Date: January 2, 2011
Scripture Lesson: Isaiah 60:1-6
Sermon: Redeeming the Gift
Pastor: Rev. Kim P. Wells
How many of you have unused gift cards languishing in a drawer at home? From this past Christmas? Last Christmas? The Christmas before that? Your birthday? Several websites have emerged to help with this problem. Unused gift cards can be sold for partial value at websites such as PlasticJungle.com, Cardpool.com, GiftCards.com, and GiftCardGranny.com. [“Gift cards going to waste? Sites let you sell them for cash, pay bills,” by Cameron Huddleston Saturday, January 1, 2011; 5:38 PM,http://www.washingtonpost.com/wpdyn/content/article/2011/01/01/AR2011010102105.html%5D Or you can donate your unused/unwanted gift card at GiftCardGiver.com, a non-profit gift card website that will make sure your unused gift card goes to someone in need. [What to Do with Unused Gift Cards, http://www.suite101.com/content/what-to-do-with-unused-gift-cards-a308753%5D Experts estimate that in 2009, $5 billion worth of gift cards went unused. [Published by Joel, http://www.creditcardchaser.com/gift-card-inactivity-fees-will-soon-be-a-thing-of-the-past-kind-of/%5D All of these gift cards wasted, worthless because they were unused.
The Christmas season is the season of gift giving in celebration of the gift that has been given to us in Jesus Christ. As Isaiah prophesied, Our light has come. And the glory of God has been revealed. [Refer to Isaiah 60:1-6] We celebrate Jesus’ birth because we believe he is that light. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because of the life he lived, modeling for us uncompromising, unconditional love. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because of his ministry grounded in justice and peace. We celebrate the birth of Jesus because of his witness to full life and joy found in service. We celebrate Jesus’ birth in gratitude that he was willing to lay down his life for his friends. We celebrate the birth of Jesus because of the lifestyle of other centered living that Jesus has given to us. We celebrate Jesus’ birth because real life is not self-centered but God-centered, love-centered, peace and justice-centered. We celebrate the birth of Jesus because he shows us that life is found in giving, in generosity, in engagement with people who are oppressed, poor, forgotten, unfairly treated, suffering, or considered “less than.” We celebrate the birth of Jesus because of his teachings of love for your neighbor, love for yourself, love for your enemy, love for God. In Christ Jesus, we have been given the path to life in all its fullness and joy. We have been given the gift of real life. Of hope . Of possibility. Of meaning. Of new beginnings. Of fresh starts. A way of grace and mercy that satisfies and does not disappoint. The gifts we give each other at Christmas pale in comparison with the gift we have been given in Christ Jesus. The gifts we give are but faint reverberations of what has been given to humanity in the life, ministry and death of Jesus. A gift for all people, for all time. An embodiment of the love that all human beings are capable of incarnating, whatever their culture or religion. A blessing to all peoples, all nations, and all generations. And those who follow Jesus are meant to keep giving that gift to the world, generation after generation. The light has come. The darkness has not overcome it. The light of Christ still shines.
So each Christmas, we celebrate the amazing, precious, unfathomable gift that has been given to us in Christ Jesus. We worship and honor the babe born in Bethlehem. We sing and pray and praise his coming. But what happens after Christmas? We put away the decorations, the displays, the lights. Back in the boxes until next year. What do we do with the gift? Do we put it away? Unused? Perhaps even forgotten after the tinsel and pine needles are all cleaned up? Does the gift languish, like those unused gift cards, migrating to the back of a darkened drawer as the days go by?
The gift of Christ Jesus is something we should be using each and every day. It is something that should be with us and within us at all times. We should never leave home without it! We should be redeeming the gift of Christ day in and day out. A gift that does not loose value. That does not run out. That does not go bankrupt or fail. And that has no expiration date
A question for us to consider as the Christmas season draws to a close and the New Year begins is what are we going to do with the gift we have been given at Christmas? What are we going to do with the gospel of Jesus Christ that has been given to us? Are we going to redeem it? Use it? Put it into service? Activate it? Or will it go unused like those $5 billion dollars worth of unused gift cards?
To help us think about this, I would like to share the story of Karen, who surely used the gift of the gospel of Jesus Christ in all of its fullness.
In 1989 Karen Ridd and four other international volunteers were working with a group called Peace Brigades International (PBI) in El Salvador. They were suddenly arrested by the Salvadoran military. Three of the five were Spanish nationals and were deported, leaving Karen, who was Canadian, and her friend Marcela Rodriguez, who was from Columbia. Karen had time to alert another PBI volunteer and the Canadian consul about what had happened. She knew that they would mobilize worldwide networks of support to secure their release. But how long would that take? What would happen in the meantime? Would they be killed?
Marcela heard the soldiers describing them as “terrorists from the Episcopal Church.” They were loaded on a truck with other detainees and taken to an army barracks, where they were blindfolded and interrogated for 5 hours about their connection to a guerilla group. During the questioning, sounds of torture and sobbing victims came from nearby rooms.
The immediate international outcry motivated the Canadian embassy to mobilize to secure Karen’s release. Canada brought pressure to bear on the Salvadoran government and within a few hours, Karen was walking across the barracks grounds toward a waiting embassy official, a free woman. As she was leaving, the soldiers removed her blindfold and she caught sight of Marcela, face to the wall, looking like “a perfect image of dehumanization.” While Karen was glad to be alive and relieved to have been freed, she felt terrible leaving her friend, Marcela, behind. She couldn’t do it. She made some excuse to the exasperated Canadian embassy official who had come all the way from San Salvador to retrieve her. Then she turned around and walked back into the barracks. She did not know what would happen to her, but she knew it could not be worse than deserting her friend.
The soldiers, too, were shocked and exasperated. They did not know what to do with Karen. They handcuffed her again. In the next room, a soldier banged Marcela’s head into the wall shouting that some “white bitch” [expletive deleted] was stupid enough to walk back in there, and, “Now you’re going to see the treatment a terrorist deserves!” But Karen’s return was having a strange effect on the soldiers. They talked with her, despite themselves, and she tried to explain why she had returned. “You know what it’s like to be separated from a companero.” That got to them. They released Karen and Marcela and the two women walked out together under the stars, hand in hand. [“The Story of Karen Ridd,” Engage: Exploring Nonviolent Living, A Study Program for learning, practicing, and experimenting with the power of creative nonviolence to transform our lives and our world, by Laura Slattery, Ken Butigan, Veronica Peiliaric, and Ken Preston-Pile, pp.71-72]
I guarantee it, we will have countless opportunities each and every day to use the gift we have been given by God through Christ. In our jobs, families, volunteer work, civic involvement, homes, church, and in all realms of our lives and experience, we can put the gift of the gospel to work. It is the gift that keeps on giving. Open it. Explore it. Put it to use. Enjoy it. Learn from it. Take delight in it. It is the most exciting and valuable gift you will ever be given at Christmas time or any time. Make sure you redeem this gift in 2011. Happy New Year! Amen.
A reasonable effort has been made to appropriately cite materials referenced in this sermon. For additional information, please contact Lakewood United Church of Christ.
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