Skill Building

Skill Building

Mar 20, 2022

1 Corinthians 10: 1 - 13

The pandemic has done crazy things to our economy.  Two years ago, everyone was staying home and not traveling or going out to eat.  All of a sudden, too much gasoline was being produced, and too many people were employed in the entertainment and travel industries.  So major pieces of our economy cut way back to try to balance the changes in our behavior.  But suddenly the need for face masks and hand and spray sanitizers mushroomed way past our industries scaled-back capability to produce them.  And people panicked and purchased way too much toilet tissue and whatever else was rumored to be running low, making everything crazy in the stores.

Now that we seem to be coming out of the worst of our pandemic, we want to buy and do everything that was not available last year, catching the laid-back businesses off guard.  The out of sink supply chain makes endless problems until every component of our society and economy gets back in balance.

In addition to that, we face a massive shortage of available skilled laborers because we have been telling everyone to go to college so that we can keep our hands clean.  That is what makes the WorldSkills Conference so interesting.  What is the WorldSkills Conference you ask?  It’s basically the Blue-Collar Olympics.

In Calgary 2009, the United States medaled only in Welding and Auto Repair.  So disappointing.  We seemed like a lock in Sheet Metal Fabrication, but Chinese Taipei really brought it.

WorldSkills 2011 in London, had our Pastry Cook team vowing to bake up a gold. 

This coming October 13 and 14 in Shanghai will be the 46th Worldskills competition.  We will see how the United States can do this time around.

This is no joke.  The biannual trade-athalon is actually a serious international showcase of skills on which our societies and civilizations depend.

Here’s some background:  In 1946, skilled laborers were in huge demand in Spain, but the labor pool was shallow.  José Antonio Elola Olaso led a campaign convincing students and their parents, teachers, and prospective employers that the path toward future opportunity ran through the trades:  woodworking, welding, mechanics, etc.  He created a skill competition featuring 4,000 Spanish trade apprentices.

That first event has now evolved into the international WorldSkills Competition held every two years.  Participating nations send their best and brightest 17- to 22-year-old laborers to compete in a litany of “who-knew-that-was-a-sport?” events.

Bricklaying.  Cooking.  Fashion Technology.  Auto-body Repair.  Web Design.  Plumbing.  Computer Networking.  Landscaping.

It’s like rolling shows from the Food Network, DIY Network, Lifetime and Discovery Channel all in one two-day competition.

Imagine the Hair Styling category, and yes, it exists.

“Okay, contestants.  You have 20 minutes to accomplish the following:  Give a tantrumming toddler a haircut, recommend product to the soccer mom with split ends, perm Grandma for bingo night, and buzz-cut this platoon of soldiers.”

The Table Waiting competition includes events in serving food, wine knowledge, identifying alcoholic drinks, and folding napkins.

“Waiters, when the gun fires, you must race to fold these napkins into a swan, a rose and a fine-dining triangle.  Then prepare 20 napkins for ‘all-you-can-eat ribs’ night.  Bonus points are awarded for your creativity in the final fold, an interpretation of the 1950s-diner napkin.”

But anyone who has waited tables can tell you what serious work it is.  Same with welding, landscaping, and catering.  WorldSkills not only showcases the skills of these trades; it seeks to promote skill development within these careers.

Inspired by WorldSkills, perhaps we could hold the 2022 ClergySkills competition for young seminarians.  Events could include:

• Finance Committee Management:  Budget Cut and Special Donation Allocation categories;

• Angry Youth-Group Parent Diplomacy:  Phone Call, E-mail and Office Visit;

• Preaching Illustration Generation:  Gossip Less, Tithe More, Volunteer With Kids, Memorize Scripture;

• Situational Public Prayer:  Marrying, Burying and Blessing the Potluck.

The Clergy Multitasking competition would be like our marathon.  In one 10-hour workday, you must disciple one new Christian, meet with the elder-board chair, provide premarital counseling to a couple, attend a prayer meeting, make two hospital visits, clear your inbox of 143 new e-mails and flesh out Sunday’s sermon with vulnerable personal stories, exegetical nuggets, and deep, reflective insights.

All of the foregoing is a prelude to St. Paul’s discussion of an essential skill for Christian living in today’s text.  He’s already done a little hermeneutical work on the exodus journey as a way to encourage us to learn from Israel’s past.  And his endgame isn’t a lot different from those trade competitions:  skill building.

How skilled are we in resisting temptation?  How do we rate in self-discipline and self-control?  Have we developed the ability to delay gratification?  What is our aptitude for saying “no” to ourselves and “yes” to God’s vision for us?  Can we use God-given tools to protect our character?

St. Paul wants the Corinthians to develop new skills in resisting temptation, so he gives them a practical theology on the nature of sin as a motivation.

Sin is unoriginal.  We need to learn from the past.  The same stuff that snagged Israel can snag us today:  idolatry (v. 7), sexual immorality (v. 8), impatience (v. 9), and complaining (v. 10).

Satan is boringly predictable; he hasn’t had any new temptations in years.  The writer of the Gospel of John summed up his Big Three as “the desire of the flesh, the desire of the eyes, the pride in riches” (1 John 2:16).

Call it what you want:  Passion, Position, and Possession.  Sex, Power, and Money.  Sensuality, Status, and Salary.  To feel, to have, and to be.

These are the same temptations that Adam, David, and Jesus experienced.  They’re basically Israel’s vices that St. Paul recounts.  Although the specifics may change, it seems like the Big Three is all that the devil has working for him.

