Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 12, 2025<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christmas is mostly behind us, now. I had a lovely Christmas, and I hope you did, too. And because Christmas is a time of giving and receiving gifts, I\u2019ve been thinking about gifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
It started with thinking about the three Kings. This past Monday was the day they finally arrived to present their gifts to the baby Jesus — or at least that\u2019s the day we celebrate their arrival. A few days later, I imagine, the Magi are still making their way home \u2013 and going there by a longer route to avoiding telling King Herod about the location of the Messiah \u2013 having been warned in a dream. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
And I\u2019ve been thinking about The Other Wise Man, a fictional character Henry VanDyke dreamed up in 1895. VanDyke imagined a Fourth Wise Man who sets out to join the three others. This one \u2013 his name is Artaban \u2013 carries a sapphire, a ruby and a pearl to give to the Messiah. Time after time his journey is interrupted by some person in need. And to help them, he gives away his gems, one after another. He doesn\u2019t catch up with Jesus until he himself is impoverished, and it is years later. It turns out he encounters Jesus, finally, only at the Crucifixion. And he hears a voice say, \u201cVerily I say unto thee, Inasmuch as thou hast done it unto the least of these my brethren, ye have done it unto me.\u201d [Matthew 25:40] This Fourth Wise Man realizes his gifts have been received and accepted. Artaban never gave the gems to Jesus, but they were appreciated all the more. That story was a favorite of my father. He read it to my sisters and I each Christmas. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
So I\u2019ve been thinking about gifts. Yes, about gifts like gold, frankincense and myrrh, and, yes, about gifts like sapphires, rubies and pearls. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
But much more than that, however, I\u2019ve been thinking about what is<\/span> a gift, and about what it means<\/span> to us to give and to receive gifts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n That journey of the Three Kings was two millennia ago. Here in Maine, in the present\u2026 <\/p>\n\n\n\n \u201cPresent:\u201d\u00a0 that word means \u201cnow\u201d but it also means \u201ca gift. \u00a0Now isn\u2019t that interesting?\u00a0 It isn\u2019t a trick or a coincidence.\u00a0 Both meanings of \u201cpresent\u201d have the same original Latin root.\u00a0 \u00a0Do we use the word both ways because our \u2018now\u2019 is a \u2018present\u2019?\u00a0 a gift?\u00a0 I think so.\u00a0 That\u2019s what\u2019s really on my mind this morning:\u00a0 the present, the here and now, as a gift<\/strong>.\u00a0 But like the Three Kings, I want to take a longer road to that recognition.\u00a0<\/p>\n\n\n\n As I was saying, here in Maine, in the present, the days are again getting longer.\u00a0 There\u2019s more daylight early in the morning and more again later in the afternoon.\u00a0 In a few months, warmer weather will return.<\/p>\n\n\n\n You know the basic deal. This planet earth on which we live rotates on an axis. One full rotation makes a day. The axis is canted a little to one side. The northern half of the planet is currently tilted away from the sun. That\u2019s why we have shorter and colder days now. The earth revolves around a medium-size star, the sun. One full revolution makes a year. Our planet (and several others) and our sun are part of a much larger collection of stars and planets and other celestial stuff that make up the Milky Way Galaxy. There are billions of stars in our galaxy, and that galaxy is one of billions (maybe trillions) in the universe. All the galaxies are moving outward, rapidly, from some ancient center point when and where there was a Big Bang billions of years ago. Mostly this world where we are is just a lot of rocks and dust in motion, isn\u2019t it?