2nd Sunday after the Epiphany Year C

2nd Sunday after the Epiphany-Year C January 17, 2016 One of my diocesan responsibilities is to serve on the Presbyter’s Discernment Committee, which is a sub-committee of the Commission on Ministry, who exists to advise the Bishop in different matters of ministry. Last week, the members of the Presbyter’s Discernment committee gathered at Gray Center, and we met with a group of people who had all been through their parish discernment committees because they were discerning a call to the priesthood. I’ve had the privilege of doing this difficult and rewarding work for a number of years now, but this year was the first year that we had several people who were discerning a call to the bi-vocational priesthood. In years past, we have been able to identify what are the gifts of people being called to the priesthood. We want people who are comfortable being in front of other people, some administrative/organizational skills, maybe a little dash of charisma…..But then when we started talking and thinking about the bi-vocational priesthood, a new development in the life of our diocese, we were stumped. We didn’t know what kind of gifts we were looking for because it is a brand new thing, and none of us really knows what it looks like yet. But what we found is that as we interviewed people, we began to discover their own unique giftedness, and we began to imagine how those gifts might fill a need in the church. And then this week, I was privileged to sit with the Bishop as he told the folks whether or not they would get to proceed on toward ordination, and I was given the task of lifting up to each of them the giftedness that we discovered in them (whether they be called to ordained ministry or not). It was a beautiful and life-giving opportunity for me to hold up a mirror and show folks their own giftedness. Our culture lifts up particular gifts and in that lifting up, it shows what that culture values most. An academic culture lifts up intelligence as giftedness. Some business cultures lift up ruthlessness as a gift. Others value charisma. Families do this too. Some value athletic ability; others value kindness. Different groups seek out different types of “giftedness” that they think will support the values of that particular group. But Paul is saying something very different in our epistle for today. He is saying that, in the church at Corinth, which has been arguing about whether or not there is a hierarchy of gifts, and in the Christian church in general, every single person who is baptized is gifted. Every person who has been baptized and who confesses Jesus as Lord, has been brought to that point through the gift of the Holy Spirit. And each person has also been given unique spiritual gifts that are to be used for the good of the whole community, and all the gifts have been equally activated by the grace of God and are equally valued and valuable to the church. On this weekend of our annual parish meeting, this passage offers us an invitation to ask ourselves what are the gifts that are valued in the life of this parish? One that I have encountered is involvement through fellowship. Another is a generosity of spirit to one another. But here’s the flip side of that question. What are gifts that this parish doesn’t always recognize, can’t always see, doesn’t particularly value? What are the gifts of those among us that we might be overlooking because they are not what we expect? And how might we begin to seek out those gifts that don’t look like what we expect but are equally valued and given by God and to be used for the good of this community? We have a responsibility as individuals, through our baptismal covenant, to offer the gifts that God has given us, and we have a responsibility to seek out those gifts in others in our community and invite them to share them. So I invite you to think about these questions this week: “What gifts have been given you by the Holy Spirit that could be used more fully for the common good? Are you offering them already, and if not, why not? Is there a gift or a potential in someone else that you have noticed that you might be able to call attention to and nurture?