Aha! Embracing the God Moments: Together 

I Corinthians 12:1-11 

April 24, 2016 

Mark S. Bollwinkel 

            It is true in professional sports as well as in amateur sports.

It’s not the teams with the best players that win championships but the players with the best teams that do. Josh Donaldson and Bryce Harper won Major League Baseball’s “MVP” awards last year.  Carey Price won the Hart Trophy as the National Hockey League’s “Most Valuable Player award last year.  In 2015 Cam Newton was the
MVP of the National Football League.  Although outstanding individual athletes not one of their teams would end up winning a championship. 

“The way a team plays as a whole determines its success. You may have the greatest bunch of individual stars in the world, but if they don't play together, the club won't be worth a [dime].”  Babe Ruth

It’s true of our nation as well.  If you’re frustrated with government consider this: After the 2010 Census, ten states lost seats in congress due in part to the high number of folk refusing to turn in their census forms (AP 4/28/10).   In 2012 US voter turnout was 53.6%, unusually high in a country where most often less than half of registered voters elect our representatives.  In voter turnout, the USA lands 31st among the 34 countries in the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, most of whose members are highly developed, and democratic states” (pewresearch.org). 

It’s been said “We get the government we deserve” (Joseph de Maistre, 1753-1821).  If over half of us take our citizenship for granted, what kind of government can we expect?

When people work together for a common good it makes a better sports team, it makes us a better nation and it makes us better people.  That is also true of the church.   Church life is much more than our individual experience on a Sunday morning. 

During the Easter Season we are inspired to consider the God moments in our lives beyond what we do on Sundays.   God’s resurrection spirit can be found in our lives Monday thru Saturday, in all sorts of places; a park, a gas station, a kitchen, even at work when we pay attention.   When we work and live together as a community the church it is one of the places we find God.

            Status, role, title, the money we make are all indicators of self-esteem in our culture.   We judge each other by those qualifiers.   We rate our success and status in society by them. 

I have only been a “Senior Pastor”.  In six of my seven assignments since ordination in 1976, I have been the Presiding Elder or pastor-in-charge.  I came out of seminary at the age of 27 and was assigned as the Principal of a seminary in South East Asia.   I have only ever been “on top of the pyramid” as they say in business.   

Now in one of those churches, a very small church, St. Paul’s UMC in Reno, Nevada, I was the “Senior Pastor”…and the custodian and the church secretary and in charge of snow removal and lighting the pilot light of the boiler in the winter.  But I was the “Senior Pastor”!  When I sat on two city commissions during my stay in Reno, right there on the name plate on the city desk I was identified as “Mark Bollwinkel, Senior Pastor”!   Title and status is an important thing.  Let’s be honest.    

But a Senior Pastor, the President of a corporation or the captain on a ship in the Navy will tell you that every person in the organization is a part of their success if they enjoy it.  That certainly has been my experience in churches.  Regardless of title, role and status everyone in any organization contributes to its success.  Every role from bottom to the top in our social ladders plays an extremely important part in the success or failure in any organization. 

You may not be aware, but I love baseball.  It is has been a passion in my life and a passion in my family since I was young.  Growing up in Indiana, it was the game we played, sun rise to sun set.  Especially in the summers when there wasn’t anything else to do.  We played baseball.  We played baseball without uniforms, without adults keeping score or going to a pizza parlor after each game.   We had our friends and we played.  Now being a heavy and slow kid, I was always chosen to be the catcher.  I could hit.  I could throw.  But I couldn’t run the bases ‘if you threaten my mother’s life’!  I could not do it.  So I always ended up being the catcher.  Now some will tell you that the catcher, usually batting at the end of the batting order, is not as important as the pitcher or the star hitter playing at centerfield.  But without the catcher where would baseball be?   In fact I would argue that the catcher is an equal to the quarterback on a football team.   Very little good can happen in baseball without the catcher. 

