Scripture: Acts 2:1-21
2:1 When the day of Pentecost had come, they were all together in one place.
2:2 And suddenly from heaven there came a sound like the rush of a violent wind, and it filled the entire house where they were sitting.
2:3 Divided tongues, as of fire, appeared among them, and a tongue rested on each of them.
2:4 All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other languages, as the Spirit gave them ability.
1st Corinthians 12:3b-13
12:3b No one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.
12:4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit;
12:5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord;
12:6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.
12:7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.
12:8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit,
12:9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit,
12:10 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.
12:11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.
12:12 For just as the body is one and has many members, and all the members of the body, though many, are one body, so it is with Christ.
12:13 For in the one Spirit we were all baptized into one body--Jews or Greeks, slaves or free--and we were all made to drink of one Spirit.
This Sunday is Pentecost Sunday, a very sobering event, a memorable day, if you understand what happened there. The world was changed. Just as when Jesus breathed His last on the cross, saying, "It is finished," so it might have been said at Pentecost, "It is begun."
Nowhere in that Acts passage do you find everyone speaking the same language, doing the same thing, wearing the same clothes, saying the same thing. They were suddenly all different, in ways that only God can create; they were different. And the passage in 1st Corinthians focuses on just how different we can be, with varieties of gifts, services, activities, and yet, and yet, the same Spirit, the same Lord, the same God.
So why do some of us go about demanding everyone think the same, speak the same, do the same things? If you don't worship exactly as they do in my church, you must not be of Christ.
Why, why, why do some of us run about shooting our own? Bad-mouthing our own? Damning our own? And that is going to draw those outside of Christ to Him? How does that work?
My wife and I lost a dear friend this week. She was such an important, supportive, loving part of our life; she and her husband were just so perfect together, who thought we would lose her so soon.
Don't get me wrong, we don't sorrow as those who have no hope. We know that one day, perhaps soon, we will see her waiting for us at the Garden Gate as we bask in the light and love of the God who loved us first.
But to be left behind on this rude earth, without her precious presence, is going to be so difficult for her husband who is ill, and for we who shared in the glow of her love of Christ, her integrity, her reaching out with the hand of Christ, the love of Christ, to all those around her. So difficult.
Such a death, such a loss, is a very sobering factor. It suddenly drives into harsh perspective all the silly things that go on day in and day out that we worry about, we argue over, we dread. It puts them into perspective, and reminds us of who we are, and the one whose sacrifice bought our freedom from sin.
As I write about her now, I remember so very well her smile that made everyone else smile, I can feel her hand on my shoulder, and I remember that she didn't worry about the little things. She left it all with Christ. And now that she's gone home, she has, indeed, left it all behind.
There were some things my friend was very good at, and some things she just would not even attempt. She knew she did not have to be all things to all people.
Don't we get caught up in that sometimes? Trying to be all things to all people? Christ doesn't require that of us, why should we expect it of ourselves? The foot isn't expected to scratch the ear. How should the elbow know what strawberries and cream are supposed to taste like? And when my ears can run as fast as my feet, maybe then I will agree we should be all things to all people.
If you read that passage in 1st Corinthians carefully, you see there are varieties of gifts, not all of which we as individuals are expected to have. There are different manifestations of the Spirit, one can do this, another can do that. We are different.
When I was a boy my grandmother used to make the best ginger cookies. She had a very old metal cookie cutter shaped like a little man. She would mix and roll out the dough, then *wump!* *wump!* *wump!*, she would fly across the dough with that cookie cutter turning out little cookie men, each one just like the other. There wasn't a dime's worth of difference between any of them. They looked the same, and when she took them out of the oven, each one tasted the same.
But our Lord is much more creative than that. There are no "cookie cutter" Christians, and our Lord didn't intend there to be.
Taken in total, we can begin to see the complexities of God, but not quite. Yet, we can see that although Almighty God has all gifts and all manifestations, it is enough that you and I have one. We are all part of the body, exercising what He has given us to do with the gift He has given us. I don't need to be able to do all the same things all of my friends can do through Christ. I'm not meant to. Neither are you.
God is complex. We are not. Just as His thoughts are not our thoughts, so His abilities, His gifts, His manifestations, are not ours, nor should we seek them. His plans for us are sufficient, and whom He selects for this task or that one, He equips. His grace is sufficient for us. Glory in what you have. Pentecost reminds us that our God has gifted us, and that we have His permission to be different from our brother or our sister.
It's when such a friend as mine goes home to Glory, goes home to be with Christ, that we suddenly realize not only the loss of companionship, but the loss of that God-given gift our friend exercised. In my friend's case, among her many talents, she made the best cookies in the world. And I know it's true not only from my own gluttonous tasting, but because everyone else said so, as well. So it's not just her smile and her accepting, loving, reassuring presence I will miss, but the sumptuous taste of the best cookies in the world.
Just as there are no cookie-cutter Christians, this world will not savor again those heavenly cookies she would make. Although, could it be there is a new sweet aroma permeating the realm of Heaven? She did so love making cookies. And she did so love her Lord. What better combination than that?
All I have to offer Him is my brokenness, my love, and my devotion to Him. I can't even make Him cookies. But He still loves me. And He loves you. I hope its mutual. The cookies can wait.
Amen.
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