The Way of the Holy Spirit Community

The Way of the Holy Spirit Community

1 Corinthians 12:4-13,  The Advent, May 31, 2020

 4 There are different kinds of gifts, but the same Spirit distributes them. 5 There are different kinds of service, but the same Lord. 6 There are different kinds of working, but in all of them and in everyone it is the same God at work. 7 Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. 8 To one there is given through the Spirit a message of wisdom, to another a message of knowledge by means of the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by that one Spirit, 10 to another miraculous powers, to another prophecy, to another distinguishing between spirits, to another speaking in different kinds of tongues, and to still another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are the work of one and the same Spirit, and he distributes them to each one, just as he determines. 12 Just as a body, though one, has many parts, but all its many parts form one body, so it is with Christ. 13 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink. 

There's a repeated word in the content of today's sermon, verses 12:4-13. That's 'the Holy Spirit'. It comes nine times. Not only the 1 Corinthians chapter 12, , but also the  chapter 13 and 14th are about the Holy Spirit. This means that the Holy Spirit issue has become a controversial issue in the Corinthian Church. At the center of the controversy lies the question of the gifts. Many Corinthians argued that the evidence of the Holy Spirit was in dialect gifts. There are traces of it in the apostles. Dialect was accepted as a very important gift in early Christianity because it was close to the secret of God's experience through a special language phenomenon. Paul even said he prayed in dialect more than anyone else (1 Cor. 14:18). The problem is that they insisted exclusively and privilegedly on dialect gifts. They ignore other gifts because their dialect gifts are superior. Paul found the danger of the Corinthians breaking apart because of this problem and thought that he should teach them correctly. It appears in Chapter 12-14. A direct explanation of the dialect is given in Chapter 14, and today's text provides a theological explanation of the relationship between the gifts and the Holy Spirit. Paul thought that since dialects are inherently the gifts of the Holy Spirit, he should first know the relationship with the Holy Spirit.

 1) The word 'gifts' is a translation of the Greek word 'Charisma'. Charisma is the special gift God gave to the people through the Holy Spirit. The Holy Spirit is a translation of the Greek word 'Pneuma.' Pneuma is a word that means wind, breath, energy, and spirit. Since the Holy Spirit was the Spirit of Life, Christianity has called it the Spirit of Creation, the Spirit of Salvation, the Spirit of Resurrection, and the Spirit of End. One of the power of the Holy Spirit is the conferment of gift. The gift is given as a gift to people who come to church.

In the 1 Cor. 12:4, Paul said, "There are different kinds of gifts." The gift varies, but the Holy Spirit, the ability to give it, is the same spirit. In verse 5, Paul explains it in a slightly different way. He said Christians have many different positions, but the main is the same. The God who gives here is the Holy Spirit. Verse 6 explains it a little bit more. I'll read verse 6 and 7. I'll translate and read the Lutheran Bible.

 Each person has many gifts, but God is one. The God has a history in every man's affairs. By showing these things, you have made the gift of the Holy Spirit a common good.

There are two main points of the content from verse 4 to verse 7. One is that many gifts come from one source of the Holy Spirit, and the other is that the emergence of the Holy Spirit through it benefits the entire church community, not the individual. Diversity and  being public.

Paul explains this fact a little bit more in verse 8. Verses 8–10 give you a list of different gift list. Some are connected to the present church and some are distant. It is as follows: Words of wisdom, words of knowledge, faith, healing the diseases healing, practice of ability, prophecy, spiritual sense, dialects, interpreters of dialect. Dialect and dialect translations are the last ones on this list. This means that the most important gift that some members of the Corinthians showed off with enthusiasm was not the one. This list did not list all the members of the church at that time. For example, relief and church administration belong to the gift. In today's church, choirs, Sunday school teachers, church library services, and meals are all gifts. After referring to the list of gifts, Paul summarized the relationship between the gifts and the Holy Spirit in verse 11. "All this is done by the same Holy Spirit, giving it to each person according to his will." In this verse, we can also confirm that the Holy Spirit has the initiative of the gifts.

2) The following paragraphs, verses 12 and 13, describe the relationship between the body and many parts. Our bodies are one, but we have several  parts of body, and they are different. The functions of arms and legs, head and chest and waist, eyes, nose, ears, and mouth are clearly different. There are more diverse organs in the body. The function of intestines and liver is completely different, but both are connected to the body. Here the body is Jesus Christ, and the other parts are the congregation. All the Christians who live as various gifts are united in Christ. The power that enables organisms as one body is the Holy Spirit. This is how Paul reveals the fact in verse 13.

