The Gift

I took one of those spiritual gifts inventories when I was with my last church. I was surprised to see that I got a very high score on the gift of faith.  That comes in real handy for a pastor.  So why was I surprised?  Because I remember so vividly the time when God was not yet real to me, and I was searching desperately for connection with God.  I was a scientific materialist, and I so wanted to trust that God was real.  

What kept me hoping when God had not become real to me were some Catholic children’s books on my grandma Lucy’s shelf in Phoenix, Arizona, that I had read at around age five.  I remembered the stories of crazy saints and lovers of God. God was so real to those people that they turned their lives upside down.  That usually involved disobeying their parents, which was very intriguing to me.  These spiritual athletes defied all conventional expectations to be in relationship with God.  If they could be that sure God was real, I could hope.   So I kept searching: in books, worship, conversations, classes, retreats, until I had an experience that allows me to stand up at memorial services knowing that God is real and that love wins in the end.

Generations before us have claimed this gift of God at work in their lives.  They lacked most of our scientific knowledge.  and sometimes they were wiser about matters of the heart than we are. If the gift of God’s presence is not real to you, it is not because God is far away, or because you haven’t earned it, or because you don’t know enough. An Indian poet, Kabir, said it this way:  “I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.”  The Apostle Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).  The sacred is already here. A shift in perception, and the gift is revealed.  It was here all along.  Seekers, don’t give up hope

*****

Brea Congregational United Church of Christ                                       

December 24, 2017

The Real Gift

John 1:1-14.  In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God. He was in the beginning with God. All things came into being through him, and without him not one thing came into being. What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.  The light shines in the darkness, and the darkness did not overcome it.

            There was a man sent from God, whose name was John. He came as a witness to testify to the light, so that all might believe through him.  He himself was not the light, but he came to testify to the light. The true light, which enlightens everyone, was coming into the world.

            He was in the world, and the world came into being through him; yet the world did not know him.  He came to what was his own, and his own people did not accept him.  But to all who received him, who believed in his name, he gave power to become children of God,  who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.

         And the Word became flesh and lived among us, and we have seen his glory, the glory as of a father’s only son, full of grace and truth.

When Jesus has a birthday we give each other gifts.  I like that. A birthday is the day that we celebrate a person’s coming into the world, so that we get the gift of relationship with them.  On Jesus’ birthday we celebrate the gift of God’s presence and power and love among us, made know to us through Jesus.  Through him we know that God is not remote and hands-off.  God cares.  God is with us, and for us, and the whole world.  That is the real gift.

May we have the faith to trust that this gift is real, and may we let go of everything that prevents us from receiving this gift fully. 

In our bible we have five different reports of the gift to us that is the life and teachings and death and resurrection of Jesus Christ.  Four Gospels and Paul’s version.   These five reports differ in many details.  And that makes perfect sense to me.  Because they are told through the lens of vital, personal relationships, and they were told and retold aloud, so that the next generation of followers of Jesus could also receive the gift of relationship with his living Spirit.

Time passed.  The sacred got codified into the Trinity.  It got ossified into the creeds.  But the real gift is still relationship with the sacred, not as some perfect immovable, unfeeling god of philosophy (how do you have a relationship with that?) not as some tribal god that demands vengeance or blood sacrifice (who wants to have a relationship with that?), but the sacred made known in Jesus: inviting fishermen to go on a road trip with him, teaching about God’s upside-down Kingdom, healing and affirming outcasts, challenging unjust power, even to the cross, the love that transcends death.  

John’s gospel that we read today paints Jesus as more Godlike than the other gospels. The Logos, the Word that existed before anything else in the universe.  John wants you to understand how important this man was.  No birth stories for John.  It may have been too much for John to picture Jesus in diapers. By this cosmic prelude to his gospel, John is telling us the profundity, the world-changing nature of this gift: God with us, and for us, and the whole world.  This gift that we sometimes take for granted, or maybe can’t trust is real. 

How would you feel if you got an elegantly wrapped package and you opened it up and you searched through all the layers of colorful tissue and you couldn’t find the gift?  It looks like an empty box.  But people told you about the gift, how wonderful it was, how it was going to change your life.  And these people, who claim to have received the same gift, are all smiling at you and waiting to see your reaction.  What do you do?  Do you smile and pretend you see it, and tell them it’s very nice? Do you set the wrapping down and leave in a huff?  Do you decide the wrapping itself is a good enough gift and ooh and aah over that and make do?  Or can you keep believing that these people really did get a gift, and admit you can’t haven’t seen it yet?

There is a view of the world called scientific materialism.  It says we can only know what we can sense: see and hear and touch and measure.  Scientific materialism says the gift of God’s presence, of relationship with the sacred, is impossible to experience. A relationship with a man two thousand years dead, or his spirit, which exists on a level of reality that is inaccessible (if it exists at all), that is just not going to happen. 

A lot of organized religions have been acting like materialists. God may be out there, in heaven or some spiritual realm but don’t try to relate to God directly.  Perhaps in ancient times the rules of nature were broken and the two realms touched, physical and spiritual, but don’t expect it to happen to you. The religious leaders know what God wants. Don’t bother seeking God’s guidance for yourself; you have to rely on those leaders to tell you about God. 

I’m glad we do it differently here.  If God’s presence is not real to you, you can follow Jesus.  You can study his words and deeds.  You can imagine how he would speak and act in our contemporary world.  You can take principles from his life and teachings and do your best live by them.  And this is a powerful and worthy gift.  Still I wish for the materialists in my life the experience of something more. 

I took one of those spiritual gifts inventories when I was with my last church. I was surprised to see that I got a very high score on the gift of faith.  That comes in real handy for a pastor.  So why was I surprised?  Because I remember so vividly the time when God was not yet real to me, and I was searching desperately for connection with God.  I was a scientific materialist, and I so wanted to trust that God was real. 

