The Gift of You
Epiphany - January 6, 2008
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Please note: The following sermon is provided as a resource for the thought, prayer, and meditation of the members and friends of St. Mark's. It is the residue of a verbal event, and thus it does not have academic footnotes and other details that would be expected in a written document. The writer gladly acknowledges the prior thought and work of many Christians before him. |
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When a couple's first child was born, a close friend, a retired English prof, came by and presented a gift. It wasn't yet another little outfit done up in pink or blue; it was a book, wrapped in fine paper, tied with a bow. What a surprise it was to the couple when upon opening the package, they discovered that it was an old leather-bound copy of Shakespeare's plays. What a strange gift for a baby... an old book, written in archaic language, given to a baby who will not be able to read it for years to come.
I can remember a very similar event from my own childhood. When I was about 6 my grandparents with whom I lived gave me a hardcover book with the spine in blue leather. There were only a couple of lithograph drawings in the entire book, and no glossy color illustrations. The book contained three classics by Mark Twain: Tom Sawyer, Huckleberry Finn, and the Prince and the Pauper. At age 6, I was still reading “See Dick run. Run Dick run.” I would not be able to read this book for awhile, and even then, would struggle over the words, and not catch some of the ideas that inflamed Twain. What were my grandparents thinking? Why would they give such a book to me? I have come to realize, as did the parents who received that volume of Shakespeare for their baby, that the gift wasn't just about the volume itself; the gift was the givers themselves.
The old prof. was giving himself, what was precious to him, his love of language, Shakespeare's insights into human nature, the many things that he wanted to pass on to another generation, his hope for the future. My grandparents gave me the gift of imagination. Although they seldom traveled more than 20 miles from their home during their entire lifetimes, with books and imagination they roamed the world, coming to know the beauties and terrors of the earth and the kindness and sinfulness of mankind. They wanted me to know that heartaches such as the schoolyard bully have always been around, and even more, that the joys of the love of God are more precious than all else. Their gift wasn't just a book, it was their love for me and their desire for me to grow, to understand, to live and to love. The 19th century American writer (not known as a theologian), Ralph Waldo Emerson, nevertheless got it almost right when he said: “The only true gift is a portion of yourself.”
Matthew tells us that after Christ was born in Bethlehem, wise men, magi, showed up from the East, bearing gifts: gold, frankincense, and myrrh. These are most strange gifts for a baby, for anybody! There are lots of interpretive possibilities: (1) If the magi were magicians of some sort, perhaps these items were used in their incantations or potions. If so, then perhaps the gifts signify that they are giving up the tricks of their trade to Jesus.
(2) Perhaps the magi show up just because it would fulfill the words of Isaiah that we heard from the first lesson today: “...the wealth of the nations shall come to you...They shall bring gold and frankincense and shall proclaim the praise of the Lord.”[Isaiah 60:5-6]
(3) If the magi are kings, as legend has it, maybe their coming is an acknowledgment of a greater power and authority held by the King of the universe. (4) Maybe there is foreshadowing going on here, with the gift of some of the spices that will at length be used in Jesus' burial. We don't have to settle exclusively on any one of those or other interpretive ideas that have grown up over the centuries as we have thought about this scene. Let's keep all of the ideas in mind, and enjoy them all, and revel in their multiplicity, and keep on singing the songs that tell the story, because the three containers of those unusual substances are beside the point.
To see what I mean, ask yourself this question: would the story be the same if they had used the ancient equivalent of a UPS-service to deliver the gifts? No! Because the essential element is that they, the wisemen from the east, whoever they were, knelt and laid before Jesus gifts, gifts which include themselves, their time, their energy, their enthusiasm. It is the only gift that really matters!
When you get right down to it, what meaningful thing can you give to the King of Kings and Lord of Lords?
The Lord of all reaches down and touches earth as the infant Lord Jesus, come among us to do battle on our behalf with Herod and every kingdom of this world, in order to set us free from sin and death... and what do you give? What can you give?
One of the ways we measure that, (and I want to stress that it is only one of the ways, not the only way) is in terms of money. Money is work, effort, and time taken and compressed into a transferable medium; it is a convenient way for us to deal with one another. It is much easier to purchase a pair of shoes with money than with a sack of potatoes or an hour of teaching. It is easier for us to assist Bette McCrandall in Liberia by bank transfer than by physically carrying books and supplies to her. Money is useful, and how we use it is a measure of what we value.
The congregation's financial secretary has just finished the annual statements and they will be in the mail in a few days. Our treasurer looks at them in terms of raw dollars, in order to accomplish all of the things that we want to do as a parish.
I look at them as a spiritual doctor looking at a spiritual CAT-scan. Some of them show significant portions given from small incomes; others show tiny amounts from much larger incomes. Let's just say that there is plenty of spiritual illness in the congregation. Let's be clear: Our financial giving as well as the giving we do in terms of time and skills cannot pay enough for the value of Christ's death on the cross and his resurrection promise to us. None of us can do that. God doesn't need things from us, because everything in all of creation already belongs to him. But we need to give time, money, skills, etc., not in order to bribe God or to change God, or to manipulate God in some way, but to change us.
So that we will come to acknowledge who is that owns it all anyway, so that we can provide the means and energy for telling the rest of the world about Jesus, so that we can show a sample of the true nature of things, when God's creation is complete, when all give of themselves fully and freely in Jesus' name.
Those are things of great significance. Those are the things that make the use of money and time and skill and thought worth all of the effort we put into it.
At Christmastime and several other times a year, we invite everyone to walk in the offertory procession. Perhaps you have an offering envelope, perhaps you have a food item or something else in your hand. But whether or not you have one of those things, everyone is still invited to walk in that procession if you are physically able, because each of us is become personally a part of the offering itself...our time, our thought, our effort, our prayers, and that little walk are ways of expressing it, of saying it to God and to each other that this is what we intend to do, of what we intend to become, to the things to which we aspire in the coming days and years. I was thinking about all of this when it came time to develop a cover for the bulletin today. My first choice was the one that is printed on the back of the inset page in today's bulletin. It is a wonderful drawing of the three gifts. But then I thought, No, wait, that is the wrong focus, and so we selected the one printed on the bulletin cover. The important thing is not the gift, but the persons...these foreigners, these outsiders, who travel and present themselves with their gifts before Jesus, recognizing that God is up to something wonderful in this Holy Child. May this be a great Epiphany for us: the only true gift is the gift of oneself. Amen.
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