 For we were all baptized by one Spirit so as to form one body—whether Jews or Gentiles, slave or free—and we were all given the one Spirit to drink

 Paul pointed out in front of the church that although there are various gifts, they are one in the Holy Spirit. We've talked about a problem that goes far beyond the diversity of the gifts here. Inside the church, there were Jews, Greeks , some were still servants, and others were free citizens. If you change it to the current way, there are company presidents and employees, university presidents, and cleaners. In 1960, when the black-and-white racial conflict still existed, the American church said that there were white and black people in a church. If we go back to the Joseon Dynasty, the aristocrats and the people are in same church. Paul's claim that although there are differences that are hard to overcome, they all became one body after being baptized by the Holy Spirit is a revolutionary idea. It's a whole new worldview. The foundation of this new world view lies in the fact that the church is a Holy Spirit community.

The expression of the Holy Spirit community doesn't sound real to all Christians. The Holy Spirit is invisible. We only experience the Holy Spirit with its ability. As you can experience invisible wind by force. The Holy Spirit is the spirit of life, so it appears to individuals and society as the power of life. Let's say we have a teacher here. His teaching activities can kill or save students. He lives by the power of the Holy Spirit. Let's say there's a congressman here. His activities save and kill lives. The same goes for pastors. At the time of Jesus, the activities of religious leaders, such as Pharisees and scribes, were close to killing. They are not people of the Holy Spirit.

 

3) Let's take a closer look at the problems of the Corinthians Church, which Paul is concerned about. I told you earlier that there was a controversy over the gift. Paul told them in verse 7 that the gift of the Holy Spirit was to benefit the community. They translated the revision as simply "beneficial," but translated it as a common benefit for both the Lutheran  and the NIV Bible. It's kind of a public thing, or a common good. If you do not benefit the community, you misunderstand the gift, and if so, you are not the one who received the gift of the Holy Spirit. Pay more attention to the fact that this is for common benefit. If you put your arms and legs forward, the whole body will be wrong. This is how it is explained in a fable style. You can insist on leaving your head and making all the rest of your legs, or on getting rid of your nose and ears and making ten eyes because your eyes are the most important. Then your body will be damaged. In the Corinthian Church, where Paul writes letters with a desperate heart, many people used to use privately, not public. It means that he used the gift as an opportunity to show off. This was destroying the community of the church.

Let me tell you more about your church life. There are two things. First, you all received a gift. There's no one without a gift. If you think that a person baptized by the Holy Spirit has not received a gift, it is like not recognizing that you are a human being even though you were born as a human being. You may think that you don't get a gift because you don't do a lot of volunteer work for the church. That's a misunderstanding. Not all of them were preached, not all of them were given by the steering committee, not all of them were given cleaning services. You just don't know what you've received, but no one has not. A claws that seem like little things are a kind of part of body. Eyebrows are like that too. If you think about it, you'll see what kind of retard you're connected to the Church, the body of Christ. He was not baptized by the Holy Spirit if he had no idea. Even if you were baptized formally, you didn't receive it in content.4) Second, the more important thing in this passage is to examine whether or not one's gifts actually come from the Holy Spirit. One of the criteria is the public benefit right in front of it. Or a joint line. It's important whether you place your role in the church in the public interest or in the common good, or in your own private benefit. It's not always as clear as cutting a radish with a knife. Because the human mind is very subtle and complex. On the surface, it seems to seek public interest, but on the inside, it can lean toward its own benefit. Sometimes he's not aware of it. Don't get me wrong. No matter how wrong things happen in the church, I'm not saying that we should think about the whole church rather than the individual. You have to fight for church reform. The Protestant Church's name is "Protestant" for no reason. Fighting should be a fundamental achievement, not a private one. When that private mind builds up, it will one day destroy the community.

It is not easy to use one's own gifts for the public good. It's hard to tell what the public benefits are. Personality and culture can save the public's interests within a category, but they cannot go beyond what you know. Living as a roughly cultured Christian is not much of a blemish, so if you want to live like that, live like that. As a preacher, I have no intention of preaching you the Christian character and culture. Because it only changes the shape of life, it doesn't reach the belief that the nature of life changes. The key here is to go back to the roots of Christian faith. That's why Paul continues to talk about his relationship with the Holy Spirit today while talking about the gift. How can you live by using it as a gift without getting near the Holy Spirit, the source of the gift?

