November 10th, 2024 - "Corinthville: Incredibly Gifted" - Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris

Matt Nelson: Welcome to the sermon podcast from First United Methodist

Church in downtown Bentonville.

If you have questions related to what you hear today, or just want to

find out more about the ministries at First United Methodist Church, please

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Rev. Dr. Michelle Morris: Amen.

Welcome, my neighbors.

It is wonderful to see all of you gathered here today.

My name is Michelle Morris.

I'm the lead pastor here, and you are welcome here.

From wherever you come and however you feel and whatever you're going

through, you are welcome here.

We are in a series in which we are looking at what Corinth and Bentonville

have in common, and today we're talking about how we are gifted.

So, with that in mind, here now from 1 Corinthians chapter 12.

1 Corinthians 12 · chapter mention

Brothers and sisters, I don't want you to be ignorant about spiritual gifts.

You know that when you were Gentiles, you were often misled by

false gods that can't even speak.

So I want to make it clear to you that no one says Jesus is cursed when speaking

by God's Spirit, and no one can say Jesus is Lord except by the Holy Spirit.

There are different spiritual gifts, but the same Spirit.

And there are different ministries, and the same Lord.

And there are different activities, but the same God who

produces all of them in everyone.

A demonstration of the Spirit is given to each person for the common good.

A word of wisdom is given by the Spirit to one person, a word of knowledge to another

according to the same Spirit, faith to still another by the same Spirit, gifts

of healing to another in the one Spirit, performance of miracles to another,

prophecy to another, the ability to tell spirits apart to another, different

kinds of tongues to another, and the interpretation of the tongues to another.

All these things are produced by the one and same Spirit.

Who gives what he wants to each person.

This is the word of God for the people of God.

Thanks be to God.

Let us pray.

Lord, open our hearts, our minds, and our eyes that we might see and know

the word you have for us this day.

In your holy name, we pray.

Amen.

So when I was a kid, I participated in Olympics of the mind that

became Odyssey of the mind.

that then split off and later became at least in part Destination Imagination.

It was Destination Imagination when my son was in school and that

experience had meant so much to me.

I agreed to coach his little ragtag team from this title

one school and it was a blast.

And then when I moved to Arkansas, we actually pushed through from our little

church in West Memphis, pushed through the Arkansas Activities Association.

The ability for churches to compete in destination imagination.

So that is open and available to churches.

Not that I'm dropping a hint or anything, but, but if you're unfamiliar, what

happens is that you are given a team challenge to work on throughout the

course of the year, and it's related to science or technology, engineering, arts.

something along those lines.

You pick a focus and you work as a team on that challenge to confront

something, to come up with a solution, and then to present that at competition.

But that's only part of what you're scored on.

The other part that you're scored on is what's called an instant challenge.

When you walk into a room and you're presented with a scenario that you

have about five minutes to solve.

And I've watched a lot of teams and coached a few.

And I will tell you that the best teams are the teams that remember who they

are and lean into that those teams.

There is no problem that they couldn't face together.

Corinth was an incredibly gifted town.

It was gifted because as we have talked about in the weeks leading up

to this, the world was at their door.

They were a meeting point, a crossroads for so many different cultures.

And so there was a wide diversity of people in Corinth.

Which meant there was a wide diversity of perspectives in Corinth.

And then there was also a wide diversity of experiences in Corinth.

When you bring all of that together, you have an incredibly gifted society.

The church in Corinth was made up of those same people, but they had one extra

thing, in that they were empowered by God.

Now, that means they ought to be able to do anything.

And that might have been the case, except they were forgetting who they were.

In particular, they were all trying to have the same gift.

Everybody wanted the cool gift of speaking in tongues.

That would not be the cool gift around here these days.

It usually is something that people have a lot of questions about.

But at the time, that was the one that was really proving

that you had the power of God.

And so everybody was trying to speak in tongues.

And it was messing everything up.

