First Presbyterian Church
The Presence of Gifts
Sermon for January 14, 2007
by Pastor Susan Barnes

Children's time: A father's gift

I heard this story a long time ago. It's a story about giving. A father is divorced, and his son Fred is coming all the way across the country on an airplane to his dad's house for Christmas. The dad wants to give his son the perfect Christmas present. His son is really smart, so the dad special orders a junior astronomy set and a geography lab. Well, the package arrives at the dad's house on Christmas eve , and it's the wrong package. Full of Barbie stuff. Fred does not play with Barbies. So on Christmas eve the dad and the grandfather go to a mall but all the stores are closed, except one toy store. The grandfather says, “Just get him the outlaw laser robo geek. It's the most popular toy. He'll love it.”

The dad says, “I want my son to have just educational toys. I want him to have unique toys that no one else has.” A man carrying a shopping bag from an educational game store offers to help, but he makes the dad pay him ten times what the chemistry set and microscope and puzzle cost.

That night, after his son Freddy arrives, he says, “I told Santa what I really wanted was the Outlaw Laser Robo Geek.”

The dad goes out into the living room, so worried about what he will do for Christmas. The grandfather is there, and says, “Son, I know what I got for you will cheer you up. Why don't you open your present.”

The dad says, “Nothing will cheer me up. I have failed my son. Tomorrow he's going to open the presents I got him and he'll hate them.”

The grandfather hands him the package, and says, “Open the present.”

What do you think the dad did? Yes, the dad wrapped it up and gave it to his son.

Our reading from the Hebrew Bible comes from a time when the Babylonian exile was almost over, and the prophet had to work to convince the sons and daughters who were born in Babylon to return to Israel. The text speaks of the coming day of vindication , using the traditional metaphor of marriage to describe how God loves and cares for the covenant people. Listen for the word of God as it is found in Isaiah 62:1-5.

1 For Zion's sake I will not keep silent, and for Jerusalem's sake I will not rest, until her vindication shines out like the dawn, and her salvation like a burning torch.

2 The nations shall see your vindication, and all the kings your glory; and you shall be called by a new name that the mouth of the LORD will give.

3 You shall be a crown of beauty in the hand of the LORD, and a royal diadem in the hand of your God.

4 You shall no more be termed Forsaken, and your land shall no more be termed Desolate; but you shall be called My Delight Is in Her, and your land Married; for the LORD delights in you, and your land shall be married.

5 For as a young man marries a young woman, so shall your builder marry you, and as the bridegroom rejoices over the bride, so shall your God rejoice over you.

This ends our reading from Isaiah. The bride in our passage was named Hepzibah in Hebrew; the name translates to “My Delight is in her.”

The joy we hear in the poem is not just happiness over the end of the exile, but exuberance over the restored communion with God. So Hephzibah is a glorious name for a people returning to God and rebuilding their homeland. Glory is not a glowing disembodied special effect. Glory is revealed in godly activity, in restoration, salvation, justice, and wisdom.

Our gospel reading takes place during an actual marriage. Our story comes just after Jesus' baptism. Listen for the word of God as it is found in John 2: 1-11.

1 On the third day there was a wedding in Cana of Galilee, and the mother of Jesus was there. 2 Jesus and his disciples had also been invited to the wedding.

3 When the wine gave out, the mother of Jesus said to him, "They have no wine."

4 And Jesus said to her, "Woman, what concern is that to you and to me? My hour has not yet come."

5 His mother said to the servants, "Do whatever he tells you."

6 Now standing there were six stone water jars for the Jewish rites of purification, each holding twenty or thirty gallons. 7 Jesus said to them, "Fill the jars with water." And they filled them up to the brim. 8 He said to them, "Now draw some out, and take it to the chief steward." So they took it.

9 When the steward tasted the water that had become wine, and did not know where it came from (though the servants who had drawn the water knew), the steward called the bridegroom 10 and said to him, "Everyone serves the good wine first, and then the inferior wine after the guests have become drunk. But you have kept the good wine until now."

11 Jesus did this, the first of his signs, in Cana of Galilee, and revealed his glory; and his disciples believed in him.

This ends our gospel reading. After Jesus death and resurrection, his disciples carried on his work, and formed churches.

Paul writes advice to the church at Corinth; he has just finished lecturing them, that they should wait for one another, not hurry and finish their own meals before others are served, without concern for who has the higher or lower status.

