Talents & Spiritual Gifts
6/03/02 

To my mind Bev Cosby was one of the best preachers I ever heard. Until his untimely death from a heart attack in January, he had served as pastor of Church of the Covenant in my hometown of Lynchburg, Virginia for forty years. Many of you have probably heard of Bev's more famous brother, Gordon, co-founder with his wife, Mary,  of Church of The Savior in the nation's capitol.  

Bev used to love to tell the story that when he was in seminary he was told by one of his homiletics professors that he was such a bad preacher he didn't see much future for him in the pulpit. Bev actually agreed with his professor's evaluation, but he could not shake his sense of call to congregational ministry. So upon graduation he came back home and started Church of the Covenant. 

During my years as Chaplain at Lynchburg College I often attended Church of the Covenant because of my relationship with Bev in the inner city ministries we worked on together. One Sunday as I was leaving the room used for a sanctuary in the big house that was Church of the Covenant, Sam Cardwell, president of a local bank, turned to me and said, "There couldn't have been a better sermon preached anyway in this country today than that one."

I have no doubt that Sam spoke for everyone present. In fact, his words reflected what I felt every time I heard Bev preach. His sermons stirred my soul, opened fresh ways of hearing scripture texts, and always made me re-evaluate my life and my priorities. I never heard Bev preach that I didn't feel like I had caught a glimpse of a modern prophet in the biblical tradition who loved his people enough to tell them the truth. I never heard him preach that I didn't sense that I was in the presence of the Holy, that this man was Jesus speaking to me in my own time and place in history. I never heard Bev preach that he didn't help me connect with God.

Yet by homiletical standards Bev didn't have the "equipment" to be a great preacher. No exceptional oratory skills, no voice to envy, no powerful presence. He preached from a manuscript and read every word. An extreme introvert, Bev was quite open with his feelings of inadequacy in preaching. Every time he could get out of it he did. But for me no one has ever come close to being the preacher he was.

Bev Cosby was a marvelous example of the difference between using a talent and exercising a spiritual gift. Bev didn't have the talent for preaching, but he certainly had a spiritual gift for it, and I believe that gift was humbleness. His sense of inadequacy led him to a dependency on God in every aspect of his ministry, especially preaching. That was the key to his being the instrument of the Spirit he was. I have never known a more  humble man. When he was named one of the most influential people in central Virginia he was embarrassed. More than once he told me that he ran scared every week as he got ready to prepare a sermon. That is why he always set aside an entire day for prayer and scripture study in the trust that this alone time would give birth to the words and Word he would speak on Sunday.

Perhaps there is an irony in Bev's example. A spiritual gift is often expressed in a form of ministry about which one feels abject inadequacy. This suggests that spiritual gifts don't come to us by seeking them. They emerge because of a need in ministry. And in that way they witness to the One upon whom we are dependent for life itself. 
 
Jan Linn - Spirit of Joy Christian Church, Apple Valley, MN