without the gift of giving were sending boxes of donations, people without the gift of teaching were playing with children to occupy the hours, people without the gift of service were serving, people without the gift of mercy were merciful. Because the Holy Spirit was working, gifting them with what was needed for the common good.

I’m not saying don’t take the tests, but I will say that the real benefit in the tests is to see where you score lowest because that may be an area where you are not allowing the Spirit to work in you. It may be that you are hesitant to know that you are gifted in prophecy, gifted to see injustice and to call people to a right relationship with God. It may be that you are hesitant to know that you are gifted in evangelism, gifted to share the joy of being one with Christ as part of Christ’s Body the church. Here’s the thing, even if you don’t take the tests, the Spirit is the one who gives the gifts, and the Spirit gives them when they are needed. So, it may not be until you see an injustice that you stand up and prophesy that repentance is necessary for God’s people. It may not be until you are talking with someone who is struggling and is without community and wants to know what the point in life even is that you would be called to share what it means to you to be baptized into the Body of Christ and anointed by the Holy Spirit.

At times, some parts of the body may seem weak, says Paul. But those are some of the most important parts of the body for particular functions. No part of the body can say to any other part of the body that it is not needed. I know, this would NEVER happen today, that a church member would tell another church member that they were not needed, or leave them out. But this is really Paul’s point to the Corinthians, “We are all in this together; every person is anointed by the Holy Spirit for the good of the whole. How are we paying attention and caring if one person is hurting? How are we celebrating if one person is excelling? How are we allowing each person to contribute?”

Next week, we will turn to Chapter 13, where Paul offers the solution.