<\/p>\n\n\n\n Still, our planet has life on it, lots of life, including human life. Probably, there is life on other plants in the universe. But only on a tiny percentage of them. That human life on our planet is full of all manner of things: politics and science, gossip and exercise, work and goofing off, eating and sleeping. Courage and wickedness. All of these and more. Because of life, it\u2019s a more complicated, more interesting, more puzzling, world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n What do we make of this world, this galaxy, this universe we live in, with all that it contains, bad and good? For many people \u2013 if they think of it at all \u2013 it\u2019s just how things are<\/strong>. It\u2019s neutral. It just is. It\u2019s odorless, tasteless \u2013 meaningless. Sometimes the ways things are delights us; sometimes the way things are troubles us. Most of the time, the ways things are doesn\u2019t much catch our attention. It\u2019s just there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n We may think of all-there-is in this neutral, just-there sort of way, but we don\u2019t have to. There\u2019s a choice here<\/strong>. We can also see the way things are (however they are) as a gift<\/strong>. And gifts are special, don\u2019t you think? Gifts surprise us. They delight us. And they connect us better to one another. Gift-giver to gift-receiver. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Every morning I wake up; every morning you wake up, and there is the world laid out in front of us. The world in all its splendor and beauty. Also, of course, the world with all its problems and troubles. It isn\u2019t all frankincense and rubies. When we wake, tomorrow morning, how will we receive that world out there before us? Will we see it as just-what-is? Or will we see it, the present, as a gift?<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a choice, and a very important one I\u2019m thinking. <\/p>\n\n\n\n A German mystic once said, \u201cthe wondrous thing is not how the world is, it is that the world is.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n Every day, in every way I\u2019m surrounded by people who greet the world each morning in that \u2018just-there\u2019, neutral kind of way. It\u2019s very easy \u2013 it\u2019s a temptation, I think \u2013 to join them in looking at the world this way, this world with its joys and splendors, its brutality and its troubles, its selfishness and its generosity. The common way is to see it as a just-there world. <\/p>\n\n\n\n My New Year\u2019s Resolution this year is to awaken each day to the present, to the gift that is the present. I don\u2019t want to take it for granted. This world isn\u2019t anything I\u2019ve earned; it\u2019s nothing I deserve. This world, this being-here, is a most astonishing gift I can imagine. Even when it\u2019s ugly or painful. I want to live in that present, in the realization of that gift. <\/p>\n\n\n\n I learned to write thank-you notes when I was a child. Probably you did, too. My parents (especially my Mother) made sure my sisters and I wrote thank you notes for each of the gifts we received at Christmas. I now see the importance of that.<\/p>\n\n\n\n But this present, this world-before-us, is a gift from who? Who do I thank? Well, God, of course. To see the present as a gift is to open the door to recognizing Creation and a Creator. To receive this gift is to open the door to seeing the world, the present, the all-there-is, as something special, something sacred. It\u2019s to open the door to being religious. <\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a choice to see it that way. Today it may be an unusual choice, but it is a crucial one. <\/p>\n\n\n\n And what do we give in return? Gift-giving is mutual. You give to me; I give to you. If God has given us the gift of the present, the gift of the sacred present, what do we give in return? I don\u2019t think we can improve much on the final stanza of Christina Rossetti\u2019s Christmas Carol<\/em>, which we sang recently as \u201cIn the Bleak Midwinter.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n What can I give Him, <\/em>Christina Rossetti, A Christmas Carol<\/em>, 1872<\/p>\n\n\n\n It\u2019s a choice how we see this world: \u2018just-there\u2019 or \u2018a gift\u2019. Is this world just \u2018stuff\u2019, just \u2018this and that\u2019, just rocks and dust and living things? Or is this world \u2018a gift\u2019 \u2013 with possibilities and meanings and obligations? Is this world a secular place, or a sacred place, a holy land through and through? <\/p>\n\n\n\n This gift of life, this gift of the present is the most important gift we receive, and we receive it every day. This gift colors everything. Let us be reverent and thankful. Let us give our hearts. <\/p>\n\n\n\n Also posted on River View Friend<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Message given at Durham Friends Meeting, January 12, 2025 Christmas is mostly behind us, now. I had a lovely Christmas, and I hope you did, too. And because Christmas is a time of giving and receiving gifts, I\u2019ve been thinking … Continue reading
Poor as I am? \u2014
If I were a Shepherd
I would bring a lamb;
If I were a Wise Man
I would do my part, \u2014
Yet what I can I give Him, \u2014
I can give my heart.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n