So what Paul is doing is trying to recall them back to who they are.

And what he does is he puts before them the formula for what they need

to be the people that they are.

He is calling them to mnemonica, which are the spiritual things.

Now, these spiritual things were not some pie in the sky, up in the clouds, la dee

dah, we're all angels floating around.

When he is calling them to spiritual things, it is, as this letter says, the

spiritual things for the common good.

The things we are supposed to do, not just for ourselves, but for all.

And there are three elements that are required for these pneumatica.

Charismata, diakoneiae, and energamata.

Charismata, which we get our word charisma from, are those specific forms

of divine good that exist in each person.

And they're different for each person.

Think of the charismata as who we are meant to be.

Then we have the diakoniai, which are the ministries that are before you to

use those gifts for the common good.

Think of those as the where and when of living out your gift.

And then there's the energamata, which are the works that you do

to address the need before you.

Think of that as the what you do.

to change the world.

We have to have our who we are, our where and our when of our moment and

our what we do to make a difference.

Trouble comes when any of these three elements are ignored.

When it comes to charismata, if you try to have a different gift than

you are given, if you would really like to be this person over here and

you're trying to be that person, That's missing the giftedness that you have.

What I find today is a greater challenge.

It's not that people are trying necessarily to be this other

person, but that they don't think they have any gifts at all.

I hear it over and over and over.

There's nothing I can do.

There's nothing I can do.

What good am I?

If you have breath, you can praise the Lord, and that's a good you can do.

If Diakoniai are out of whack, then what's happened is you haven't

bloomed where you're planted.

You haven't recognized the situation around you, or you haven't recognized

there's a shift in your context.

This is when people keep trying to do something that worked in the past.

But doesn't work now.

Or, when people discount themselves and where they are.

And this I hear when they say, I would love to be able to help the church more.

But my mother is sick.

And I have to spend time with her.

What do you think you're doing?

That's your work.

That's the thing.

That's your ministry that is before you.

You think you're doing nothing.

You're doing something that matters.

So much to the reign of God

When you say all I can do is pray thank God you can pray Recognize

that your shift in context may mean that you're living in a different way

You're serving in a different way, but don't discount that It makes a

difference When it comes to Energamata, maybe you recognize you have a gift.

Maybe you recognize you have a place.

You don't have the energy to do it.

Oh, I feel you, I feel you on this one.

There's so much these days that steals our energy.

There's just so many distractions.

There's disillusion.

How can I make a difference?

There's selfishness.

I'm just gonna live for me.

This is the way it's going to be.

I'm going to live for me.

And then there are the very real challenges of anxiety and

depression that are rising and rising and rising in our world.

For all of these, there is a cure.

Purpose and community.

For all of those, there is a cure.

Have purpose and community.

And that is what God has given you when God gives you Energomata.

Your purpose is your energy.

Live into your purpose and you will have all the energy you need.

Now, there is one other challenge that Paul gets to a few verses later

and I think it's worth lifting up.

I hate to break it to y'all, but this is a group project.

Some of us don't really like group projects.

So much easier when we don't have to work in a group, right?

Because if it's a group project, then it relies on everybody pulling their weight.

But it also relies on everyone remembering who they are.

That's a real challenge.

That's why Paul uses the body of Christ imagery to say that if one of us is

missing, then we are all hurting.

Then we cannot focus fully on what is before us.

We need us all and we need us all as healthy as we can be.

As focused in on the work that is before us as we can be.

Pulling each other along, taking Advil if we need it, but working together.

I have been thinking a lot this week about what my role is.

What's my mnemonica?

What spiritual things am I supposed to do?

And I think that most poignantly right now, what I am called to

do is to remind us who we are.

And this is why I do the four questions with you.

For those of you that are unfamiliar, I try to meet with as many people one on one

as possible and ask you four questions.

When have you most felt like a disciple of Jesus?

What breaks your heart?

What brings you joy?

And if you could do anything, if there were no limitations, what would you do?

