December 24, 2006

Festival of Carols and Lessons

The Risky Gift

Luke 2:1-20

The Reverend Richard E. Allen

 

 

A gift is a risky thing.  You never know how someone will receive your gift.  You never know what someone will give you.  Strange, though, those are the gifts we remember.  Like the time my brother, probably about 13, gave my dad cufflinks.  That was fine, but my dad rarely wore a dress shirt, and he always wore short sleeves.  Always.  My brother took a risk, and, though he’s now past 50, we never let him forget it.

 

The lesson from Luke is about a risky gift, too.  It’s about God’s taking the risk to be with us.  “Emmanuel” is the word we use.  It is Hebrew, and it means simply, “God with us.”  Or, you could say it means “incarnation.”  That’s the theological word; it means something of a risk on God’s part, too.  Two Latin words:  “IN”, we recognize, of course.  And “CARNE”, the word for “flesh, meat.”  In the flesh, incarnation.  That was, and is, God’s risk for us.

 

Come to think of it, it’s a risky thing for any of us to be in the flesh.  Babies are notoriously unpredictable.  And high maintenance.  Sure, babies are partially manageable.  We are bigger, after all. They learn quickly, however, and they quickly learn to manage us.  And all babies are different.  They pass predictable milestones, but you never know what they’ll come up with next.  And then they become teens.  You see what I mean.  The gift of a baby is a risky gift.  It’s a gift that’s bound to make one lose any sense of control.

 

And that is the point, I suppose.  Life is unpredictable, after all.  And tonight we celebrate both babies and the unpredictable life that they all represent.  Tonight we celebrate this life of Christ in our midst, knowing already that the ending is going to be messy, if not unpredictable.  And, honestly, we would not have predicted his end, not from all that hoopla with the shepherds and angels.  Surely, we want to think, God had a better plan from the beginning.  Surely God had something in mind for this baby other than, of all things, a cross.

 

But here he is, this baby, this uncontrollable gift from God to Joseph and Mary.  First he was theirs, of course.  Jesus belonged to these new parents long before he became ours.  And they must have had their hopes for this child.  But it’s a risky thing to have expectations for any child, especially your own child.  It’s risky.

 

Because, in truth, love is risky business.  Tomorrow, or tonight, many of us will exchange gifts, and with them we’ll speak of our love for each other.  And some of the gifts will be given and received with high expectations.

 

But here’s the thing.  Life is messy, and therefore it is risky.  Life’s gifts are given at a cost.  Sometimes gifts change things.  Sometimes they change us.  Gifts can be risky – to get or to give.

 

We celebrate God’s gift, mostly because the baby whose birth we celebrate will be different from all our hopes for him.  He will love us, but he will challenge us, too.  He will teach us, but he will call us to live differently if we get the lessons.  He will walk with us, and then he will die before our eyes.  He will hurt, and so will we.  Because we’ll know that his death has something to do with us, too.  Just like his life.

 

And he’ll invite us to take a risk, too.  And tonight, here’s the question:  will you accept this risky gift of this uncontrollable child, this Emmanuel, God with us in the very flesh of life?  Will you, or will you not?  Will you let this child become part of your very own life, or will you be in line on Tuesday morning, hoping to exchange this gift for something a bit more to your own tastes, some child who makes fewer demands of you, for example?

 

Like grandma or Uncle Jack, even like my brother with the cufflinks, God gives unpredictable gifts.  Then God waits to see if we open them, use them.  Or not.

 

As you come to the table of the Lord, I invite you to give thanks for God’s unpredictable gifts in your life this year.  There, in your family, in your friends, in our church, in our town, in our very small, small world.  Give thanks, and, if you are feeling courageous, take the gifts offered to you.  The bread and the wine are risky, too.  They invite us to life and spirit and who knows what.  It’s a risk, after all.  But worth this holy, human risk.  That’s why we’re here; to take the risk of faith.  That’s why you and I are here, is it not? 

 

Amen.