Scripture: 1 Corinthians 12:1-11 In the world of professional tennis, Naomi Osaka quickly gained a lot of attention as a prodigy and the next big thing. She started competing professionally at the age of 15. While still a teenager she began qualifying to compete in grand slam event, the highest level of play in professional tennis. By the age of 22 she was ranked as the number one women’s tennis player in the world and she was considered one of the most marketable athletes out there. In 2020 she ranked eighth in the number of endorsements from companies. However, in 2021 she stepped away from tennis. In explaining her reasoning for this decisions she said, ““When I win, I don’t feel happy. I feel more like a relief. And then when I lose, I feel very sad, and I don’t think that’s normal.” Tennis had more or less been or life and it was no longer a source of joy in her life. Fortunately, after a hiatus she did eventually find her joy and returned to tennis, but that is not always the case. At high level competition, athlete burnout is a problem.
However, this is not an athletics problem. It is an issue that can impact a lot of young people who are gifted in some way. A lot of young people who are labeled gifted and put into accelerated programs or who train and practice at high levels can experience extreme burnout later in life. This is common enough, that it even has an official name of gifted kid syndrome. Gifted kid syndrome is when a child that's endowed with above-average abilities becomes exhausted as a result of too much pressure from unrealistic expectations they set for themselves or others place on them. The pressure and expectation to always preform above average means that doing so feels like doing the bare minimum and anything less than being the best of the best feels like failure leads to exhaustion and burnout. Gifted child syndrome happens because a person with above average abilities also gets saddled with above average expectations that no one can realistically achieve. I think in churches we tend to have the opposite problem. The problem we tend to have is that in our faith no one tells us that we are gifted, and so expectations of what we are capable of are low or nonexistent. No one tell us we are gifted, so it becomes the natural assumption that we are incapable of doing something truly special. Yet, this morning’s scripture flies in the face of that because this morning’s scripture tells us that if a faithful follower of Jesus then you are gifted. Verse seven of this morning’s scripture states this explicitly: “Now to each one the manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good.” All disciples of Jesus have spiritual gifts. We are all gifted. The question this morning’s scripture should leave us considering is how then, are we going to use those gifts? In the bible we have two of the letters that Paul wrote the church in Corinth. 1 Corinthians is very much a letter written to a specific church, in a specific place, to address specific questions. We know that it was part of an ongoing conversations with the church, because Paul references other letters he wrote them that we do not have. This had led biblical scholars to believe that this morning’s scripture is the beginning of an answer to the question that Paul received from the church about spiritual gifts. That is why it begins with verse 1 with the “Now about the gifts of the Spirit.” While we do not know the exact question Paul was asked, biblical scholars have tried to reverse engineer what the concerns of the church in Corinth were based on Paul’s response. In general, 1 Corinthians is written to a church with a lot of internal division. This church seemed to struggle with taking sides and with keeping an attitude that treated all members of the church as valued and equal. Based on this morning’s scripture, the question related asked to Paul about spiritual gifts seems to be along the same line, because he is quick to emphasize that no gift is more important than the other and that spiritual gifts are found in all the believers not just the special. While that is the main point that Paul seeks to make in this morning’s scripture, it is easy for that point to get muted and for us to get lost in the weeds on this scripture. A lot of energy around this morning’s scripture gets directed to the so-called charismatic gifts such as miraculous powers, prophecy, and speaking in tongues. The inherent supernatural aspect of these mentioned gifts tends to garner a lot of positive and negative attention, but when our focus is caught up there not only do we miss the main point that Paul was trying to make, but we overlook some of the other lessons this morning’s scripture teaches us about spiritual gifts. Instead of focusing on the specifically names gifts in this scripture, we can focus on what this scripture says about spiritual gifts in general. There are three general lessons we can learn about spiritual gifts from this morning’s scripture. First, Spiritual gifts are of God, not of us. As Paul wrote in verse 4, “there are different kinds of gifts but the same spirit distributes them.” A spiritual gift is a manifestation of the Holy Spirit. It is the Holy Spirit actively at work in and through our lives. This means that spiritual gifts are not natural talents we are born with like a good singing voice or that they are skills like throwing a fast ball that can be developed with practice. Spiritual gifts might work to our strengths, but a spiritual gift is not something we have power over. It is not something that we can control and pull out of our back pocket like a party trick. Spiritual gifts are the ways that the Holy Spirit empowers us. This morning’s scripture was not meant to be