The New England Church Pulpit

New England Congregational Church UCC
Aurora Illinois


"WHAT DO YOU DO WITH SUCH A GIFT?"
Ephesians 1.15-18
Bhagavad Gita 9.15-19
Christmas 2

January 5, 2003
Hans Hoekendijk lived in Amsterdam during WWII, hiding Jewish children from the Nazis. He, along with several friends, were able to rescue some children, but eventually they were discovered by the Nazis. Hoekendijk and his friends were locked in a railroad car and shipped off to a death camp in Germany. They rode the train all night, and in the morning the train suddenly stopped and the doors were opened. The prisoners were told to climb out and line up alongside the railroad tracks. Assuming they were in Germany, they thought they were going to be shot to death, when they were told, much to their astonishment, that they were in Switzerland and were now free. It seems that someone had thrown a switch at some point along the route, diverting the train away from the death camp. After preparing for death, it was overwhelming to find life. For the rest of his life, Hoekendijk kept asking ‘What do you do with such a gift?” (Lectionary Homiletics, January 2003, p40) What do you do with such a gift?

So often we live in fear of what will happen, ordering our lives around impending tragedy and thwarting death. In this day of terrorism and strange diseases, and the headlines in yesterday’s paper that Aurora is up there with the big cities when it comes to the number of murders, we spend a lot of time mentally riding the train to the death camp. There are no guarantees, and each day we wake up, each night we are able to lay our head on our pillow, we have received a gift. What do we do with such a gift?

Because of a woman posted to guard our borders, some terrorist intending to do us harm was stopped and we are alive because of it. Because someone was alert at the airport security check point, that person who might have used another plane as a human bomb was kept from doing so. The person driving behind you on the freeway had his car brakes repaired recently, and was able to stop rather than plowing into the back of your car at the toll booth. We spend time trying to avoid disaster, and each day we are alive we are spared a tragedy without even thinking about it. Each day we are alive we are given a gift.. How do you live with such a gift?

Can we learn to live in the moment in the coming year, enjoying what we have right now rather than worrying about what we may not have next week? As Joe reminded us last week, an appropriate response to the new year is to rejoice. Delight in the day. Cherish the moment. Hug your children. Kiss your partner. Revel in the friends you have and let them know what they mean to you. Speak from your heart. Forgive others and forgive yourself. Feel the wind against your face; is it too bitter cold? If so, you are alive and your body is warm and it feels the contrast. Dance and invite others to join you. Dedicate your life to that which brings it meaning.
How do you live with such a gift as an ordinary day? In Thornton Wilder’s play Our Town, a young girl named Emily dies and is buried in a hillside cemetery. Somewhat magically, she is then allowed her one wish to go back and observe just one day of her short life. “Choose the least important day in your life,” the dead advise her. “It will be important enough.” So Emily returns to the world that could now neither hear nor see her. In her final message to that world that doesn’t hear her, she cries out “I love you all–everything.” When she must finally return to her other world, she says “I can’t look at everything hard enough, wait! One more look. Goodbye Grover’s Corner. Goodbye Mama and Papa. Goodbye to Clock’s ticking and Mama’s sunflowers and food and coffee and new ironed dresses and sleeping and waking up. Oh earth, you are too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it, every minute?”

Can we enjoy what we have and live by faith for what we don’t have? Can we accept what can’t be changed and be willing to give everything we have to change what can be changed?

The sage Ecclesiastes reminds us that “to everything there is a season, a time, a balance in all that happens in life:
a time to be born, a time to die
a time to dance, a time to mourn
a time to plant and a time to harvest
a time to love and a time to hate
a time for peace and a time for war
a time to work and a time to play
God has made everything in its own time. We seek to know the future but are not given that ability. So all we can do is eat, drink, and enjoy what God has given us. This is God’s gift.

What to do with such a gift? Several years ago I gave presents to a family. The parents felt bad that they didn’t have anything for me, they kept saying that I shouldn’t have, they kept thanking me over and over. Their son, however, never said a word of thanks, but spent the next hour playing gleefully with the gift I gave him. That was a far better thanks than the endless words of his parents. Enjoy the gift of each day. Rejoice in even the difficulties of life because these are part of the balance of what it means to be alive. Revel in the mystery and the darkness. Live in hope and in the spirit of wisdom, as Paul reminds those in Ephesus. Live in the knowledge that the great I Am in whose image we are created is the beginning and the end, the butter burnt in the fire as well as the flames that consume it, the deluge and the drought, death and the deathless, all that is and all that is not.

Former Poet Laureate Robert Frost put it succinctly:
In three words I can sum up everything I’ve learned about life: it goes on.
And in that spirit, we eat bread and drink wine, not because it protects us or provides special privileges or guarantees, but because as life goes on our best response is to eat and drink together.

Each day, beginning to end, is a gift. Each person you know, those you like and those you don’t like, is a gift. Each activity of your daily routine, the thing you enjoy doing and the thing you’d just as soon avoid, is a gift. Each meal is a communion. Each day you are alive, the train taking you to the death camp has been diverted to freedom of new life. What do you do with such a gift?

–Gary L. McCann

Bhagavad Gita 9.15-19
(translated by Stephen Mitchell)
The Bhagavad Gita is universally acknowledged as one of the world’s literary and spiritual masterpieces. It is the core text of the Hindu tradition.

Others, on the path of knowledge,
know me as the many, the One;
behind the faces of a million
gods, they can see my face.

I am the ritual and the worship,
the medicine and the mantra,
the butter burnt in the fire,
and I am the flames that consume it.

I am the father of the universe
and its mother, essence and goal
of all knowledge, the refiner, the sacred...

I am the beginning and the end,
origin and dissolution,
refuge, home, true lover,
womb and imperishable seed.

I am the heat of the sun,
I hold back the rain and release it;
I am death, and the deathless,
and all that is or is not.

PASTORAL PRAYER

Eternal Force of Life, beneath whose rule we live and in whose grace we stand, with all that is within us we would bless all that is holy. We thank you for all that is constant in our lives:
that the ground that beneath our feet is firm
that day follows night
that the seasons march in predictable succession
that the joys of life are all around us

We give thanks for all that is new and changing in our lives:
for startling breakthroughs in the realm of science and medicine
for experimentation in the arts and the discovery of new spheres in music
for people next door and people across the globe, and the mutual hope we have in one another for peace

We pray for all that looms on the horizon that threatens to darken life:
that war may be averted and peace sought on all sides
that disease and illness may not consume us
that disappointment and heartache may not overpower us

For all that is and all that is to come we pray for strength and courage, and the ability to live by faith with gratitude for the past and open toward the future. Amen.
(Adapted from a prayer by Ernie Campbell in Prayers from Riverside)

Copyright © 2003 by Gary L. McCann. All rights reserved.

Top of Page

Index of Recent Sermons

Index of Archived Sermons

Return to NECC Home Page