January 22, 2023
I Corinthians 12:1-12
Introduction
Several years ago the Harvard Business Review ran a piece entitled: “Are you proud of how you’re spending your time?” In the piece, Elizabeth Grace Saunders challenges her readers to think deeply about how they spend their time while urging us to stop doing only what is immediate, and “start intentionally investing in what’s most important.”
She writes “There’s a difference between what is most immediate and what is most important. Answering that email, for example, is really not as important as helping your son with his homework, and watching your daughter show off her new soccer moves.”
Saunders encourages us to prioritize family and friends, take vacations, stay healthy through self-care and hobbies, and then finally to “know ourselves.” Know when we are veering away from the important, know when we need to take a break, know when the important parts of life need us to be fully present. She continues, saying, “It is easy to lose track of who you are, what you enjoy, where you are in life and where you are going unless you purposely and intentionally take time to reflect and know yourself, and then intentionally act in ways that are best for you and those you love.”
*******
Saunders’ insightful urging, while certainly relevant today, isn’t exactly new. The Apostle Paul had this same concern, which is why he writes the Christians in Corinth about the gifts of the Spirit. Paul wants this church to not only be faithful, but he wants them to be proud of how they are spending their time. Paul wants the Corinthians, and us, to make sure we are using our time, focusing our energy and work in faithful and intentional ways so that we are caring for those we love, for ourselves, and for what we have over the past couple of weeks been referring to as, the common good.
Move 1
In recent years, when it comes to considering the questions around how we spend our time, a couple of new terms have come into our lexicon.
The first term to come about is “shadow work.” This term is used for those duties that were once done for us by someone else, but are now done by us ourselves. Examples would be, we buy furniture and we assemble it ourselves; or instead of calling a travel agent we book trips ourselves. A most prominent example of shadow work nowadays is the grocery store where we both scan and bag our own groceries.
Craig Lambert has written a fascinating book called Shadow Work: The Unpaid, Unseen Jobs That Fill Your Day that chronicles these examples and more, particularly the shadow work that has been creeping into our daily work duties where companies have been slowly asking, if not requiring, workers to do more with, and for, less. This has become prevalent in numerous work places with employers not just giving employees more work, but more work they were never hired to do, while also creating a toxic culture of expectation that implies doing more and working longer hours for the same compensation is an “honorable duty.”
And we won’t even get into the additionally toxic expectations that a worker will forgo self-care and responsibilities and interests outside the work place.
Consequently, this toxic expectation of shadow work has led to an associated new term for our lexicon… Quiet quitting. Quiet quitting is happening with employees that are no longer willing to give into these toxic expectations. So they simply, and quietly do the job they were hired to do, working the number of hours they were hired to work, but no more. Certainly not going above and beyond. And the reason for this, as the Pew Research has found, the expectation to do more for less is unfair, there has become a lack of opportunities for advancement, it lead to feelings of disrespect and being taken advantage of.
Now, to be clear, I am simply presenting these terms for our consideration about time, and how we use our time. I will admit I hold the belief both exist, however, I am not using either term as a blanket issue in all work places; and I am certainly not absolving one side; nor am I castigating blame on the other. The truth is, both are true in some places, while in others these terms have been weaponized as a means of deflecting from other realities.
The reason I bring these terms into consideration today, in light of our text from the Apostle Paul, is because we all must consider the question, “Are we proud of how we are spending our time?” Over the past two decades, as technology has taken off, new tasks have been crammed into our already full to-do lists and Lambert’s book forces us to look at the consequences of all this “shadow work.” He writes, “Shadow work makes us not just busier, but exhausted and isolated. We are interacting more with our screens than with other humans, and we are doing it at unreasonable hours.”
We don’t have to share Lambert’s alarm to avail ourselves of his useful lens, but before we can hope to rebalance our time, we had better first understand how we actually spend our time.
Which brings us to the question we must all ask ourselves: How are we actually spending our time? Are we spending it in the ways we want? In the ways we are called? Are we spending our time busier than ever, exhausted and isolated? Are we spending our time doing only what is necessary? Are we, to call back our consideration from the last couple of weeks, spending our time for the common good?
