"Variety"
January 25, 2009, Exodus 18:13-26, I Corinthians 12:4-13
The Reverend Thomas C. Willadsen
Today is a moment of transition in the life of our congregation. And this week, as a nation we experienced a profound and symbolically important transition as we inaugurated a new president. The day of the inauguration your Session met. Two things your Session did that may appear to be annual acts of administrative house-keeping were really quite important. The current Session examined the incoming Session members. Some years this is perfunctory-once I remember the new elders were asked to stand if they were heretics-none stood and the examination was suspended. This year's examination showed not only the deep commitment of those who have heard the call to ordained service in this congregation, but also the recognition that we need to take our service to the church more seriously. As the meeting ended the elders who were completing their terms of service were asked to share their thoughts-and their words were the prophetic words of challenge, again because of their deep commitment to this congregation.
This new year will be marked for this congregation by our thinking, planning and dreaming about the potential of the land we purchased. Your leaders saw an opportunity that really only comes around once a century, and as a congregation we acted decisively. And we recognized how richly we are blessed that we could act decisively. Jesus said that great responsibility comes with great blessing. As inheritors of great blessing, we must act prayerfully and responsibly as we use what we have been given to exalt our Lord Jesus Christ.
As I listened to our new president's inaugural address I was struck by how his words of challenge to our nation can also be seen as words of challenge to us as the First Presbyterian Church of Oshkosh, Wisconsin: "What is required of us now is a new era of responsibility - a recognition, on the part of every American, that we have duties to ourselves, our nation, and the world, duties that we do not grudgingly accept but rather seize gladly, firm in the knowledge that there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task. This is the source of our confidence - the knowledge that God calls on us to shape an uncertain destiny." This is exactly what the incoming elders-and outgoing elders said on Tuesday night! How long can we be guided by words of challenge and vision? The excitement of the parties and balls will end and we'll have to roll up our sleeves and get to work-but I hope we do not lose the vision and passion of the past week.
I chose our lessons for this morning without thinking that I would be preaching the Sunday after the inauguration. I was looking more closely at our congregational situation of ordaining two and installing seven other officers. In a very real sense we are bringing new energy and vision to our church's leadership. Kathy and Rosemary have been members of us less than a year. I think we should be proud of our openness to putting the gifts of our newest members to work right away in ordained service. Our other officers have been ordained before and in a sense are coming off the bench after some time off. In one case someone is returning to Session after 25 years off! Presbyterians understand the importance of new leadership, and the reality of wearing out too. We learned this from Moses, who learned it from his father-in-law, Jethro. To put this in modern terms, Moses was facing a case of professional burn out. "What you are doing is not good. You will surely wear yourself out, both you and these people with you." That last part is extraordinary, did you notice that it will not just be Moses who is worn out, but the people he is leading also will be worn out if he doesn't share the burden of leadership! Jethro then goes on to prove that he is the first Presbyterian-by suggesting a structure of committees that will reduce the burden on Moses. We laugh at ourselves because we have committees that meet and that takes up a lot of time, and sometimes committee work is frustrating. But far more often, when individuals bring their gifts and raise their voices and opinions, when we work and work together the results are so much better than any one of us could have accomplished alone. Our website, for example, included insights from many, many different perspectives. Getting it up and functioning was more time-consuming than anyone foresaw, but it's up and functioning now and it's fabulous. Presbyterians do not let people stay in positions of leadership indefinitely, our leaders move in and out. And power is dispersed in our system, so no one person can ever be in a position like Moses was.
The New Testament lesson is a word of great hope, but also of caution. These are very familiar words because we hear them whenever we ordain or install new leaders. One thing I want to make sure you all hear and understand is to each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. Every single one of us has gifts and those gifts are to be used for the common good. You don't have gifts just for your health, welfare and enjoyment-they are there for everyone. And our new president said Tuesday, "there is nothing so satisfying to the spirit, so defining of our character, than giving our all to a difficult task." Working hard, using one's gifts for the common good, feels good! Using one's energy, intelligence, imagination and love to serve others, is satisfying to the spirit! The caution I hear in this passage comes from the variety of gifts. To put it simply different people have different gifts. We all know that. Different leaders will approach leading the church in different ways. We all know that too. But it is the same Lord who is served...we should all cling to that understanding!
A couple years ago when Mary and I went out one night, the babysitter did the dishes. This was very nice of her, we hadn't asked her to do this, and we really appreciated it. But...I looked in the dish drainer and was completely baffled that she would stack the dishes as she had! All right minded people stack the dishes in the drainer as I do! Little plates here, little bowls behind them, big bowls, then big plates, plastic cups and saucepans go on top because they are not easily breakable. Everyone knows that! The dishes were clean, I put them back in the cupboard confident that they were cleaned, but how could she it that way??? Last fall when our Danish relatives visited the same thing happened. They were great guests, and they were conscientious and wanted to help out. Anne-Lise wanted to wash the dishes, or help dry the dishes, and she was too polite to say anything and her English wasn't very good, but you could just tell that she was baffled by how we wash the dishes. One difference: Americans rinse the suds off the dishes before drying them. The dishes are clean either way, but it's odd to see someone do a common task so differently. I have even heard that those who use dish washers are not immune from this kind of thing. Someone wrote to The Atlantic recently asking for a name for the urge to rearrange items in a dishwasher that someone else had put in. One of the responses was to call this "Obsessive-compulsive dish order." We can laugh about manifestations of variety like these. It is harder to see other instances of variety so calmly. As a congregation, you have elected these nine men and women to be your leaders. You put your trust and faith in their leadership and the gifts of the Spirit that they have been given. Who knows how their gifts will combine with those of others and where the Spirit will lead us all together? No one knows. Our new President calls it an "uncertain destiny. Yet we can be confident of the Spirit's surprising leadership in the year ahead.