"THE CHIPPING OF THE CHURCH"

Today is Pentecost Sunday - that day when the Christian church remembers and celebrates the coming of the Holy Spirit. The usual reading for this day comes from Acts 2, in which the disciples are gathered - hiding actually - in an upper room in Jerusalem...waiting. For what, they weren't quite sure, but they were waiting...when suddenly, the Scripture says, a sound like a mighty wind came into the room and they saw tongues of flame over everyone's head, and they began to proclaim the Good News about Christ to people from many different nations, who had gathered in Jerusalem to celebrate a Jewish feast day, each in their own familiar language! The Holy Spirit didn't slip into town quietly but, rather, burst onto the scene that day so long ago.

This Pentecost Sunday, however, I'm not going to talk about wind and flames and tongues. Instead, I want us to think about chips. No, not Fritos or Tostidos; that's probably not what they were eating in the upper room! Those who know me and my rabid anti-technology attitudes will be surprised to learn that I'm talking about computer chips. Whether you love computers and all things technological or...like me...you believe they are tools of the devil...the reality is that we have all been chipped!

We already have a computer chip in our cars and our stereos, rice cookers and telephones. Lots of folks have one in their car key. It's in there: a small, silent sliver of silicon - a tiny chip of embedded thought. Someday there'll be one in soup cans, light switches, shirt hems, drill presses and even basketballs. There are over 10 trillion objects manufactured in the world each year, and the day will come when each one of them will carry a silicon chip.

The whole world is becoming chipped, at an astounding rate. Some of these are dumb chips, like the chip in your car's brakes. It's no notebook computer chip, sophisticated enough to do word processing, floating-point math, spreadsheets or video games ... no, it's a dumb chip, devoid of intelligence except for the wit needed to stop your car on a dime. And hey, that's okay with us, right? When we're about to rear-end someone, we want our brakes to prevent disaster, not produce a document.

Other, somewhat smarter slivers of silicon are perched in the locks of hotel doors, blinking and beeping when we slide a key card to gain access to a room. Still other chips are almost clever enough to be a banker, doing their duty in the smart cards that we use for financial transactions every day. Because they have limited functions, and can be produced in great quantity, these chips are ultra cheap to make - even less than a ball bearing. "Since they can be stamped out as fast and cheap as candy gumdrops," says Kevin Kelly, founding editor of "Wired," an edgy magazine for those who are connected, "these chips are known in the trade as 'jelly beans.'" Dumb, cheap, jelly bean chips are invading the world faster than personal computers did.

Like it or not, we've been invaded - invaded by computer chips. Kevin Kelly says "First, we'll put jelly bean chips into high-tech appliances, then later into all tools, and then eventually into all objects. If current rates continue, there'll be some 10 billion tiny grains of silicon chips embedded into our environment by 2005". The world is rapidly becoming chipped, and these silicon slivers are going to be with us for a long time, opening doors, moving money, tracking packages, stopping cars, and making rice. We can welcome them or resist them, but we can't escape them.

Something similar was happening in the first-century church, as the Christians living in Corinth discovered their spiritual gifts. "Now there are varieties of gifts," writes Paul in 1 Corinthians 12, just as there are varieties of computer chips. "To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, to another the working of miracles, to another prophecy ..." and so on. The Scripture explains that God is "chipping the church" by giving individual members a variety of amazing gifts, gifts that are as new and remarkable as the variety of silicon slivers that are entering our society today. Through the power of these spiritual gifts, the church is equipped to do some magnificent ministry in the world.

But as St. Paul writes these words, he is concerned about this innovation, just as we might be concerned about the sudden "chipping" of products around us. The apostle is worried that newer Christians may still be under the influence of the multi-god religions they had known...where there was great emphasis put on spiritual sensations, ecstatic experiences that were intensely personal, and did not connect the adherent to the larger body of believers. In their former spirituality, the diversity of the private experience was stressed at the expense of the unity of the communal sharing of the spiritual gift. This, to Paul, is thoroughly unacceptable in the Christian community. Throughout his letter to the Corinthians, Paul emphasizes that the purpose of a spiritual gift is for the building up of the church, the body of Christ. The Spirit, while manifesting itself in different ways, intends to draw everybody together into a unified community.

To Paul, a divided church is no church; it is like an assortment of isolated computer chips with no connection, or a cell phone with no network. Again, Kevin Kelly explains, "Putting a dot of intelligence into every object we make at first gives us a billion dimwitted artifacts." In the same way, putting a gift of the Spirit into every Christian at first gives us a billion slightly spiritual Christians. Truly great things can't happen until these gifts are somehow linked.

In the chipping of the church, as in the chipping of our modern world, connection is the key. There is something mysterious that happens when we take large numbers of little things and connect them all together. When we take the dumb chip in each cash register in a store and link them, we have something more than dumb machines: We have real-time buying patterns that can manage inventory.

If we take the dumb chips that regulate the guts of an automobile engine, and let them communicate an engine's performance to a mechanic, those dumb chips can smartly cut expensive car repairs.

In the same way, when we take the spiritual gift in each member of a church and link them in a congregation, we have something more than a group of spiritual people. We have a teaching/healing/miracle-working/spirit-discerning organism that can minister powerfully to the community at large. Connection is of supreme importance. The message of Paul is that the body of Christ needs to be both chipped and connected, a process that can change the world. Now note that what is linked in the church is a variety of gifts. Each of us has been chipped in a different way, so uniformity is not to be expected or even desired. In fact, if each of us contained the same sliver of silicon, we would not be able to perform the multitudinous ministries required of a church in our complex and chaotic community and world! Diversity must be valued, since each of our gifts comes from the same Spirit, and each is directed toward the building up the same body of Christ.

Every person has a gift to offer the church, a gift that has a distinct and definite role to play in ministry, so there should be no rivalry, discontent or feelings of superiority in the community of faith. As Paul says to the Corinthians, there are "varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good."

When these gifts are linked together in the church, something mysterious happens. Large numbers of people with a variety of gifts come together to produce an explosive effect not otherwise possible. In other words, the sum is greater than the parts. Once again, in the church as in computer chips, connection is key.

This is the way of the world, it seems. The way that God intends us to be. Just look around, and you'll see that links are everywhere. Again Kevin Kelly says, "Our brains tap into dumb power by clumping dumb neurons into consciousness. The Internet banks on dumb power by connecting dumb personal computers. A personal computer is like a single neuron in a plastic box. When linked by the telecosm into a neural network, these dumb PC nodes create that fabulous intelligence called the World Wide Web."

When Christians are linked by the Spirit into a community of faith, their individual spiritual gifts create a fabulous power called the body of Christ. Looking around this church, you can see that we have wonderful variety, but the Spirit makes us one in Christ. Each of us may look like a different sliver of silicon or a different style of cell phone, but together we are linked by one divine network and activated by a single source - the Holy Spirit of God! Within the Christian community, we are unified in our wonderful diversity, connected by one Holy Spirit, and chipped with many different gifts. So don't ever think, for one minute, that you have nothing to offer.

Church...you've been chipped - ALL of you. And everyone is not only invited but needed to be a part of the Holy Spirit network! Amen. (This sermon was adapted from material provided at Homiletics online.)

Amen and God Bless.

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