1 Corinthians 12
Living Brook benefice
takes its name from two important ideas. It comes from a brook – or a
collection of connected brooks – that are the only shared geographical feature
between our parishes. It winds between the villages, finally emptying into the
Nene in Hardingstone. But that inspires a more important connection. Living
Brook reminds us of the living water that Jesus offers a Samaritan woman in
John 4, and of the image of water representing the holy spirit which runs
through the whole of scripture. Think of the water flowing from the rock in the
wilderness, or the promise of water to bring life to the desert. The river
Jordan, divided by God to allow Joshua to lead his people into the promised
land, became the place of baptism for John, the water representing the life
that comes to us when we receive the spirit: life in all its fullness (John
10.10). Jesus said that ‘out if the of believer’s heart shall flow rivers of
living water’ (John7.38). John explains (John 7.39) that this water is a
reference to the Holy Spirit, and to what would come after the day of
Pentecost. Today, the waters of baptism continue to signify that life given by
the spirit to the baptised, and offered, through every baptised person, to the
rest of the world. That abundant life is more than we need. It flows from us to
others, being shared with the rest of the church and flowing from the church to
those beyond the church who are thirsty and need to drink.
We plunge into the
depths of the spirit in baptism, and on other occasions when the spirit moves
in power. But daily we return to the Holy Spirit as we pray, as we share in
communion, as we read the bible or other spiritual books with hearts listening
to God. St Paul says that we are all one body and we are all made to drink of
one Spirit – and we drink daily, and receive, and share, daily.
That daily renewal is
important. Recently, I led a quiet day in Piddington church. During the
morning, I went for a walk in one direction from the church and passed a place
where I often stop to look at the brook and to reflect on Living Brook. It is a
place where usually the brook is wide, and runs fairly rapidly. It can be quite
impressive there. But on that day there was no water at all. That’s hardly
surprising, given the very dry summer that we’ve had. It reminded me that the
same can be true in a Christian community too. The living water can stop
flowing out of the mouths of believers, if the believers start to take God for
granted; if the believers stop regularly asking the holy spirit to come. We
each need to be praying, every day, for the Holy Spirit to be with us. If we
don’t ask the spirit to come, we might find that the brook begins to dry up,
and we find ourselves thirsty, and unable to properly support each other. The
brook might run dry because instead of concentrating on living as God would
have us live, in love and unity, we have allowed ourselves to be distracted by
our own concerns. We come to church thinking about the state of the building,
or whether we are personally receiving enough attention, or whether that person
we don’t get on with is going to be there and spoil the morning for us. We
forget that we are one body, and that as one body we are more than a group of
humans, but the body of Christ. We look at ourselves, and at each other, but
don’t look hard enough at Jesus, and when that happens, the brook can run dry. We
were all made to drink of one Spirit, without any difference of rank or status
or race or anything else. And we must do what we were made to do. So every day,
pray ‘come, Holy Spirit. Come, Holy Spirit.’
Later in the day I went
for another walk in a different direction, and came across another branch of
the stream. I heard it before I saw it – indeed I didn’t see it at all, because
the water I could hear was running too far below the level of the path, and was
shielded from sight by many lovely waterside plants. Although I couldn’t see
the water, the signs of its presence were many and lovely. After the experience
of the morning, I thanked God gratefully for showing me another picture of
Living Brook – not just quietly sitting, but flowing noisily and bringing life
and colour, through the power of the holy spirit.
And when we are full of
the life of the spirit, that life flowing from us to others can be seen, not in
colourful plant life – unless your spiritual gift is flower arranging or
plantsmanship – but through the spiritual gifts. What we need to remember about
those gifts is that they are not for us as individuals. The gifts of the spirit
are given for all to share – for service to the church and to those who are
thirsty. This means that I can benefit from the gift of hospitality, or of
helping, or of organising events, even though I may not have those gifts
myself. Because those people who do have them use them for the benefit of all.
And I should use the gifts I have for the benefit of all.
Paul went to some
trouble to emphasise this through the way he took a popular analogy of people
coming together as a body, and changed it to remind people that the body is not
about a hierarchy or status (which was how the image was used in classical
teaching) but that everyone is valued and important. He had heard reports that
in Corinth gifts were being used to benefit people personally, sometimes at the
detriment of the whole church. The fashionable gift was speaking in tongues,
and that was especially problematic, because unless there is someone to
interpret, the only beneficiary of tongues is the speaker. Everyone else is
left wondering what is going on. There’s nothing wrong with the gift of
tongues, but like any gift it is only valuable in so far as it benefits
everyone, the whole church. So Paul wanted the Corinthians to think more widely
about what gifts they asked God for, and to value more gifts. And he wanted the
Corinthians to always use their gifts in the context of prioritising love for
one another. Having a gift is all very well, but if you don’t love one another,
and you don’t use your gifts to benefit one another, then you my as well not
have them. Our gifts must be used to build up the church, to benefit the whole.
Paul gave lists of
gifts, and never gave the same list twice. He didn’t want people to think that
his lists were definitive. We sometimes behave as though they are – that unless
something is on one of Paul’s lists, it isn’t a gift. I don’t think Paul saw it
that way. He gave examples, trying to be relevant to those receiving his letters,
but he wasn’t seeking to limit the holy spirit. There are gifts that are
obviously and always gifts of the spirit – prophecy is the obvious example, and
is the only example that always appeared in Paul’s lists. Paul did think some
gifts more important than others – again, he valued prophecy above all other
gifts. But that should not devalue the other gifts. The risk of thinking some
gifts greater than others is that a church community can assume that if you
have a ‘greater gift’ you are more important than the other members, or that
you must be in a position of status in order to have that gift. ‘I never went
to Oxford or Cambridge, I’m not a senior cleric’; ‘I’m not the vicar, I didn’t
go to university’… ‘so I can’t have a gift like prophecy’. That’s not true, and
Paul wants us to get away from that idea. Every one of us, Jew or Greek, slave
or free, drinks of the Holy Spirit, he says. Every one of us can be equally
blessed by any gift of the spirit. We just have to ask. Come Holy Spirit.
Please give me the gift of… whatever gift you would like the Spirit to bless
you with. Please bless me with the gift of prophecy. Why not? Whoever I am,
whatever my role in church, Paul tells us to ask for the greater gifts. We need
the lesser ones too.
The greatest gift of
all, the one we must ask for, every single one of us, no matter what else we
ask of God, is love. Without love, the church ceases to be one, united body.
Without love we stop reflecting God, who is one, spirit, Lord and God. Without
love, anything else we do stops reflecting God and only reflects ourselves.
Without love, the greatest gift of the Holy Spirit, the brook dries up and
becomes as unpleasant and full of rubbish as the stream bed that saddened me on
my morning walk. So let us ask the Holy Spirit to pour into us life and love,
and whatever other gifts that we need. Let us ask the holy spirit to unite us
as one church. And when we do, listen out for the living water that flows from
our hearts to bring that life and love to all.
