Pentecost 8 (NL4) John B. Valentine
1 Corinthians 12:1-11 July 19, 2026

“COLORING IN THE KINGDOM”

So we’ve been walking through this biblical book called “First Corinthians” for a couple of months now ...

This letter from Saint Paul to the folks who comprised the church in the Greek city of Corinth ...

During which time I’ve been confronted with at least a half-a-dozen biblical texts that I’ve never-ever-ever preached on before.

But that’s not true about what we’ve looking at today ... not by a long shot!

You see ... I don’t know how many of you remember it still ... I don’t know how many of you were actually around for it ‘back in the day’ ...

But once upon a time we did a whole stewardship campaign ... a rather memorable stewardship campaign ... focused on the words of this morning’s scripture reading ...

Those words “To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

THOSE words became our theme ... our slogan ... our lens for self-understanding ... at least for a season or two.

But that was twenty years ago ... two decades even ... and I can’t help but think that some of you might need a little refresher on that message.

Heck ... some of you might benefit from hearing those words again ... because you aren’t the same person you were ‘back in the day’ ...

And some of you weren’t around here ‘back in the day’ ... and are right now wondering “What the heck is he talking about?”

But in order to do that ... I’m going to have to bust out ....... A BOX OF CRAYONS!

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This ... my friends is a box of crayons ... a sixty-four box of Crayola Crayons.

When I was a kid ... a 64 box of Crayola Crayons like this one was the real deal!

Sure ...

• There was the eight pack ... with green and blue ... and purple and orange ... and red and yellow ... and brown and black. (That was the minimum required pack which you HAD to have in your pencil box on the first day of school each year.)

• Then there was the sixteen pack ... which added white and pink and grey ... if I’m not mistaken ... along with some of those ‘hyphenated’ colors’ ... blue-green, green-blue, yellow-orange and the like.

• There was the twenty-four box ... which about all my mother would ever spring for on our ‘back-to-school’ shopping trips ... the thirty-two box ... the forty-eight box ...

• And this one ... the cat’s meow .... the creme-de-la-creme ... the ‘alls you could hope for’ ... the sixty four box with the built-in crayon sharpener!

Nowadays ... if the internet is to be believed ... you can actually purchase a one-hundred-and-fifty pack ... but that’s another story.

But whatever size box of crayons you had ... and/or have ... was there not something a bit awe-inspiring about opening a brand-new box of Crayola crayons?

Seeing them all lined up so nice and neat ... ... all the same length ... with their mint-condition tip and all ...

Smelling that smell that is so nostalgic and so unique that Crayola actually trademarked it!

But this box doesn’t contain just sixty-four crayons and a whole bunch of memories ...

No ... this box contains a whole bunch of insights into this morning’s scripture reading ... that text from 1st Corinthians ... chapter twelve!

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Lesson Number One ...

YOU have a gift ... a gift that was given to you by God.

That is what Paul means when he writes:

“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.”

You see these crayons here in this box ....

YOU are one of these crayons here in this box!.

• You have a color ... as it were.

• You are created by God ... and empowered by the Spirit ... with a gift ... or gifts ... that are unique to you.

• You might be similar to some other crayons in the box ...

• Who you are ... and what you bring to the table ... is ultimately not “yours” per se ... but God’s. You are a gift that comes to us from God by way of you.

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Now the second insight is really more akin to a ‘Lesson Number One-A’ than a ‘Lesson Number Two’ ...

And that is the gifts you have ... the gifts with which you have been gifted ... the gift that you are ...

• They weren’t chosen or preselected by you ....

• They were chosen and preselected by God!

They weren’t ... and aren’t ... gifts YOU got to choose.

You see ... in the grand crayon box of life ...

God didn’t pull you aside before you were born and say: “I want you to take a look at all these different colors and pick the one that you think is the prettiest or the most intriguing or the most important ... and I’ll let you be that one.”

No ... in the grand crayon box of life ...

God pulled a crayon out of the box and said “I’m gonna call this crayon ‘You’” .... you Barbara and you Herb and you Diana.

Not that there aren’t a bunch of competing messages out there in the world about this subject ... voices telling you that you can be whoever and whatever you want to be ...

