“Spiritual Gifts” Colchester Federated Church, November 23, 2025, Thanksgiving Sunday (1 Corinthians 12:4-11)
For this year’s pledge campaign, we have been contemplating how we are beautiful parts of a whole. We have visualized how we are individual squares within a larger quilt, knit together as a community of faith. As Tom wrote in our pledge campaign letter:
Just as the body cannot be comprised of all one part, similarly a quilt with a large variety of colors, patterns, and stitching is often much more beautiful, meaningful, and inspiring than one with a singular color where all the panels look the same. Through the use of our gifts of time, talents, and treasure, we each provide a singular, beautiful panel to the quilt of Colchester Federated Church, and without each panel our quilt would not be complete.[1]
Whenever this passage from 1 Corinthians Chapter 12 comes up from the Apostle Paul we can be reminded that Paul is focusing on the gifts that God’s Spirit gives to individual Christians for the well-being of the whole community. Paul is stressing that all of these gifts ultimately come from God. Therefore, these gifts are not in competition with one another.[2] Because “there are different spiritual gifts but the same Spirit; and there are different ministries and the same Lord; and there are different activities but the same God who produces all of them in everyone.”[3] We are in this life together because though there are different spiritual gifts, different ministries, and different activities, we are still talking about all of this coming from God. God is the source of spiritual gifts.
Our pledge campaign theme of beautiful parts of a whole and Paul’s metaphor of spiritual gifts and the Church as the Body of Christ reminds me that one of my basketball coaches growing up always said that “we win as a team, and we lose as a team.” Instead of making someone a scapegoat and blaming one person for a loss (no matter what may have happened during any given game), the challenge was to look at how you function as a team and as individuals within a team. We were encouraged to view ourselves as parts of the team, knowing that the team would not be the same without each player. Everyone had a role to play on the team.
Now depending on the sport, this is not necessarily an easy mindset to have. Some would not agree with my old coach’s philosophy. Because maybe you are a football kicker who misses the long field goal at the end of the game. Maybe you are a shooting guard who misses that last second shot. Or maybe you are a batter up at the plate with two outs in the bottom of the ninth and the bases loaded. Let’s say you miss the kick wide right, you miss the shot as it bounces off the rim, you strike out at the plate—it is so easy to turn to that person (even if you’re on the same team) and think that you just cost us the game. You as an individual failed, and that individual failure caused the team to lose. But I wonder what that mindset does for team morale.
Part of what we can take from Paul’s words this morning is that when it comes to church—we win as a church and we lose as a church. As the Body of Christ, we are many members. We are diverse, and we are in this together. We’re not all hands or feet or ears or eyes. If we were a football team, we’re not all quarterbacks or wide receivers or linebackers. If we were an orchestra, we’re not all violins or pianos or oboes. If we were a choir, we are not all sopranos because those sopranos need altos, tenors, and basses to have a beautiful harmony (especially the altos)!
The point is that we have different gifts and passions. We are different people. Who wants to be part of a team or an orchestra or a choir or a church where everyone’s exactly the same? It wouldn’t work, and it would be really boring! Having diverse gifts within the Body of Christ is necessary. It’s what makes us special as a congregation following in the Way of Jesus Christ. It’s what makes us beautiful parts of a whole.
Paul reminded the Early Church that we have apostles, prophets, teachers, folks who perform deeds of power, healing, forms of assistance, forms of leadership, and various kinds of tongues. We don’t all have the same gifts—God has established this diversity of gifts within the Body of Christ. Paul was emphasizing not privileging some gifts over others. We need apostles, prophets, teachers, and healers just as we need hands, feet, eyes, and ears for our own human bodies. We’re not all the same. And this is a good thing when it comes to Christian community.
Instead, Paul emphasized mutuality—that we need each other in order to function. When the Romans and Greeks used the body metaphor they would use it conservatively, saying that if the hands and mouth would revolt against the stomach, the body would die. The societal order that’s been established is natural and good. If you’re a hand be content with being a hand. Don’t try to be a mouth, that’s not your place. And it’s your responsibility as the hand to feed the mouth, otherwise the body will starve.[4] Though the metaphor was used to keep the status quo in an unhealthy way. It was almost used as an admonition to know your place and know your role so you don’t step out of line.
Paul does the exact opposite, reminding people, “So the eye can’t say to the hand, ‘I don’t need you,’ or in turn, the head can’t say to the feet, ‘I don’t need you.’ Instead, the parts of the body that people think are the weakest are the most necessary.”[5] Paul taught that we shouldn’t prioritize eyes over hands or the head over feet. We can’t say that we have no need of each other because it’s just not true. And sometimes those members of the body that appear weak are of the utmost importance. Instead of thinking about who has the better gifts, let’s consider that we’re different and we need each other in order to be the Body of Christ. We win as a team and we lose as a team.
In the end, there are many ways we can think of our congregation and the roles we play and the gifts that we offer. Paul’s metaphor of the Body of Christ and spiritual gifts present within the body remains powerful. It somehow still works to think of ourselves as one body with many individual members. Because we are beautiful parts of a whole. Thank goodness we are not all apostles or prophets or teachers. Thankfully we have diversity and various gifts we bring through those big green doors whenever we gather as the Body of Christ here at Colchester Federated Church. What a gift. Thanks be to God. Amen.
[1] Tom St. Louis, 2026 Pledge Campaign Letter for Colchester Federated Church.
[2] Footnote on 1 Corinthians 12:1-11, The CEB Study Bible with Apocrypha, pg. 324 NT.
[3] 1 Corinthians 12:4-6, CEB.
[4] Footnotes for 1 Corinthians 12 in The Fully Revised Fourth Edition of the New Oxford Annotated Bible, NRSV.
[5] 1 Corinthians 12:21-22, CEB.
Lauren Ostrout ~ on being made well 