 

5) Paul said strange things in verse 13b. "...we were all given the one Spirit to drink. " Drinking the Holy Spirit is a literary metaphor. This expression relates to the baptism mentioned in the same verse 13. Baptism is a religious ceremony that means to die and live with Jesus. The start of this ritual is the union of the crucifixion that happened to Jesus. The crucifixion is blood, so baptism is union with this blood. The baptism is what Paul described as "Drinking the Holy Spirit" in that it is a Holy Spirit event. The word baptism is the Holy Spirit event means that you get life through baptism.

You can ask yourself, what does it really mean to get that life? People outside the church feel empty about our claim that Jesus lives. You think you don't get life in the name of Jesus, you get life with money. Who's right? We Christians believe that through Jesus we were freed from sin and death. Such a religious ceremony of faith is baptism. The baptism goes into and out of the water. Going into the water means you're dead before, and coming out of the water means you're reborn as a new person. Therefore, the man baptized in the name of Jesus is a newly born man. If you don't realize you're born again, you don't realize you're going to get life, or you don't realize you're drinking the Holy Spirit.

Even if you believe in Jesus and are baptized, there are probably people who think that there is no change in real life. I don't feel like I'm born again. It's an idea that happens when you misunderstand baptism. Baptism is that you are born as a new person, not that you are already mature as a new person. The newborn is human, but if you leave it alone, it dies. You have to take care of him for a long time. We need to train him. The baptized person must be spiritually cared for to actually become a new person. If you don't take care of him and complain that you don't know if you've become a new person, he's like a child who refuses to eat. Have you ever taken care of your own soul like a newborn? If not, take care of it as if you are raising a baby. Over time, you'll realize you're a new person.

 

6) Yes, if you fully know that you are baptized by the Holy Spirit, you are dead and reborn with Jesus, and you are growing up, you will see how you will use your own gifts and your life for the common good. As life becomes richer in that direction, you will be reduced to infinity, where you will enjoy God's ultimate freedom and rest. That's the truth of salvation.

It's a cliche, but I think it's appropriate in this part. Let's say you knew you were going to die in a week. Before and after you know it, you are completely different person, a new person, or someone else. The world looks different, and relationships with others are completely renewed. I will no longer have a war of nerves with others, and I will not spend time on a vain attempt. This is the way a person who is baptized by the Holy Spirit renewed. So Paul was able to boldly declare that Jews, Greeks, servants, and free men had all become one body. Is life really possible for us? Are you praying for your soul to deepen the inner workings of this faith? Have you given it up because it's too far away?

Dear saints, today is the Advent. The church in which we are baptized by the Holy Spirit and drank the cup of the Holy Spirit together is a community of the Holy Spirit. Let us not just say in words that we belong to the Holy Spirit community, but in the path of the Holy Spirit community. The path is not to use one's own gift (life) for private purposes, but for common good and public good. I believe that if we open our hearts to him without stubbornness, the Holy Spirit will lead us in that way.

Blessed Life

Twelfth Sunday after Pentecost  Proper 17

Luke 14:7-14 

7 When he noticed how the guests picked the places of honor at the table, he told them this parable: 8 “When someone invites you to a wedding feast, do not take the place of honor, for a person more distinguished than you may have been invited. 9 If so, the host who invited both of you will come and say to you, ‘Give this person your seat.’ Then, humiliated, you will have to take the least important place. 10 But when you are invited, take the lowest place, so that when your host comes, he will say to you, ‘Friend, move up to a better place.’ Then you will be honored in the presence of all the other guests. 11 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.”

12 Then Jesus said to his host, “When you give a luncheon or dinner, do not invite your friends, your brothers or sisters, your relatives, or your rich neighbors; if you do, they may invite you back and so you will be repaid. 13 But when you give a banquet, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind, 14 and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

Jesus often spoke to different kinds of people during his public life. There are words that we can readily accept, but there are words that sound unacceptable or unrealistic. Christians dealing with the latter have two reactions. One is the attitude of not taking it seriously. It's usually a good thing to say, but it's. The other is an awkward but trying to keep it by force. This attitude is caused by misunderstanding Jesus' words. Jesus is not a 'an old fossil' as young people put it today. Jesus doesn't bother us on purpose. Jesus gives us freedom and peace. Jesus gives us exactly the 'Blessed Life.' Let's take a look at what the 14:7-14, the main text of today's sermon is like.

A high seat, a low seat

Here are two similar stories. This is what Jesus said when he was invited by someone. One is metaphor, the other is teaching. The first story is about the verse 14:7-11. Many people were invited to the wedding party. There are separate tables for these parties. The invited person wants to sit at the top of the table. Jesus advises you not to sit at the top. Because it's clear that when a higher social figure comes, the owner will come and ask you to vacate your seat. He said it's wise to sit at the end. Because I'm sure the owner will tell me to move to a higher position later on. In verse 11, he said this in conclusion.

