There is no "I" in Team

Baseball is a team sport, sporting nine players a team. Each player has a certain skill, and on a good team, the skills of all the players complement each other.

 

Some players can catch ground balls while others are good at catching them in the air. Some can throw the ball 95 miles per hour, and one, possible crazy, player catches those 95 mph fast balls with a piece of lumber whizzing by his head.

 

A team does well when each player is focused on the team goal, knows his role, trusts his mates and properly executes his role. It takes all nine to perform. No one person can do it all.

 

There is no “I” in team.

 

Today’s reading is 1 Corinthians 12:1-11. Paul is telling us that Christians have the Holy Spirit, and that the Spirit gifts us with certain abilities. We all have spiritual gifts, some of us have the same gift but none of us has all the gifts. Further, our spiritual gifts are not for our benefit, but the for the common good of the church.

 

The third petition of the Apostles Creed starts,” I believe in the Holy Spirit, the Holy catholic church, the communion of saints, … “

 

The Church is holy, that is set apart. It is set apart to carry out Christ’s mission. The Holy Spirit dwells in each of us, we have been gifted and we have a mission, but we are not in this alone.

 

We have teammates.

 

Like a baseball team, each of us needs to play our role and trust our teammates. We need to stay focused on the mission and to do that we need to properly utilize the gifts that we were given.

 

To know your role in the Church you must know what your gifts are.

 

There is no “I” in team, but there is an “I” in gift.

 

Do you know what your gifts are?