The Problem is, they work.

So let’s find inspiration in St. Paul’s reminder:  “No testing has overtaken you that is not common to everyone” (v. 13).

In other words, countless believers who have gone before us have faced the same thing.  If we don’t learn from their past, we’re likely to make it our future.

Israel didn’t learn from their past, creating the Old Testament’s missional mishap:  Israel became the new Egypt.  Instead of learning the evil of oppression and injustice from their captors, the Israelites ended up repeating it later when they ignored the prophets’ cries to care for the poor, the alien, the widow, and the orphan.  Their idolatrous worship became just as disgusting to God as the polytheistic religion of Egypt was.

The captives were set free only to become the unwitting captors of others.  It’s called repeating the sins of our fathers.

Pastor Peter Scazzero [Emotionally Healthy Spirituality] puts it, we need “to go back in order to go forward.”  Most discipleship looks only at the sins of our spiritual family — those who preceded us in Scripture.  As the child of a Mafia-boss father and a passive, codependent mother, Scazzero suggests that we need also to examine our earthly families of origin.  They’re the ones who taught us a lot of our junk!

He has his staff and congregation do genograms — family tree diagrams that chronicle virtue and vice across the generations.  A big-picture look at our stock gives some amazing self-awareness into our subconscious patterns and motivations.

Conflict-avoiding parents raise kids who avoid conflict.  Financially shrewd families usually develop generations of financial health and stewardship.  If Grandpa, Uncle Bill, and Mom were all control freaks, don’t beat yourself up for being wound up yourself.  This sort of stuff is as natural as your hair and eye color.

Sin is unoriginal, so we should take St. Paul’s lead and be students of how others before us have gotten caught up in its clutches.

Develop some sin awareness as a means to building the skills to resist it.

Sin is a choice.  But we also need to remind people that there’s a difference between sin and temptation.

Jesus was tempted yet we say that he was without sin.  It’s possible.

There’s a difference between feeling hungry and eating.  Between yawning and lying down to sleep.  Between being approached by a door-to-door salesperson and saying, “No thanks.”

The offer of sin and the acceptance of sin are different.  We shouldn’t ever feel guilt or shame when we’re tempted.  That just means the devil thinks we’re enough of a threat that he feels the need to derail us.

St. Paul says, “but with the testing…” — meaning that testing and temptation are assumed givens — “God will also provide the way out so that you may be able to endure it” (v. 13).

This verse is loaded with practical theology!

First, God is faithful.  This doesn’t mean that God created humanity and then sat back laissez-faire-like, as in the deistic picture of the old, white-bearded god in a celestial rocking chair.  No, God sees our temptation, meets us in it, and remains faithful to battle it with us.

Second, God limits temptation so it’s never beyond our ability to resist it.  God knows what we cannot endure and prevents us from experiencing it.  There is never a “no-win situation” because God won’t allow it.

That also means that “the devil made me do it” is garbage theology.  Let’s never again let that be said in our church.  Sure, the devil can tempt you.  But he can’t tempt you so much that you are “made” to sin.  It’s always a choice.

Resisting temptation is like going to the gym.  There is a maximum amount of resistance you have previously been able to bench press — say 200 pounds.  That means there’s no point in putting 300 pounds on the bar.  It would crush you.  But there is merit in putting 210 pounds on the bar.  It stretches your limit and pushes you to develop new strength.

Developing more strength and developing deeper and stronger abilities to resist sin are really similar.  Perhaps God allows us to face more at certain times so we can resist more in the future.

Third, God promises to provide the ways for us to resist.  God has given us several tools to avoid the temptations that come our way:

• Instruction from the Scriptures (v. 11) to make us wiser.

• That gut-check of conviction reminding us what is right and wrong.

• Natural consequences to be avoided.

• Memory of the pain of our past failures.

• Accountability through vulnerability and seeking help.

• Memorized Scripture to combat temptation.

• Prayer for strength and the prayer of others supporting us.

But none of these things is forced on us.  Sin is a choice because our ability to resist it is a choice.  God has “provided” the way for us to endure temptation, but that way is ours to seize.  Sin resistance is a skill we must build.

Look, it isn’t the end of the world when we sin.  We’re imperfect, and we mess up – probably daily.  But we also need to know that God’s grace doesn’t just forgive us, it empowers us.  God graces us with the ability to resist sin in order to live more satisfying lives.

We are tempted; we don’t have to sin.  Don’t be like the dieter who altered his daily drive to work to avoid passing his favorite bakery.  But, one morning he accidentally drove by the bakery.  As he approached it, he saw a host of goodies in the window; he figured that it was no accident, so he prayed, “Lord, it’s up to you.  If you want me to have any of those delicious goodies, create a parking place for me directly in front of the bakery.”

And sure enough, on the eighth time around the block, there it was!

Don’t let the hairdressers and bricklayers be the only ones showing off their skills in October.  For our own sakes and for God’s kingdom, let’s go to work learning and practicing resisting temptations.  Sin is a choice; let’s choose to follow God’s plan for our lives.  Let us choose to overcome evil temptation.  Let us choose life.

                                                                                                Amen

Sermons/1Cor10_1-13.3c22

Sources:

Bell, Rob, and Don Golden. Jesus Wants to Save Christians: A Manifesto for the Church in Exile. Grand Rapids, Mich.: Zondervan, 2008.

Scazzero, Peter. Emotionally Healthy Spirituality: Unleash the Power of Life in Christ. Nashville, Tenn.: Thomas Nelson, 2006. worldskills.org.