 For all those who exalt themselves will be humbled, and those who humble themselves will be exalted.

Although Jesus's words to lower ourselves are not wrong, the difficult thing is that the world in which we live does not move according to this teaching. The world doesn't raise people who lower themselves, but it weighs them down. They completely ignore people with low social status. People all live by looking at the opportunity to go one step further to avoid being ignored. In a world like this, the word of Jesus that self-deprecating men rise sounds hollow. Or it sounds like an emphasis on the virtue of sheer humility.

Very few people are so humble that they lower themselves. People instinctively try to elevate themselves. Only the pride is rooted in our nature. To put it simply, you're being condescending. We put forward the fact that we know a lot whenever we have the opportunity. We're talking about how morally superior we are and how sacrificial we are. C.S. Lewis describes arrogance as the greatest evil in the "Pure Christianity" category. Let's read a passage on page 193. "According to the teachings of Christian teachers, the most fundamental evil, the most ultimate evil, is arrogance. Sexual injustice, anger, greed and drunkenness are just the blood of a new leaf compared to this evil. The devil became the devil because of this pride. Pride leads to all kinds of different evils. It's a state of mind that's totally against God." Pride does not only manifest itself to those with high social status, but also to those with low social status. Not only in the world, but also in the church. Not only in the immoral, but also in the very moral. We can't lower ourselves socially and personally. Nevertheless, it is difficult to follow Jesus' advice to lower yourself. So we just try to pass by and force ourselves to appear humble.

If you really want to lower yourself, you need to be able to see how high you're sitting right now. A really good person doesn't have to be condescending. People who know so much don't have to pretend to know so much. The physics professor, invited as a special lecturer for middle and high school students who are interested in physics, doesn't act up. He doesn't get angry because students don't approve of him. He's just passing on to his students the world of physics that he knows. We Christians are the disciples of Jesus Christ and the children of God. There is no seat higher than this. People who actually know this don't want to be recognized by others. Some of you might think differently. This is what they think. 'The fact that we are the children of God belongs to a world of faith, so this is not realistic in the world.I'm sure they say that because they haven't actually experienced Christianity.

In this parable, the person who went up to the top is not interested in the seat, but is interested in the wedding feast. There's a wedding party now. It's a festival. Everyone is enjoying eating, drinking, and singing. You don't have to think about who's sitting high. Our life is like a wedding feast. We have to eat, drink, dance and sing together. People who know it don't have time to pay attention to high and low. Some people think they can't afford it because they're having a hard. I understand what that is, but I don't agree with it. Let me give you an example of a church. There's a church with 500 people, and there's a church with 50 people. There are differences in numbers, but both churches are the bodies of Christ. It's an apocalyptic community of worship that distinguishes it from the world's. If you focus on that fact, a believer or pastor in a church with 50 members can take church life as a festival. Don't you think your life is the same? A person who accepts life with this kind of thinking does not feel anxious or anxious because he or she cannot move up to the top. I can see this problem more clearly in the second story.

A person who has nothing to repay

Jesus continued to say something embarrassing to the man who invited him. Jesus asked them not to invite relatives or rich people who knew well to dinner. That's because they might invite you back later as a token of gratitude. He said it was very scary to be invited again, to be rewarded. Jesus tells them to invite the poor and the disabled to a feast. It's a blessing to invite them because they don't have the ability to pay back. This is a story out of our common sense. We live in the world, picking and treating people who are capable of paying back. A person who is good at such a thing can rise in the world. No one is literal about this word of Jesus. People can't actually live that way in the world. It doesn't mean you shouldn't invite close friends or church members. Why did Jesus say something that was hard to understand in common sense and difficult for us to practice?

What you should note is, 'Blessed is the fact that the invitees are incapable of paying back.' I think it's natural for everyone to accept it if they give it to them. Nobody says it's bad. People don't feel very good if they don't respond to each other even though they give it to them. It's also cognitive, so no one's going to say anything. If you don't feel uncomfortable when you don't, you already have too much. He who sits at the end of the feast in the preceding story was already a man who knew the joy of the wedding feast. Now he's also the one who participated in such joy. In other words, he has enough to satisfy himself without receiving more. Some of my church friends are gardening. Tomatoes, peppers, and cucumbers are held every day. He can give it to someone else who needs it. He doesn't feel bad even if he doesn't pay back. Because he is full of vegetables like that. That's right. Anyone who feels full of the fact that we have received life as a gift from God lives in full satisfaction without receiving what is expected from others. More fundamentally, he doesn't expect anything at all. He forgets the fact that he gave to whoever he gave it to.