What kept me hoping when God had not become real to me were some Catholic children’s books on my grandma Lucy’s shelf in Phoenix, Arizona, that I had read at around age five.  I remembered the stories of crazy saints and lovers of God. God was so real to those people that they turned their lives upside down.  That usually involved disobeying their parents, which was very intriguing to me.  These spiritual athletes defied all conventional expectations to be in relationship with God.  If they could be that sure God was real, I could hope.   So I kept searching: in books, worship, conversations, classes, retreats, until I had an experience that allows me to stand up at memorial services knowing that God is real and that love wins in the end.

Generations before us have claimed this gift of God at work in their lives.  They lacked most of our scientific knowledge.  and sometimes they were wiser about matters of the heart than we are. If the gift of God’s presence is not real to you, it is not because God is far away, or because you haven’t earned it, or because you don’t know enough. An Indian poet, Kabir, said it this way:  “I laugh when I hear the fish in the water is thirsty.”  The Apostle Paul said, “In him we live and move and have our being.” (Acts 17:28).  The sacred is already here. A shift in perception, and the gift is revealed.  It was here all along.  Seekers, don’t give up hope.

An additional barrier can lie between us and the gift: the wrapping. .  I’m talking about the worship service, the music, even the teachings. You might have found the wrapping repulsive, or just deadly dull, and you gave up on the gift because you could not stand that wrapping. I want to give everybody that gift.  But I can’t. We can only try to wrap it nicely and hope people will discover it for themselves. We have a lot of different kinds of wrappings to choose from– different styles of churches.  Mostly that’s a good thing.  I personally find some of those wrappings downright dangerous.  Strangely, the gift is sometimes still hiding in there even if the wrapping is scary.  Unfortunately some of us got so tangled up with scary wrapping that we’re still recovering.  I think we could have an “ugly wrapping contest” for the Gospel, like an ugly tie contest.  It would be funny if it didn’t hurt so much.

On the other hand, be careful not to get too picky about the wrapping.  The sacred shows up in all kinds of wrappings that are out of our comfort zone: different styles of music, of prayer, of ritual, teachings that are unfamiliar to us… If we must worship a certain way, we need to check: have we confused the gift with the wrapping?

That wrapping, the worship service, the forms that we observe, these are tangible to our senses.  God’s Spirit is not.  Perhaps the closest you can get to peeking at the gift in this place is to take a good look at the people here.  Look for signs of their love of God,  their relationships with each other, signs of their trust, their hospitality, their honesty, their generosity, their risk-taking to stand up for what’s right.  If you look for flaws, you’ll find those too.  All the wrappings have flaws.  You can always go to a different church if our wrapping doesn’t suit you.  Good luck finding a flawless one, though.

What if you started to open this gift, and, well, it was not exactly what you expected?  It was looking to be a high-maintenance gift, and you realized things might go easier without it.  You might have to let go of a lot of other things in your life to hold on to this gift. You might even have to reorder your whole life.  You like your life the way it is.  Well at least it’s a known quantity.  You don’t like surprises.  You decided to pass on this gift for now.

Or, what if you found the gift, long ago, and it was glorious, and it made a deep impression on you (or at least you seem to remember it did).  But now you keep that gift on a high shelf and just take it out on special occasions.  Because it is a lovely gift, but not really practical, not compatible with your everyday life.  Maybe you handle the gift with kid gloves, because you’ve felt its power, and you’re not sure you want that kind of force set loose in your life?

So if you’ve seen the gift and decided to pass it by, or had it and shelved it…here you are looking busy on a Sunday morning, messing around with the wrappings.  I like the wrappings.  Maybe you’re hoping you’ll get the benefit of someone else’s gift, a little of the vitality of the living Spirit of God secondhand without having to change and grow much yourself.  We’ll do what we can for you.  But remember, your gift is waiting patiently for you, whenever you’re ready. 

I know some people try to hit you over the head with this gift, whether you want it or not.  It is a gift, not a blunt instrument. And not accepting it does not send you to hell.  (Although accepting it can sometimes get you out of hell.) 

Lots of people have passed up the gift over the centuries, and made of their lives something beautiful and true and good.  Materialists, seekers and skeptics, some who were too hurt by scary wrapping.  If the light of Christ really lights the whole world, perhaps it does not always need our conscious awareness.  It certainly doesn’t need saying the right words, to shine in us and through us.  I love that Process theology has an explanation for this.  The gift is not just landing on our conscious mind to be consciously accepted.  It can be received in our unconscious mind, even at a cellular level.  How does that work?  I have no idea!  But I like to think it does.

What is it like to make the gift a part of your life?  For some people, receiving the gift is a sudden shift, a vivid experience that brings home God’s nearness and God’s care in a way we can never forget.  It’s like those Before and After pictures –a beauty makeover for the soul.  For others, receiving the gift happens gradually.  There is just a gradual growth in and trust and learning how to follow Jesus, no fireworks, until one day you look back and see a faithful relationship has grown up and stood the test of time. 

If you’re wondering whether the gift is for you, the answer is yes.  That gift is custom made to be right for you.  And this is the season of opening gifts, of new light, and of new birth.

To those who have received it, the gift is given again and again.  We are invited to wake up in the morning and admit our own agendas and hopes and fears and expectations, and then try to set them all aside and just listen, to attend to the other partner in the relationship, to receive the gift afresh for this day, and be ready for surprises.  This gift is a two-way relationship, with the Spirit who knows you better than yourself, and loves you more than you can imagine.  What happens when you receive the gift?  The adventure begins. I hope you’ll tell me about it sometime.  Merry Christmas. Happy Birthday, Jesus.  Thank you for the gift.  It’s just what we needed. Amen.