Move 2
In our text for today the Apostle Paul is talking about time. Paul talks about the time when the Corinthians didn’t know who Christ was. But now, in this time, they do know who Christ is.
Paul talks about the time when they were enticed and led astray by false gods—gods that were useless and only robbed the people of time serving the common good. Paul talks about the time now, being aware of Christ, aware of their abilities and gifts from the Holy Spirit that has called and empowered them to serve the common good.
So what does this time of working to serve the common good look like? Paul says that “to one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit.”
New Testament theologian C.K. Barrett breaks down what this means when he states, “The utterance of wisdom has to do with ethical matters while ‘the utterance of knowledge’ includes theological matters. Ethics talks about what we should do, while theology talks about what we should believe— both doing and believing are important work, and both doing and believing serve the common good.”
Now while I believe today’s scholars have much to teach us, I do think some wisdom is shared better by others. And so I think what theologian C.K. Barrett is saying can be better said through the wisdom of Johnny Cash who warned people “not to be so heavenly minded that they’re no earthly good.” And Cash is right. Theological beliefs need to supported through faithful actions for the common good— otherwise people will rightly accuse us of being hypocrites.
Which means…We cannot just say we love our neighbors; we must actually perform acts of love. We cannot simply believe in forgiveness; we must forgive those who hurt us. We cannot only talk about justice; we have to do justice.
If our theological beliefs are not being backed by faithful actions for the common good, then are we proud of how we are spending our time? How could we be?
Conclusion
Paul tells the Corinthians, and tells us today, “Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone.”
Notice Paul is not saying our work is limited to a single gift, service or activity. Rather, there are varieties of gifts, services and activities— and what unites this distinctive kind of work is that it all comes to us from the same divine source.
And why is such given? “To each of us is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”
Our challenge then is to keep asking ourselves how we are using our time? Are we using our time on “shadow work” that convinces us it is immediate and causes us to miss the important.
Are we using our time to “quite quit” convinced we have done our part and anything left to do is someone else’s job to get done?
Are we using our time knowing what is important, who is important, while knowing what we need and what is needed of us?
Our time is a gift from God. The abilities to use our time faithfully comes from God— Creator, Son and Holy Spirit
From there it comes down to us, and our choices as to how we use our time. Will we use it doing shadow work? Will we use it to quietly quite? Or will we use it to serve the common good— the common good for our families, church, our self, and even the stranger?
When we consider time, and when we live into our time faithfully, then our answer to the question, “Are we proud of how we use our time?” will always be a resounding yes. Amen.
Pastoral Prayer: January 22, 2023
O God of our ancestors, of Abraham, Sarah, Miriam, Joshua, and Paul— you call us to reverence and praise, you call us to commitment and service, you call us to faithfulness and ministry to the common good. And though we aim for faithfulness, we admit, at times, we have lacked faith; we have been feeble and apathetic in our response to your gifts and call.
You call us to sincerity in our walk with Christ, but at times our discipleship has become routine.
Too often we have gone through the motions, rather than seeing each moment as an opportunity to serve you with our whole heart.
It is neither our plan, nor our intent for such, ever. We convince ourselves of our faithfulness, but sometimes we simply run out of energy, or will, or drive, or even time.
Which is when you once again shine forth the light of your loving justice—from which we cannot hide—and yet, in the light of your just love, we need not hide, for you already know the deepest yearnings of our heart, and you are gracious to provide the healing and forgiveness we need.
So we seek such, and pray for such, once again, here and now. For we long to be your people who see our time as a gift from you as well as an opportunity to serve you by serving those we love and serving those who need your love.
May you make such so, in all of us.
May you make such so in this congregation, with your loving spirit poured out again and again, that we all may use our time in faithful service together, harmoniously for the common good, and to your glory.
For we want to be your good and faithful church—a house that serves you.
So may we all be guided by you in all that we say and do, and may all that we say and do be a ministry for you and your world.
Here now our individual prayers, offered in this time of holy silence.
All this we pray in the name of Christ Jesus, our model of covenant leadership, who taught us to pray, saying, “Our…”