In the passage we'll read together, Paul contrasts the pagan idols, who have no voice, and the spirit, who speaks through believers to confess the sovereignty of Jesus. In the Old Testament, idols are mocked because they have no ears for listening to prayers, nor tongues to utter truth and hope. Listen for the word of God as we read it together from 1 Corinthians 12:1-11.

1Now concerning spiritual gifts, brothers and sisters, I do not want you to be uninformed. 2 You know that when you were pagans, you were enticed and led astray to idols that could not speak. 3 Therefore I want you to understand that no one speaking by the Spirit of God ever says "Let Jesus be cursed!" and no one can say "Jesus is Lord" except by the Holy Spirit.

4 Now there are varieties of gifts, but the same Spirit; 5 and there are varieties of services, but the same Lord; 6 and there are varieties of activities, but it is the same God who activates all of them in everyone. 7 To each is given the manifestation of the Spirit for the common good. 8 To one is given through the Spirit the utterance of wisdom, and to another the utterance of knowledge according to the same Spirit, 9 to another faith by the same Spirit, to another gifts of healing by the one Spirit, 10 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. 11 All these are activated by one and the same Spirit, who allots to each one individually just as the Spirit chooses.

This ends our reading of God's word. Let's listen to the anthem.

Our gospel lesson tells the story of the miracle of Jesus turning water into wine, giving the bridal couple a spectacular gift of over a hundred gallons of wine. Wine is a symbol of abundance; when the wine presses were empty, the economy was depressed, and so was everyone else. Wine was a sign of prosperous times, a sign of Israel's restoration, according to the prophets.

A thirty gallon jar takes a long time to fill with water; empty buckets must be found, cleaned, taken to the spring or well or river or fountain or cistern, filled, then carefully carried to the place it's needed. A gallon weighs about eight pounds, so a twenty gallon jars weighs 160 pounds; there were six jars so that's 960 pounds of water that have to be hauled by hand, or maybe by donkey, or maybe both. That's a lot of water to pour into those six jars holding twenty gallons each, much less thirty gallons each.

And the servants discover that all that water they know they carried all the way from the cistern, well or stream, the weight of which they still remember in their fingers, hands, elbows, arms and shoulders, is no longer water. It is wine. They know that it is a miracle, a sign of abundance, here in this tiny poor town of Cana.

Water is a lot of work to carry, but you don't need to do much else to it. Wine-making takes pruning, grafting, weeding, harvesting, loading, culling, sorting, crushing, decanting, storing, and that's not counting the time and work it takes to plant a vineyard in the first place.

And Jesus took the water that was free except for the carrying, and turned it into a valuable commodity, all to help celebrate a wedding. Jesus begins his ministry in John with a glorious sign that God's good is brimming over.

Jesus didn't fill the wine jars, he used the stone jars that were made to hold the ritual purification waters. These jars had a holy purpose, and Jesus filled them with wine. Surely that means the wine has a holy purpose too. Perhaps this is a foreshadowing of the last supper, where Jesus says this cup is the new covenant in my blood. Or maybe this miracle means that God intends abundance, not deprivation for people.

Paul wrote about – and the choir sang about--the different gifts in the congregation in his letter to the Corinthians. Those aren't the only spiritual gifts around. They are just some of the gifts. I have come to realize that a spiritual gift is anything God can use to show kindness and love to others. Anything that furthers the realm of God that gives people a glimmer of the kingdom of heaven, anything that offers a gracious word is a gift.

Most of the time, we think of gifts as some talent we can use with little effort, something we don't have to learn, but know already.

But gifts can be developed and learned. They don't spring whole out of us.

We all have something to offer; we each don't have to do it all; we are allowed to do just a little piece.

I remember at a presbytery meeting once, hearing a seminary graduate give his sermon before the presbytery in order to be examined. I was sitting next to an elder named John whose politics were very different from the preacher. I wondered how he would take the sermon. Afterwards, John said to me, “He did a good job of preaching. It's hard to do that when you have to overcome a stutter.” I had noticed the preacher had an odd way of drawing out syllables of some words, but I didn't pay much attention. John did. He had to work hard to overcome his own stutter, so he appreciated that in other people, no matter what their political views were.

His gift was gracious empathy.