Our monthly household budget for our church is approximately 7 million won. 1.54 million won per month is fixedly taken out of the church. There's money that goes out of the box. It's a sharing mission fee. Sometimes some people worry that our monthly rent is too tight for our church, but the finances going outside are too big. This is a reasonable concern. You may think of this as an expenditure that is not directly helpful to the church. That makes sense, too. The well-run cost of sharing is something that should be taken care of by the members of the Missionaries of Sharing and the steering committee, but it should be more than happy to know that we don't receive as much as we do. Because we have already received so much that we do not have to be paid back. We've had enough, both personally and at the church level. You already know what it is. The depth of knowing it reveals the level of faith.

Let me tell you one of the key things about what we've already received. It is that we have learned that life is a gift from God. People in the world who can think know this. They live in natural order without being greedy. I value those who live like that. But I can't get rid of the feeling that I'm missing something. They don't know that God gave us Jesus Christ. They live according to the laws of nature, but we go further and believe in Jesus Christ, and we live close to him. For those who live in the natural world, life feels dim, but for those who believe in Jesus Christ, we actually experience life. That's the experience of liberation from sin and death. Even if people live according to nature, they still cannot escape from the forces of sin. With the fact that nature is anicca, your life goes anicca. They are not greedy, but there is no hope for a new life. Through the crucifixion and resurrection of Jesus Christ, we have learned that our lives are both God's gift and the process of preparing for a new life. It's like a bride waiting for the groom to come. We don't get upset when we're in a low position or when there's no reward for what we've done, because we're about to celebrate our souls.

I'm sure many of you think this explanation is understandable, but it doesn't really come to reality in real It's still unstable, it's upsetting, it's unfair, and it's going to make me feel like, why is the world like this, why is it so bad? Compulsory will not solve this problem. The best thing to do is to step one step further into the center of the Bible and Christian faith. In that manner, today we are talking about the text of the Bible.

A time of resurrection

The text says the guests at the feast have nothing to pay for, and the reason they're blessed is because they're paid on a completely different level. I'll read the 14th verse, so listen. That's amazing.

 ... and you will be blessed. Although they cannot repay you, you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.

The moment of rebirth here is the time of the end of our lives being completed. We believe that at the last time Jesus is reenacted. There are people who argue that such stories only work in the mythological era, and that there is no point in this age of cutting-edge science. You make that argument in a very monotonous light of the world. The meaning of Jesus' reenactment is that all the secrets of the world, the secrets of life, are revealed. We don't know much about life and the world right now. No matter how advanced physics and biology are, they can't reveal their secrets. This may sound like a pun, but it's what physicists say. In the book "God, Human, Science," physicist and philosopher Hans Peter Durr explains the ultimate physics world by analogy with the ant colony. In some parts of Africa, there are large column size ant colonies of ants. If you look from a distance, it looks like you're standing still. As you get closer, thousands and tens of thousands of ants are intertwined. Now we look at the world from too far away and everything seems to be in a stable. And if you go very close, if you look at it with an electron microscope, you can see that almost infinite number of particles continue to appear, disappear, disappear, and then reappear. When the secret of the world comes to light, we will receive a reward that we never expected. What do you mean? It means entering the absolute world of life.

If you think today's words mean living by helping the poor and the disabled who cannot afford to pay back while waiting for the end, you know the part. If you know one thing, you may think God is worthy of us, but if you know the two, you are a very happy man, a blessed man. To know both is to know that the end of the resurrection is not only the distant future, but it is now. If he can pull the end of his life out of here now, he's already paid off. This is the preoccupation of the end. Some of you might think it's ambiguous to live with apocalypse. I think it's clear and unambiguous. For example, if you're actually aware that you're going to die tomorrow, you can live a whole different life today.

It's not easy to actually live that way, even if you know it clearly. A life full of resurrection, end-of-life, joy and freedom is not a word. I still have a small argument with my wife about nothing, and I feel uncomfortable when I'm with someone who's stubborn. There are many more people who live a lot more life-sufficiently in real life than I do in every week's plausible preaching. These are people who don't feel uncomfortable at the end, and don't want to be rewarded, just like the people in the text today. They've been paid back by the power of life that's already been completed at the end. Some people feel that they've already received it, others don't.

You've probably got a hold of what's at the heart of today's talk. It's not about being recognized or treated in the world, it's about relationships with God. Human relationships in the world are not that difficult. You can have a good relationship with at least personality and common sense. You can do it yourself. The most important thing is the relationship with God. That's because only there is a blessed life.