But these words of 1st Corinthians declare in no uncertain terms that God is the One who shaped you and made you in a way that pleased God!

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Now ... ‘Lesson Number Three’ is maybe the ‘bad news’ lesson.

The bad news is that no matter how one holds this crayon ... no matter how hard one presses it to the paper ... no matter what the artist does ... this particular crayon will only ever color cornflower ... whatever exactly ‘cornflower’ is.

• It does you no good to WISH that you were a red crayon.
• It does you no good to TRY to be a red crayon.
• It does you no good to even ASPIRE to be a red crayon

You weren’t designed and created to color fire hydrants and lipstick and Nebraska Cornhusker football jerseys.

On the other hand ... if you were dealt ‘cornflower’ as your particular gift ...

• You were designed to color in the sky of a warm and cloudless summer’s late afternoon.
• You were designed to color in the faded denim of a teenager’s well-worn jeans.
• You were created to color in the backs of a couple of those thick theological books that line the shelves of my office.

All your wishing and trying and aspiring to color red ain’t gonna amount to a hill o’beans!

The only thing you get to color is ‘cornflower’ ... that’s it, that’s all and so be it ... in spite of the fact that there may be people out there in the world who say:

• “I don’t really like cornflower” ... or
• “Cornflower is so boring” ... or
• “Cornflower isn’t a real blue ... at least not like regular blue or midnight blue or navy.

The best you can do is figure out how to be the best ‘cornflower-colorer’ you can be ... and that’s all.

Just an aside ... I’ve got to tell you ... one of my most memorable ‘Holy Shepherd’ moments was that skit that Joe Zingale and Russ Bliese did ... wherein ...

Both of them walked out ... dress up in crayon suits with construction paper crayon hats ... as “Mister Brown” and “Mister Gray” ...

And they got to lamenting ... like a couple of Eeyores ... about how all they ever got to color was dirt and tree trunks ... and sidewalks and rainy day skies ...

All-the-while pining for the day when they might get to color a Ferrari like Miss Red did.

But the point of that skit was ... and is ... that recognizing that you’re part of this here box of crayons has to do with acknowledging your limitations.

That’s the “bad” news ... or at least the “sobering” news ... that is ‘Lesson Number Three’.

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But there’s some good news in this box as well ... which is ‘Lesson Number Four’.

And it’s about being ‘church’ ... and ‘church together’ ... and ‘church for the sake of the world’.

You see ... “coloring in the Kingdom of God” does NOT mean that now we’re just going to expect that any of you color the whole page ‘cornflower’ ... any more than I color in the whole page ‘raw umber’ or anything like that.

Ours is NOT to color a monochrome portrait of just any ONE color ... be it your color or my color or any other one color in the box.

Rather ... the work of the church ... the work of ministry ... has to do with equipping and encouraging and enabling each and every person in this room ... including we four-year-olds or ninety-four year olds ... to use the colors that THEY are ... the colors that God has gifted us with IN THEM! ... to color in the Kingdom TOGETHER.

You see ... there’s not a person in this room who doesn’t have an essential color to add to the picture that God has set before us together!

For what was it that Saint Paul?

“To EACH is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.”

Your color ... my color ... your neighbors’ colors are ALL essential to the true work of the church.

• None of us can say “I don’t really have much to add to the picture” ...

• None of us can say “My color is really the only color that matters” ...

• None of us can think too highly or too lowly of our own gifts and talents and abilities ...

• And none of us can think too highly or too lowly of any of the gifts and talents and abilities that anybody else brings to the table either.

For all of us are created and called and gifted by God ... not for our own self-aggrandizement ... but the good of the whole community ... for the mutual building up of the Body of Christ.

For:

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. But to each is given some manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.

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So let me leave you with just one more thought.

Do you know what a ‘perfect’ crayon looks like?

Does it look like one of these brand-spanking new crayons that have yet to come out of this box???

Or does it look a lot more like a crayon which is worn-down by service ... with torn paper and rounded edges ... by having been actually been utilized for the purpose for which it was created ... by having given the full measure of itself to coloring-in the Kingdom???

Think on these things .........