"Pursuit of the Common Good"

Lectionary Reading
First Corinthians 12:7-11

"To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good.  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, to another the discernment of spirits, to another various kinds of tongues, to another the interpretation of tongues.  All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses."

“Pursuit of the Common Good”

The Apostle Paul’s letter to the Corinthians provides the kind of counsel about spiritual gifts that would be good for any person of faith to measure themselves against, especially in terms of how one uses one’s gifts to better the common good. The context for this portion of scripture is that the Corinthian Congregation had lost track of the need to improve the common good. Displacing that important work was an unfortunate spirit of competitiveness among the Corinthian members over who possessed the most and best of spiritual gifts. Through his letter to the congregation, Paul worked to get the congregation back on track for the cause of the common good and God’s Peaceable Kingdom.

For me, not only is Paul’s counsel helpful when I need to get back on track but I also think of a humble and honorable elderly lay minister who died eleven years ago. His name was Harold Crooker. Harold entered my life in 1988 in Roseburg, Oregon when I was consulting with a congregation there in that community. Harold had heard of my meetings with the congregation and as he was a lay pastor for a small church in the nearby community of Klamath Falls, he wanted to observe and see what my consulting was all about. As things tended to go with Harold, he not only observed but he also did a fair portion of sharing while observing. It was the kind of thing I came to love and value in him and his ministry.

Eleven years later in Vancouver, Washington, at a congregation where we were both members, I found myself presiding over the sharing portion of Harold’s memorial service. What was remarkable about Harold’s memorial is that visitors from the community hugely outnumbered the members of the congregation and it was pretty much standing room only. Variously, individuals shared their stories of Harold. Some described him as the driving force in establishing the local interfaith association. Other’s regarded him as a tireless advocate for homeless men through which he committed himself to forging relationships with such wandering souls in hopes of stabilizing their lives and helping them find meaning.

Remembrances of Harold included mention that when the shelves of food banks ran low, he would go calling on influential persons in the community to get those shelves restocked. He also served for a number of years on the county’s mental health advisory board, a watchdog group of citizens overseeing the use of publicly funded mental health dollars. He also initiated the first Community Peace Symposium of the local interfaith association. One pastor from an African American church passionately referred to Harold as God’s “Hound of Heaven” for the Greater Vancouver area.

Harold’s efforts didn’t go unnoticed by the local newspaper either. A reporter had stumbled onto Harold’s good works a few years ago and sympathetic to Harold’s passions, he followed Harold around and reported on Harold’s efforts to better the common good in the community for the poor, the hungry, the homeless and hurting. He reported as well on Harold’s commitment to the causes of peace.

Harold once explained his philosophy of life to me, i.e. that he was put on this earth to help people get their needs met and if ever there came a point in life that he could not do that work any longer, he wanted God to take him home. So at 82 years old and experiencing severe limitations from the damage of two heart attacks in the year prior to his death, Harold couldn’t understand why he was still alive. He reasoned he couldn’t do anything more, so why was God keeping him alive? Perhaps it was too tie up a few loose ends.

One of those loose ends was Harold’s desire to be sure that our church would continue its interfaith involvement, so he twisted my arm to attend a few meetings with him prior to his death. At the last meeting that Harold was able to attend, he issued a final challenge to eighteen friends and associates from other faith traditions. The challenge was nothing less than that they stay the course toward peace and justice for all of God’s children. Harold then closed his remarks with bidding them all a loving and final good bye. I remember that so many of the folks at the meeting responded with denial that Harold’s days were drawing to a close, but Harold reassured the doubters that his time was at hand. One person did take Harold seriously. He was the outgoing president of the interfaith association and he put it this way to Harold, “We will hope to see you again dear brother, but if not then go with God, and know that our prayers go with you as well.”

Dozing in front of the television two weeks later, Harold gently slipped from this life into the next. The “Hound of Heaven” had been taken home while he slept. Romantic notions have always left me thinking that at the moment of passing, Harold was greeted with nothing less than, “Well done good and faithful servant.”

Harold’s life witness was nothing less than prophetic in bettering the common good. Through it all he demonstrated the spiritual gifts of wisdom, vision, love, faith and healing. Harold should be example for us all. I know that he is for me.