an exhaustive list of the ways that the Spirit empowers people. This morning’s scripture is not the only list of spiritual gifts found in the bible. Spiritual gifts can, from outward appearances, be quite mundane. Perhaps those times when we did not know what to say, but we ended up saying the right thing to help or comfort someone was not just dumb luck, but it was the Holy Spirit working through us and using us to make a difference in someone else’s life. Whenever we do something with the help of God, that would have been beyond our ability without God’s help, then that is a spiritual gift at work in our lives. The second general lesson that we can learn about spiritual gifts from this morning’s scripture is why the Holy Spirit empowers us in the first place. It does not matter how common or fantastic the spiritual gift is, they all come from the same source for the same purpose. Verse six states “There are different kinds of working but in all of them it is the same God at work.” Spiritual gifts exist not to glorify us but to glorify God. They exist to fulfill God’s purposes. Spiritual gifts are the way that God enables us to be his hands and his feet. They are they the way that God equips us to join in God’s mission to bring about redemption on the earth. Spiritual gifts are the very power of God in us that God uses to transform the world and build for God’s kingdom. If we wish to experience the empowerment of the Holy Spirit and spiritual gifts in our lives then we must be willing to follow and join God in what God is doing in the world. The third general lesson about spiritual gifts that we should take away from this morning’s scripture is Paul’s main point. Because it is all the work of God for the glory of God and the purposes of God, no spiritual gift is above any other and to each one a manifestation of the Spirit is given for the common good. That means, that you-yes you, are gifted by that God. It means that if you allow it, then God can use you to do something beyond yourself. You are gifted, and through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit you truly are capable of making new disciples, you are re capable of tending to the hurts of others, you are capable of enabling someone else’s dream, or you are capable of transforming this world to be more like the kingdom of God where justice rolls down like a river, righteousness like an ever flowing stream, and love is over all. Gifted child syndrome is when someone has above average ability and then tries to meet unrealisitic expectations. There is another phenomenon that happens though, when someone else assumes an individual to be gifted. This phenomenon is called the Pygmalion effect, and I think this effect speaks to how we should treat spiritual gifts. I think one of the more fascinating studies that shows this is the Rosenthal-Jacobson study that illustrated what they came to call the Pygmalion effect. In this study an academic competency test was given to all students in an elementary school. The scores were not shared with teachers, but the teachers were given the names of some the students and told that these students showed potential from the test to be intellectual bloomers over the school year. The same test was administered at the end of the school year, and those identified to the teachers as potential intellectual bloomers performed well above the other students. The thing is the students that were shared with the students were picked at random with no regard to how they actually did on the first test. The highlighted students were not really more gifted or intelligent than the group. The difference in performance was less based in the ability of the students but rather based in how the teacher treated them. Higher expectations lead to an increase in performance. The teacher believed the highlighted students were better and treated them as such. The result was a self-fulfilling prophecy where they really did become the highest achieving students in the class and this is the essence of the Pygmalion effects. When someone else believes we are capable of meeting a higher standard they end up helping us reach that standard. Friends, we can be gifted by God to accomplish God’s purposes on earth. We should believe in one another that God can use each of us. As a faith community we should be each others greatest encouragers. All of us have the capacity to be empowered by the Holy Spirit to truly transform this world, so we treat each other as if we each have the capacity to change the world for the better. We should believe in each other, and we should encourage one another to take big steps of faith that can make a real difference. We can expect that God can use us, and in holding one another to that standard. When others believe that we can do so something then, the Pygmalion effect shows that we are more likely to achieve that standard. This morning’s scriptures that we can all be gifted by the Holy Spirit, and if we believe that about one another then we are likely to allow ourselves to be used by the Spirit and empowered by the Spirit. So you may you believe that you are gifted. May you believe that through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit God can use to do more than you believed possible to accomplish God’s purposes. May you be willing and open to be used by God, and may we believe that those sitting next to us in the pews can be used by God. May we encourage one another, may we cheer for each other, and may push one another to do incredible things for the kingdom of God. Through the empowerment of the Holy Spirit may you use your gifts to make disciples of Jesus Christ for the transformation of the world.
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