Advent Devotions

Today’s author is Prince of Peace’s Intentional Interim, Pr. Steve Sylvester.

“To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.” 1 Corinthians 12:7

A few weeks from now I will be having dinner with a friend with whom I have had a running debate about self-interest. He defines self-interest as a capitalist and maintains that the competing self interests of those participating in our economic system will result in an economy that is beneficial for everyone involved.  I come at my definition of self-interest from the perspective of how the phrase is used in community organizing.  The meaning of the word “self” is clear, but the word “interest” is a bit more complicated.  When broken down to its constituent pieces, we have “inter” and “esse,” or “between being.”  Self-Interest, then, is the self being between or among others. This would seem to imply that we have not competing self-interests, but cooperating self-interests.

In talking about the gifts of the Spirit, St Paul writes that “each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”  To understand why Paul wrote this, a little background is required.  Paul was writing to the Christian community in the city of Corinth because it was coming apart at the seams.  It was a community riven by factionalism.  There were rich believers and poor believers, mature believers and baby believers, spiritually “gifted” believers and run-of-the-mill believers. What Paul told them was that all together they comprised A community, and whatever blessings or gifts God gave were given not to individuals, but to the community as a whole, just as Jesus had come and was given not for some of them, but for all of them.  Long before community organizing was a thing, the Corinthian believers were selves being among others, holding God’s gifts in common.

As one of our Men’s Bible Study participants noted last Tuesday morning, we often obsess over the peripheral “who” and “what” of 1 Corinthians 12—two whom what gifts are given—and make short shrift of the core, which is the “why” of the gifts.  To be clear, then, all God’s gifts are given “for the common good.”  This can’t be overemphasized.  No gifts are given for self-edification.  No gifts are given for anyone to obtain righteousness.  Certainly none of God’s gifts are given for anyone to stand above another.  All God’s gifts are given for the common good.

It bears repeating: all God’s gifts are given for the common good.  As a me and Jesus society that is focused on individual rights and self-actualization, this is a difficult concept for us.  Well, perhaps it’s not a difficult concept to understand, but it is certainly one we resist embracing.   The prophet Isaiah anticipated us when he noted that, “All we like sheep have gone astray; we have all turned to our own way.”  But God calls the sheep into one common flock.  Here’s the thing, God won’t stop calling us back from the little corners we wander into.  Eventually, it will be as Jesus says: “My sheep hear my voice. I know them, and they follow me.” 

Confident in Jesus’ final victory over our self-centeredness, use this verse in 1 Corinthians as a mantra this week, “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”