The point being, on a team everyone has a role, everyone has a place.  Regardless of the status we place on any one position everyone is going to have to function if there is going to be success on a team.    That’s even true in the church.  For the Apostle Paul in our scripture lesson today, he is trying to remind everyone in the church that in spite of differences in status, role and title we are all a part of the body of Christ.

Corinth, Greece in the first century was a bustling, cosmopolitan sea port.  It was a melting pot of nationalities, classes and religions; picture San Francisco in its “Barbary Coast” days.   The apostle Paul writes his first letter to the church in Corinth to encourage the young Christians to get along with each other.   Church leaders had written Paul about a number of issues that were dividing the church in conflict. Paul writes back with advice and admonitions about sexuality, the use of wine at Holy Communion and how they are all supposed to worship together without fighting.   We shouldn’t be surprised that from the very beginning the church has had to deal with conflicts within.  Ours is a very human institution.  Since Easter afternoon we have brought human pride and weakness to mix with our noble efforts to “love God and neighbor”.

In our text this morning Paul teaches that despite their differences the Corinthians need to acknowledge and respect them not judge each other by them.  Everyone has a role in the body of Christ even when their gifts are different.   No one should hold themselves spirituality superior over and against another because their gifts are different.

The heart of Paul’s teaching about conflict in I Corinthians is his “still more excellent way”:

…love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful, arrogant or rude.  Love does not insist on its own way, it is not irritable or resentful; it doesn’t rejoice in wrong doing but rejoices in the truth…love bears all things, believes all things, hopes all things, endures all things. Love never ends…the greatest is love.”( I Corinthians 13) 

This much beloved chapter, often cited in weddings ceremonies, was actually written to suggest how church members are supposed to get along with each other even when they disagree.

Here at Church of the Wayfarer we envision our purpose as “Reaching Up, Reaching In and Reaching Out”, a modern way of affirming Jesus’ greatest commandment “…to love God with heart, soul, mind and strength…and to love our neighbors as ourselves…” (Matthew 22:34-40).    We cannot succeed in faith or in life all on our own.  We need each other to fulfill the promise of our mission.  We need to share our strengths and our weaknesses.  We need to share our dreams and our failures.  We find God in our lives together, even when we disagree, even when we are at odds with each other, if we keep the commandment to love one another as our focus and commitment.  And when love reigns in our community nothing can stop us.

Mia Hamm is not only the greatest American female soccer player, she may be one of the best of all time regardless of gender:

“I am a member of a team, and I rely on the team, I defer to it and sacrifice for it, because the team, not the individual, is the ultimate champion.”  Mia Hamm

            Isn’t that true of our families…or workplaces…at school…or for our nation as well?  It’s certainly true of our churches.

            To illustrate the point simply consider the faith community’s response to Hurricane Katrina in 2005.  Someday the story will be written how long after governmental services left, the churches of this nation offered hundreds of thousands of volunteer hours, tens of thousands of volunteers and millions of dollars to assist our brothers and sisters in the Gulf Coast rebuild their lives.

            Are you aware that the United Methodist Church has joined with the United Nations and the Gates Foundation to eradicate malaria in the tropical world?  The World Health Organization reports a dramatic decline in malaria deaths in Africa due to increase use of insecticide netting, new medications and public health education.  Thousands of lives are being saved in part due to United Methodist efforts to end this disease.

            Since 1975 the United States has resettled over three million refugees into our nation, most from Southeast Asia and Russia (www.acf.hhs.gov/programs/orr/about/history).  Protestant, Roman Catholic, Jewish, Orthodox and Muslim voluntary agencies oversee the resettlement process of support and assimilation for these folks fleeing oppression and war. 

            Why?  Why do the faith communities again and again strive to serve the least and the lost?  Because if some of us are suffering we are all suffering (I Corinthians 12:26)!

            We are all in this together.   That’s especially true of the church. We are not always going to agree.   We are not always going to like each other.   But when we put the larger goals ahead of our own we can accomplish amazing things…and we find together that God is with us.

            Amen.