Varieties of gifts, 1 Corinthians 12:4-11

1 Corinthians 12:4-11 (NRSV)

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

When we think deeply about the differences between people, we see that there truly are "varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit." Unfortunately, it can be hard to create the time and the space to think in these deep ways. All too often, it is in the midst of the busy-ness of our lives that we encounter someone who is unlike us in some way and we react with a lack of charity and patience. In Corinthians, Paul recognizes the diversity of the members of the church in Corinth, and is striving to help the people there to recognize that difference can make the whole body stronger, and that these differences can be Spirit-filled.

When we turn to God, and when we reflect deeply upon the ways that the Spirit has given us each gifts, we find that it is really ok, and also quite wonderful that we don't need to be all things to all people. We don't each need to have all the gifts under the sun, but we do need to be open enough and respectful enough of one another to recognize the gifts that they have, and the gift that they are.

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

Psalm 146: True happiness

Psalm 146 Lauda, anima mea

1	Hallelujah! Praise the LORD, O my soul! * I will praise the LORD as long as I live; I will sing praises to my God while I have my being.
2	Put not your trust in rulers, nor in any child of earth, * for there is no help in them.
3	When they breathe their last, they return to earth, * and in that day their thoughts perish.
4	Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help! * whose hope is in the LORD their God;
5	Who made heaven and earth, the seas, and all that is in them; * who keeps his promise for ever

"Happy are they who have the God of Jacob for their help!

whose hope is in the LORD their God."

As often as we may read the scriptures, pray, and go to church, it can become easy to place our hope in earthly things. Of course, this is quite natural, because earthy things are all around us, the government, the corporation that helps to bring power to my house, the trees which offer me shade, the birds that sing outside my window, the people who built my car to keep my family safe as we drive the highways and byways. We are surrounded by earthly things, and we rely on them, we trust them, we even may say that we have "faith" in them.

However, earthly things do fail, and then we are left with the sense (perhaps) of our hope being rattled and shaken. The world is full of beautiful things, and yet, we are all too aware of the ways that rulers, nations, corporations, and even nature can cause suffering and be deadly.

The psalm this morning offers another way of thinking. The psalm offers a song of praise for the Lord, and reminds us as we pray it that the Lord made heaven and earth and if we truly want heavenly happiness, we are to place our hope in God. For someone who's world is jammed full with the things of the world, this may sound insane - "I can't see God," "I can't sense God," "How can I put my hope in God?" However, offering praise for God, and entering into a place where we can experience the Glory of God will, indeed, embolden our hopefulness, and will offer us true happiness.

~The Rev. Peter M. Carey

A Gift of Love on Ash Wednesday

Last week was the final week in the season of Epiphany and the readings were all about the Transfiguration of Jesus, that strange and wonderful story when Jesus went up a hill and when he came down, the disciples all saw that he had been transformed. This week, I heard a wonderful homily in our chapel given by The Rev. Gary Jones, the rector of St. Stephen's Episcopal Church here in Richmond in which Rev. Jones reflected on whether Jesus had been changed, or whether it was the perception on the part of the three disciples that had been changed. It seems likely that (at least) their perception had changed, that they saw the reality of Jesus in a clearer way, not through a glass darkly, but clearly, as Jesus truly was - fully God, fully human. There are those moments, the homilist continued, when we see the world in this clear way, when we see the way that all the people around us are gifts to us, that they are beautiful, and we see that we are one in the Spirit together. Of course, these times do not always last, but they do happen, and are important to reflect upon as we move from the Transfiguration into Lent.

The Transfiguration is still on my mind because Lent began for me in a rather unorthodox way. This would be my first Ash Wednesday as a priest and in the midst of a terrible sinus cold, I went to our chapel to change the colors of the liturgical hangings over from white to purple, and I set out the ashes, ready to be blessed, and I did it all in a kind of a haze as I was still laboring under a low-grade fever and a stuffed head. That was Tuesday night.

I was ready, more or less, to lead three Ash Wednesday services for our school community and had ashes ready, more or less, for about 900+ students, faculty, and staff.

Well, sometimes (as the cliche goes) life happens when you're making other plans. In the middle of the night of Ash Wednesday 'morning' my wife awakened me to say that we'd better head off to the hospital, because our little girl insisted upon coming into the world on this holy day -- and perhaps also insisting upon coming into the world on a somewhat inconvenient day for her 'new' priest daddy!

So, at 2:30 am, I blessed the ashes, and emailed my fellow chaplain and chapel coordinator and gave some instructions...and we were off to the hospital.

Our little girl, Lily, was born on Ash Wednesday, and I (once again) saw the world clearly, remarking at the miracle of the care of nurses and doctors, cherishing my wife and her willingness to literally share her body for these many months, and the care and compassion of family who watched our two older sons (2 and 4) while we were at the hospital for the last few days.

I don't know how love can work like this, but it is expansive, and can grow deeper and wider than we can even imagine. As I watch my newborn sleep, I imagine just a bit of what God must feel as he watches us, and loves us too.

So, I enter Lent not having "done" Ash Wednesday in the traditional way, but, I have received the gift of perception, the gift of transfiguration, and the gift of knowing a bit of Godly love, even in our broken and hurting world. I pray I can hold these gifts lightly and carefully as I move through these forty days.

The Persistence of God: Prevenient Grace

I have long given thanks for God's persistence in calling people into action to bring about God's Kingdom. In my own life, God has time and again called me to worship, to follow, and to serve God. God's Grace is ever-present, and sticks to us like fly-paper, theologians call this "Prevenient Grace," (going back to Augustine of Hippo) ... God's action in our lives moves alongside us and is wrapped up in our lives. God's persistence in calling Samuel is clearly evident in this morning's reading from the Scriptures in the Daily Office:


1 Samuel 3:1-10
Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the LORD under Eli. The word of the LORD was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.
2 At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room;
3 the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the LORD, where the ark of God was.
4 Then the LORD called, "Samuel! Samuel!" and he said, "Here I am!"
5 and ran to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call; lie down again." So he went and lay down.
6 The LORD called again, "Samuel!" Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." But he said, "I did not call, my son; lie down again."
7 Now Samuel did not yet know the LORD, and the word of the LORD had not yet been revealed to him.
8 The LORD called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, "Here I am, for you called me." Then Eli perceived that the LORD was calling the boy.
9 Therefore Eli said to Samuel, "Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, 'Speak, LORD, for your servant is listening.'" So Samuel went and lay down in his place.
10 Now the LORD came and stood there, calling as before, "Samuel! Samuel!" And Samuel said, "Speak, for your servant is listening."

Compost and Flowers

The wise wise Buddhist teacher Thich Nhat Hanh has written much about the connection between the flowers that we enjoy and the nutrients that flowers attain from compost, manure, or other natural fertilizers. Today, as a part of our moving process, I finally put into the ground a bunch of compost that we had been creating from our leftover food waste (for more info on why to do composting, watch Inconvenient Truth!). And, man was it NASTY smelling! Yuck!

I pulled the old trash bin out of the ground and dumped the compost into a section of our little yard that will be (for the next tenants) a wonderfully fertilized section of soil, rather than a brick-like section of Virginia clay. That bin smelled like a port-o-john!





After this terribly stinky work, I went out the front door, and what had the earth offered up after a weekend of soaking rain, but an incredible flower. The connections between decay and growth, between the everyday and the holy, between death and resurrection are profound, and perhaps all around us, if we have eyes to see. That is my hope.