And I do that so that my heart then opens up to who you are.

I have a sense of your who.

I have a sense of your charismata.

And I have a sense of this whole church's who when I put

all of our stories together.

And I will update you because there's been a shift since I got here before.

When I started out, it was very clear what I called four pillars of who we were.

Three of them have stayed the same.

Care for the vulnerable, especially children.

Opposing hate.

and care for creation, especially dogs.

Although I will say there have been a few more people mentioning cats lately, so.

Praise God.

That's right.

Praise over here.

Praise, praise the Lord.

Yes.

But the real shift has been when I first got here, travel

was a central pillar of ours.

And it's still mentioned fairly often, but I will say I got here in 2021.

And when I was asking people if you could do anything, everyone was like,

I would love to get out of this place.

Now what's arising more and more often is really true and

meaningful, authentic community.

You want to be connected to each other.

Now that means that having that knowledge of your who, my next piece

in my work, my where, when, and what is to deploy the missionaries.

which I have spent years doing and will continue to do.

And I will recall us to the fact that our vision, we don't talk about it as much.

I just left it in place when I got here because I actually

thought it's a really good vision.

But our vision is to be the spiritual heart of Bentonville.

That's our where, right?

To be the spiritual heart of Bentonville.

And then to be a mission station.

to equip disciples for building relationships with people who are

far from home or feel far from God.

In that vision statement are your when, your where, and your what.

It's all there.

Okay.

And that's what we have to remember and recognize.

And let me also say that periodically what I do with those answers is I

sit with them in prayer, particularly in light of, you know, those needs

that we're feeling in our community.

Or things that the staff are coming to me and saying I need

some help with X, Y, or Z.

I sit with those and I did that this week.

So expect some emails.

Um, or texts.

Because there's another round of you mentioned that

this was a passion of yours.

You mentioned that this broke your heart.

You mentioned if you could do anything you would do this.

Well, here's an opportunity.

Now maybe you've had a shift in your life.

Name that.

But don't say, no I can't do that because I don't have that gift.

But you've named it on your heart.

You think that's not what God gave you?

It's what God gave you!

What's at stake?

Just the reign of God.

That's all.

That's all that's at stake.

Sometimes I will hear people say that they don't believe in hell.

Hell is real, my friends.

People walk around it all the time.

People are in hell of poverty, poverty.

Of hate, of anger, of job loss, of discrimination, they're

in those hells all the time.

Our job is not to save the whole world.

That's for Jesus.

Our job is to work with the Holy Spirit to bring a piece of heaven on earth to

this place, to our when and our where.

That is what our Enneagramata is.

to break heaven loose here through the power of the Holy Spirit.

Now, I will admit we had to pull our house in order before we

could do it, but we've done that.

This house is in order.

Praise the Lord.

And I don't take it for granted, but that means we have a solid place to practice.

But we gotta go.

So many of you all reached out to me this week and told me, you know what?

In our church, I feel peace.

Do you know how much peace is needed in this world right now?

Do you know how disrupted this place is?

I know you feel it because you walk out of here and you say, then I've lost it.

Well, carry it out with you and take it to other people and help them know

that there is a peace that surpasses all understanding, that overcomes all things.

All divisions, all struggles, all challenges.

Not easily, but it does.

But only if we bring our who and do the work of our what in our where and when.

Bentonville, you are incredibly gifted.

The world is at your door.

Which means there are all kinds of people here with all kinds of perspectives

and all kinds of experiences.

Bentonville, And we are in a team challenge.

I know.

It's a team challenge that depends on individuals remembering who they are

and bringing their gifts to the table.

Remembering who we are and leaning in.

Remember who we are, Bentville.

We are this gifted people, empowered by God.

When we lean into that, there is no problem that we can't overcome.

Thanks be to God.

Matt Nelson: Thanks for listening to the sermon podcast from First United

Methodist Church in downtown Bentonville.

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Grace and peace.