Thursday, January 10, 2019

Gifts

Sermon for January 6, 2019 

Read Isaiah 60:1-9    and Matthew 2:1-12           

While for most of us, the season of gift giving is past, wrapping paper and decorations have been stored away for another year, for the church, today is the day we talk about gifts. It is Epiphany, the twelfth of the twelve days of Christmas and the day we celebrate the coming of those wise men to Jesus and the gifts they bear. 

So, what makes something a good gift? What’s the sort of thing you were excited to get over the holidays?


Are you a practical sort of person when it comes to gifts? Do you like gifts to have a purpose and a use? Are you the sort of person who gets excited about really warm socks? The older we get, the more I think we appreciate the practical. 

Or are you the sort of person that likes non-practical gifts? Things like art pieces or figurines or something just because it made the giver think of you? To me gifts like these reflect the spontaneous, unpredictable giving that makes for joyful surprises. But to others, it's one more thing to clutter up the house. 

Think about what kinds of gifts you prefer as we come to the magi who show up from the East bearing gifts for the Child-King, Jesus. Because of these magi who appear in Matthew's gospel, the whole tradition of gift-giving got its start. Goes all the way back to these magi and their gifts for baby Jesus.

The Epiphany story has many things to talk about. But one of the aspects of the story is those gifts: Gold, Frankincense and Myrrh. Do they fall into the category of good gifts for you?

They always seem like odd gifts to give a child. While gold is pretty much always useful, how does perfume and incense seem like a good idea? The magi weren’t exactly practical gift givers. 

A more practical gift might have been food, clothing, or tickets out of town to escape Herod. Give the kid some diapers, a teddy bear,  and a blanket.

But the magi are a different sort of gift giver. Many have suggested that the gifts are symbols that foreshadow the kind of life that this little baby will grow up to live. So maybe they don’t give the practical gift, but instead a meaningful one. 

Gold has always been valued as currency, but at that time, it was the symbol of royalty. It was what you gave to a king, and it was what the king wore. Jesus would be called the king of all kings, the lord of lords. Gold was a reflection of that. 

Now frankincense long used in temples, forming the incense that was burned to honor the deity. It was part of the worship ceremonies of the priests. Giving frankincense was honoring the divinity of this new born babe. This child who was fully human and fully God.

Myrrh is actually the strangest gift to give a newborn, but even it foreshadow’s Jesus’ life. Myrrh was used to anoint and embalm the dead. A gift of that sort, points to the sacrificial nature of his death on the cross. 

So, what makes something the right gift?

I think part of what makes a good gift is that it has meaning in the life of the recipient. The classic O Henry story of the Gift of the Magi does a good job demonstrating this.  The combs for Della's hair, the chain for Jim's watch, they have direct ties to the lives of the recipients, they highlight something valuable in their lives 

The right gift depends on who is receiving it. For someone who prefers the practical gifts, getting something they could use is far more appreciated than anything else. But for the more whimsical type, a gift that has meaning to them is treasured.

But this morning isn’t about the gifts that we give to each other. No, Epiphany is about the gifts we bring to God. So what gifts do we offer up to God?

Mostly practical things, I suspect. Tithes, and offerings, carefully crafted prayers like "The apostles Creed" which we will offer up this morning. We give God some of our voice during the hymns. A smile or two. Show up and give God an hour or two of our time on Sunday mornings.  That’s what we owe to God, right?

Those are all practical gifts, the expected gifts that have the right size, color, design, and fabric. Do we need to give such gifts? Absolutely. More now than ever. Without the usual, sensible gifts like tithes and offerings we would never pay the light bills, the staff or pastoral salaries, never launch a mission, never pull off a fellowship event. Without the gift of our presence, the worship services will be lacking in spirit and energy.

But we don't go to the magi to find out how to offer God those kinds of gifts; instead, we go to the magi to discover how to offer God seemingly useless, unpredictable, spontaneous, give-what-you-have kinds of presents.

Gifts that erupt from the heart. Give God something of yourself. That's what the magi tell us. It might be saying,

"No, I've never been in a small group before, but I want to begin."

"I've never really attended this Sunday School class, but helping our children is one thing that I can do."

 "I'm retired-have served in this church faithfully for many years; I don't have much to give you, God, but I'll give what I can-I’ll give myself to help this congregation grow and thrive."

"I’m busy and overworked, but yes, I’m willing to offer to help with the food pantry. I want to work on this mission."

"The only true gift," Ralph Waldo Emerson once said, "is a portion of yourself."

The Philadelphia Inquirer ran an interesting story several seasons ago about the homeless shelters. Seems all the soup kitchens are overcrowded at Christmas, but not with the homeless and impoverished.

 No, they're overcrowded and have even had to turn away, church groups who wanted to lend a helping hand during the Christmas season. The article went on to say that those same kitchens work at times with a skeleton crew much of the rest of the year for lack of just one church group coming to help them.

We are called to offer God gifts that come from spontaneity, from gratitude, not from warm feelings and holiday seasons. To all of the wonderful gifts that we offer God each Sunday, our worship, our voice, and the words of our liturgy; to all of our prayers and the check we drop in the plate, we are asked to offer one more thing: ourselves.

God gave us what God had. In this baby in the manger, we are bold to say that we have seen the fullness of God. God gave us himself on that Christmas so long ago and then again on the cross. How can we offer up anything less in return?