The Common Good
1 Corinthians 12:1-11[1]
Over the course of about a thousand years, the work of the
church evolved from being something that was primarily the work of the people
to being something that was exclusively the work of priests. In fact, there
were times when the priests were the only ones in worship. For centuries, most
people actually went to church only on Easter Sunday. A typical Sunday in
“church” saw the priests and their assistants working at the altar. If anyone
happened to be sitting in the church to pray, the priests might not even have
noticed, because they would have been facing the altar, with their backs turned
to the rest of the church. You can see a remnant of this style of worship
practiced still to this day in Orthodox Christian Churches. The priests do a
lot of their “work” in leading worship facing the altar.
When the Protestant Reformation came along, the idea of the
“priesthood of all believers” emerged as a foundational principle. Especially
in the Reformed branch of the Protestant church under John Calvin, where the
origins of Presbyterians lie, the idea was that the work of ministry belonged
to everyone in the church. And those Reformers changed worship completely to
focus on the reading of scripture, the singing of songs, hymns, and even the
Psalms, and preaching. All of that was, of course, directed toward the
congregation. Those who were doing the reading, singing, and preaching faced
the people.
Today we’ve celebrated this aspect of our roots in the
Presbyterian church. By ordaining and installing elders and deacons to serve
the people of this congregation and this community with “energy, intelligence,
imagination, and love,” we celebrate our belief that the work of the church doesn’t
belong to some exclusive class of priests. Rather, the work of the church
belongs to us all. But then that also puts us all on the spot, to some extent.
Because in the Presbyterian church, we believe that we’re all a part of the
work of this church. We all have a role to play, and unless we all play our
roles, we cannot fully carry out our ministry as a church.
Some of us might object that we don’t have the skills or
the training to do the work of ministry. In our Scripture reading from 1
Corinthians for today, Paul reminds us that we already have all we need to
fully carry out the ministry of this church. He says it this way in our reading
for today: “God’s various gifts are handed out everywhere; but they all
originate in God’s Spirit. God’s various ministries are carried out everywhere;
but they all originate [with the Lord Jesus Christ]. God’s various expressions
of power are in action everywhere; but God himself is behind it all” (1 Cor
12:4-6, MSG). One of the reasons why Paul was addressing this topic is
because some in the church at Corinth were claiming that their “gifts” were
superior to the others. Paul made it clear that there’s no room for that kind
of thinking in the body of Christ. In the body of Christ, every member is
important.
Throughout his letters, Paul makes it clear that all of
life in the church is the result of the work of the Spirit of God. When the
church thrives, it’s because the Spirit of God is working among us and through
us. When the church comes together in a way that unites believers from across all
the lines that would divide us, it’s the work of the Spirit of God. When the
members of a congregation like this one share in the serving one another and
the community around us, it’s because the Spirit of God has enabled us to do
so. For St. Paul, every aspect of the church’s life and ministry comes from the
Spirit of God. And part of the point of this is to assure us, just like those
early believers at Corinth, that God’s Spirit is indeed working among us and
through us.
Perhaps the most surprising element in all of this is the
fact that God has chosen to accomplish this work through people like you and
me. And to do this, he gives us the “gifts of the Spirit,” which Paul says are
given to each person “for the common good” (1 Cor. 12:7). In The Message
version we read together this morning, it says it this way: “Each person is
given something to do that shows who God is: Everyone gets in on it, everyone
benefits.” In other words, every single person in this church has some
“gift” from the Spirit that is to be used for the benefit of the whole church.
But that also means that for the church to thrive all the members of the body
have to share the gifts they have been given. We may have a variety of gifts,
but all of them come from the same Spirit and are meant for one purpose: to
build up the body of Christ.
I think one major mistake people make when they try to
figure out what their “spiritual gift” might be is that they try to see where
they fit into the lists of gifts mentioned in the Bible. But I don’t believe
Paul ever intended for the gifts he named to be taken as the only ones out
there. They are examples of the ways that the Spirit of God was working through
people in the churches of his day. To be sure, some of those gifts are
timeless. There will always be a need for teaching. There will always be a place
for generosity. There will always be a call for leadership. But I would say
that your “spiritual gift” might not even be in one of the biblical lists. That
may make it a little harder to discern how you fit into the body of Christ, but
it also gives you the freedom to be the person God has called you to be in
building up the body of Christ.
One of the challenges facing most churches like ours is
what might be called a “generational shift.” Many of the people who have been
doing the work of ministry may no longer be able or available to be as involved
as they once were. And the families who are mostly being served by the church
are reticent to step up into leadership roles, because their lives are pretty
hectic already. As a result, there are “jobs” in the church that may fall by
the wayside. It may leave some of us wondering “whose job is this?” It seems to
me that Paul gives us at least one piece of helpful advice: the Spirit of God
has given us all gifts to be used “for the common good” in building up the
church. If I may be so bold, it would seem to me that his answer to the
question, “whose job is this?” would be, “It’s our job.” All of us. Today, we
celebrated that aspect of our faith by ordaining and installing a group of
people who stepped up and said “yes” when they were asked if they would serve.
But whether or not you’re serving in a formal role, we all share the same
calling: to serve one another and this community with the gifts God’s Spirit
has given us.
[1] ©2026 Alan Brehm. A sermon delivered by Rev. Alan Brehm PhD on 1/25/2026 for
Hickman Presbyterian Church, Hickman, NE.