And then there are other gifts sometimes we don't recognize; the gift of being able to speak a kind word to someone in distress, or bake something comforting, or duct tape a leaky pipe until the plumber can come, or say, “yes, you should have that looked at, let me drive you to the doctor,” or be willing to learn a new task or being able to see God's hand in awkward situations.

This weekend I heard a pastor tell how his church started a used clothing store in his town. His church had just started a mission outreach to youth, providing them jobs all summer long. He had four teenagers, two boys and two girls. One of the boys had a deep infatuation with one of the girls. The girl thought he was creepy. The pastor knew he would have to work hard to keep them separated all summer long. There was a consignment store in town that took clothes, and his church just got a huge donation of used clothing. So he asked the girls to sort the huge donation of used clothing and set up shop in the store. Out of that one act, a ministry of used clothing sprang up in a town that had no clothing store. The church owns the store, provides jobs for youth every summer, and gives the community a place to buy clothes.

And then there are circumstances where God turns unexpected skills into spiritual gifts . The Hotel Rwanda is the story of a hotel manager, Paul Rusesabagina, who worked for a luxury hotel in Kigali, Rwanda. Paul was a Hutu, married to a Tutsi woman. The Hutus and Tutsis are different tribes.

At the hotel, Paul used his good looks, charm, and supply of Cuban cigars and Scotch whiskey to placate people in power, so that the work of the hotel went smoothly and the right people were happy. He knew who to bribe and who to flatter and which politician or colonel needed what sort of special care.

Ten years ago, when the ethnic Hutus in Rwanda began killing their Tutsi neighbors, he used all his smooth abilities to protect over a thousand Tutsis and moderate Hutus who came to his hotel for shelter from the mob violence that lasted for months. Paul cashed in every favor he could, called all his international friends to keep the militia out of the hotel gates. The international peacekeepers had all left. The United Nations did not help. So Paul's experience with bribery and flatter served the cause of peace and life by protecting people who otherwise would have been killed. “Terry George, Hotel Rwanda' s director, is blunt when sharing his opinion about why the outside world deserted Rwanda. ‘It's simple,' he said at a reception after the film's Hollywood screening. ‘African lives are not seen as valuable as the lives of Europeans or Americans.'” 2

Most of us will not be called upon to be as heroic as Paul Rusesabagina. But we can challenge racism when we hear it or see it. The next time someone says “It's not a racial issue,” feel free to gently challenge them and say “Oh, what makes you say that?” and listen to their answer.

There's still a lot or racism and anti-Semitism and anti Arab sentiment in the world, but before we can address it, we have to notice it.

We are called to see all lives as valuable, as all people reflecting the image of God. And so we all do have spiritual gifts. Most of them are small, and affect just a few people. But you never know the results of a grace-filled act or a gracious word. Viewing what we do and what we say as opportunity for God to work gives holiness to even mundane tasks.

Some years ago, the Ku Klux Klan had a rally in Skokie, Illinois.  A pastor asked Carolyn Winfrey Gillette to write a hymn to be used by Christians for services that would offer a faithful response to the Klan's message. Carolyn did. Here's what she wrote:

God with joy we look around us
At your world's diversity.
Folk of every kind surround us
And you call your church to see;
All are made in your own image!
All are people whom you love.

In the times we've hurt each other,
Lord, we've hurt the ones you bless.
Hating sister, cursing brother,
We've denied what you express;
All are made in your own image!
All are people whom you love!

God, you sent a Savior to us,
Breaking walls that would divide.
By your Spirit, now work through us
As we witness side by side;
All are made in your own image!
All are people whom you love! 3

A few of us are skilled enough to write hymns like that. More of us are talented enough to be able to sing hymns like that. Some of us can play music. All of us can appreciate it and take the words to heart. God has given us Jesus, who freely shared God's abundant gifts with friends and strangers at a wedding feast.

We have gifts to share. Knowing that God loves us is a gift we can share. Knowing that all people are made in God's image is a gift the world needs to know.

1 This story was taken from Dec. 19,1995 episode of Frasier.

2 Stefan Lovgren in Los Angeles, National Geographic News , December 9, 2004

3 Tune:REGENT SQUARE (Angels from the Realms of Glory) by Henry Thomas Smart, 1867Words: copyright © 2001 Carolyn Winfrey Gillette. Carolyn Winfrey Gillette is the co-pastor of the First Presbyterian Church in Pitman, NJ and author of Gifts of Love:  New Hymns for Today's Worship.