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GOD'S MESSAGE THIS WEEK
Sermon for Christmas Eve, December 24, 2006, Calvary Church,
The Rev. Mary A. Canavan

Gift-giving is just so complicated. For example, some say it isn’t okay to give gift cards. I’ve given and received many so it seems a fine idea. What a profit-making racket they are though.

Last year, the store “Best Buy,” recorded $43 million in income from unused and now expired gift cards!! Lesson: use those gift cards!

Finding the right gift, remembering everyone for whom we should give gifts. Having some extra gifts for those we didn’t think of who give a gift.  Praying that we receive gifts we don’t have to return.  Or do we return them?

Which leads to the latest hullabaloo, the gift giving trick called: re-gifting. It’s become a verb!  This week it was featured on the Today Show, several other news media outlets, including my theology magazine, Christian Century. One piece of advice if we’re going to re-gift:  before storing a gift for later, re-gifting, lightly tape on the gift the name of the person who originally gave that gift.  Otherwise, we may inadvertently give it back to them!

Gift giving is so difficult but it doesn’t need to be. Two years ago, when central Florida was devastated by a hurricane, many churches sent aid. The churches received collections of money, food and clothing for those who had lost so much in the storm. There was a wonderful outpouring of generosity. Something like ten thousand pounds of aid was sent to people in need. There was one church in the Midwest that did not send money or clothes. The parishioners in a little Baptist church sent themselves.  Those in the church who had jobs took work off using their vacation days. They piled into a dozen pickup trucks and campers and headed to Florida to help. They set up camp on the outskirts of a desperate little town and there they cooked meals, babysat, fixed roofs, cleared debris, and became close friends with the people of the town. Now, aid in most any form is well appreciated. But the type that is most appreciated is the gift of presence.

Christmas is the season for great gift giving.

I hope that you give and receive some wonderful gifts. But there is a greater giving than even our greatest material gifts. It’s giving that is personal, the present that is presence.

“I visited an older member of a former church in late January one year. I was admiring her new, very large, very expensive television. She proudly said that the TV was her Christmas gift from her son.Her son lives in another state with his family. “How thoughtful of your son to send you such a fine, big television,” I said. She agreed. But then she said, “Still, I’d gladly return even so nice a gift as this in exchange for just one day’s visit with him. I haven’t seen him for more than two years.”

Oh, the gift of one’s presence is the greatest gift of all. And that is God’s gift to us through Jesus Christ. It’s the gift of God’s presence with us as a human being and God’s continued presence with us through the Holy Spirit. And that is why we gather at our church now… to wonder at the glory of the greatest of God’s gifts – God.  God in the flesh. God incarnate. A gift to us. The greatest gift of all: The present is God’s presence with us.

Emmanuel means God with us. Emmanuel, indeed. In all the complexity of gift giving this year: may we remember something very simple… Emmanuel…God with us.  There is no greater gift. Let us give a gift to our loved ones this year: our presence…ourself. Importantly, let us give a gift to God this Christmas: Let us give the gift of our presence …. as a present to the God who gave us the very first Christmas present: Jesus Christ.

May God be with you in your body, in your heart, in your soul, and in your mind from this day forth and forever more.

Calvary Episcopal Church Welcomes You                 158 Broad St.,  Pascoag, RI   02859