Prayer: Come Holy Spirit, come.  Take my lips and speak with them, take our minds and think with them, take our hearts and set them on fire with love for you.  In Christ’s name, we ask it.  Amen.

One of the many opportunities that I enjoy during the summer months is participating in summer camp ministries. This summer I was blessed by directing a high school camp at Camp Allen and also serving on staff for a week at a junior high camp at Camp Capers. During my week at Camp Allen, our Christian education program was called “The Quest.” The purpose of “The Quest” is to help the participants discover God in the lives of ordinary people. We accomplish this end by having the participants assume different identities and then role play as that particular person. During the week, the campers became senators, persecuted Christians, painters, and blind people. It was this last identity, being a blind person that was most powerful for me to watch as the leader.

What we did was told campers that a disease had contaminated the water system at Camp Allen and that they had all gone to bed with everything seemingly normal, but had woken up blind. The staff then blind folded all the campers and we led them on a trust walk to the camp’s chapel which, like this church, is named All Saints’. Well those of you who have been to All Saints’ Chapel at Camp Allen know that this is no small outdoor chapel but instead a giant, cavernous worship space that can hold more than 1200 people for a service at any given time.

After we arrived at the chapel, we had the campers sit on the floor in a corner blind-folded for many minutes. We then told them that the building they were in was no longer safe—that an earth quake was coming and that they had 20 minutes to get out of the building before it fell in on all of them. There was only one exit unlocked in the chapel and there were many obstacles between the campers and that one exit. And that’s all the help we gave them. We left them blind and to their own devices to get out of the building. Well as you might expect many strategies were employed by the campers. Some gathered in large groups holding hands or locking arms as they headed out in search of the exit. Others paired off and did the same. And still others set off individually in search of the exit to safety.

Now guess who made it out of the building first? Which strategy do you think was most effective in finding the exit—being in a large group, pairing off, or going it alone? Well the answer is the large groups were out first, the pairs second and almost without exception the individuals last. Apparently, the old adage is correct there is strength in numbers. You see the larger groups of campers had at least two things going for them that the individuals did not. First they had literally more heads to put together to create a more effective strategy of exiting the building. And second they acted with a boldness, if you will that the individuals did not. The groups of campers seemed less fearful of running into an obstacle or a wall. For a group, an obstacle became a challenge, but for an individual an obstacle was an unwelcome surprise and something to possibly even fear. In other words, within the groups, individual members offered each other encouragement, support, and hope which made the task a lot less intimidating and much easier to accomplish.

In today’s New Testament lesson from his letter to the Romans, St. Paul writes, “For as in one body we have many members, and not all the members have the same function, so we, who are many, are one body in Christ, and individually, we are members of one another.” In other words, Paul would say that there’s no such thing as individualized Christianity. We are not individuals, each operating independently on a solitary quest for meaning and purpose. For Paul, meaning and purpose are found within a group of people—a community made up of relationships. Said another way, Paul would argue that each individual finds his or her place of personal fulfillment within the context of the larger community.

Paul calls this community “the body of Christ” which we have come to know as the Church. In the church, there are many members having many different functions while, at the very same time, being intimately connected. The glue that holds this community which is the church together is unity of purpose—that purpose is our common proclamation that Jesus Christ is Lord. Moreover, Paul tells us that each individual in the church is given access to “gifts” that are to be used for the benefit of the larger community. Individual gain is not the purpose of our spiritual gifts. Instead, God’s grace and love embodied in our spiritual gifts flows through us on its way to blessing someone other than ourselves.

One of the keys to a healthy functioning community of faith, then, is for each member to discover and live out the gifts that God has given them. Paul lists several gifts in this passage: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion. The list isn’t supposed to be exhaustive. There are many other gifts that are exercised by individuals in the life of the church. What’s clear is that no matter what the gift is—whether it’s private or public, big or small, upfront or behind the scenes—every Christian is gifted for something that will benefit the larger body. The community of faith is not dependent on just a few professionals like clergy to make things work. It takes the whole body, working together, to achieve the larger purpose of representing God’s presence and power in the world. Our responsibility, as individual members of Christ’s body, is to use whatever gift we have for the glory of God and the good of our fellow humans.

There’s a story about New College which is one of the schools at Oxford. Evidently there were beetles infesting the oak beams that supported the roof of the college’s Great Hall. The cost to replace them on the commercial wood market would be prohibitive, so the College Forester was summoned. The Forester was in charge of managing the many tracts of land that had been given to the college over the centuries. The Board of Trustees of New College asked the Forester if he knew of any trees that would be suitable for the much needed repairs. Well it just so happened that there was a stand of massive oak trees that would be perfect. These oaks had been planted when the college was founded and had been preserved from logging for centuries according to the instructions handed down from one Forester to the next. You see unknown to anyone else in the college’s leadership, each new Forester was given these instructions: “Don’t cut those oaks down; those are for when the beetles get into the beams of the Great Hall.”

You see the college had the resources it needed to maintain itself without even knowing it. At the very beginning of the institutions history, the founders of the college had already made adequate provisions for its future. The same is true for the Body of Christ, which is the church. Through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit, every individual in the church has been given a gift that when nurtured, matured, and used for the welfare of the greater good allows the Church to live into its calling. That calling is to be a center of love, healing, and redemption in this world.

Within this community of faith, the Episcopal Student Center, we have all the necessary gifts to live into the call that God has put on our collective lives. We can be a faith community that is at the center of countless meaningful and life giving relationships. We can be a place were people can grow significantly in their knowledge and love of the Lord. And we can create an atmosphere of hospitality and love in this place that welcomes people from many diverse backgrounds. We are an immensely talented group of people. Remember there is strength in numbers. Together, with God’s help, we can boldly accomplish more than we could ever think or imagine. We can see miracles in this place everyday. I’d like that. How about each of you? Do you want to see miracles? Do you want to see lives transformed? Do you want to see healing happen?

The first two verses of today’s passage from Romans are my two favorite verses of scripture in the New Testament. They have been ever since my Youth Minister introduced me to them in Middle School. In particular, these words have always spoken to me, “Do not be conformed to this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your minds—so that you may discern what is the will of God—what is good and acceptable and perfect.” Our consumer culture wants you to use your gifts and talents for one end—personal gain. Every time we use the gifts God provides us with for the acquisition of wealth, power, fame, or status, we are conforming ourselves to this world. On the other hand, every time we use those same talents for the welfare of the greater good, we are transformed just a bit more into the person that God created us to be and because we are part of a larger community that community also lives a bit more into its holy calling.

As we come to the beginning of a new year, I think it is a good and right thing for us all to think about how we plan to use our God given gifts and talents in the coming year. Perhaps you will consider using yours in this place. For I am convinced, that working together, with God’s help; we will see miracles happen in this place everyday. Amen.

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