Hooray! God is Good

Text: Sirach 24:1-12
Other texts: Wisdom of Solomon 10:15-21, John 1:1-18

We are about to emerge from the season of gifts. Epiphany marks the last of the twelve days of Christmas. As in “On the twelfth day of Christmas my true love gave to me.” Did someone give you something that you wanted this season? Did someone give you something you did not want? Some little something that you now have to store away for years. The crystal swan or the napkin holder. The something you cannot throw out or give away because the person who gave it to you loves you and you love that person. Re-gifting, a new word and an old concept, is still a little impolite and shameful. You do not want anyone to see that you have given their gift to someone else. To deny their gift to you would be hurtful and mean and harm your relationship.

The readings for today—Sirach, Wisdom of Solomon, Ephesians, and John—come at this time of the church year, this second Sunday in Christmas, because they all celebrate God’s presence among us. Immanuel, meaning God with us. But they all preface that celebration with a note about the things God has given us. Gifts to us, God’s children.

For starters, the readings say, God gave us the universe. I came forth from God and covered the earth, says Wisdom. Wisdom, with a capital “W,” is a divinity in what is called “wisdom literature.” She is often considered the equivalent of the Holy Spirit. Here, she has the same role as the wind, the breath, the spirit that in Genesis moved over the waters and brought forth creation, the heavens and the seas. In the Gospel of John, the Word is the creator. In the beginning was the Word, writes John in this amazing poem, in the beginning was the Word. All things came into being through the Word. We start by acknowledging that all we are is from God.

But God did not just make us. God continues to fiddle with the universe and to interfere with history. Our god is not standoffish, shy, or reluctant to meddle in the affairs of humans and the elements. God opened the waters of the Red Sea, the reading reminds us, God guided the Israelites from Egypt—by a pillar of cloud by day and a pillar of fire by night—guided them from slavery to freedom. God adopted the people of Israel as God’s own. And the people adopted God and gave God a place to live among them. “In the beloved city he gave me a resting place,” sings Wisdom, “and in Jerusalem was my domain.” And John writes that the Word became flesh and lived among us. God comes to us and lives as Jesus, a human being with us.

These are God’s gifts, given to us by one who loves creation and the humans within it. They are three big gifts.

Creation. Our existence, really, and all that we see and all that we are. Our hopes and our abilities and our comforts. And all the things we love—the world, and pleasures, and other people—and the ability to love at all.

Freedom. The scripture speaks of political freedom for the Israelites. Freedom from slavery and oppression and all that includes: violence, imprisonment, exploitation, indifference to the plight of others. But we also are given through Christ the freedom from fear of death and the freedom from all the fear that keeps us from loving others, even those unfamiliar to us.

And God’s presence here with us. We are not cut loose to find our own ways in a mindless, thoughtless universe. And we are not experiments observed from above in some far off heavenly laboratory. We have not been created to see how things work out in the end. God who created us is near us, hears us, knows us better than we know ourselves, knows what it is like to be us. We are not alone.

God has made us. God has freed us. God is with us. These are the gifts that scripture tells us about. And in the best of times our hearts tell us too. They are fine gifts, one that fill the writers of today’s readings with hope and pride and gratitude.

Yet they are not always whole-heartedly welcome. They obligate us. We cannot in good conscience store them away in the closet—and there is no way to re-gift them. They are ours, given by a loving and interfering God, ours to keep. And therefore to keep care of and to use wisely. They can be mixed blessings. The Temple in Jerusalem, God’s house and resting place and beloved city, as Sirach says, has been in history and in the present also a focus of sadness and conflict. The call to Christians to treat others, even enemies, as one’s self has been a difficult standard to live up to. Walking without fear requires trust that we don’t always have. God’s presence among us means that God is sometimes closer than is comfortable. We can be selfish, violent, and nasty folks sometimes. And in those times, we don’t really want to be reminded that we are God’s favorite relative and recipient of God’s blessing.

If we see these things as God’s gifts, whether we are enthusiastic and grateful for them or not, the question is: how should we respond? Should we pretend that they have no call on us? Should we try to put them in a spiritual closet? Should we act as if we have no particular or specific responsibilities, even though we are free creatures loved by God? Does that mean anything, and if if does, what does it call us to do?

Wisdom literature is often a guide to an ethical way of living. Proverbs, for example, is part of this kind of writing. But the ethics and guides, though sensible, are not derived from common sense. They are derived from our relationship with God. Our good behavior is not a kind of ethical to-do list of chores. Not “Be good because I told you to” sort of thing. We save our aunt’s crystal swan because we have a relationship with her that we do not want to jeopardize. Even when it might be a pain to care for, we do it out of respect and love for her.

The big story of the Bible is a story of the connection people have with God. Our gratitude for what God has given us is part of that connection, both in the history of our religion and the history of our own personal faith. We can lean on that connection. But it also demands things of us, just as the connection we have with our friends and family demands things of us.

These scripture passages are ones of happy thanksgiving. Hooray! they say, God is good. We have received much. Grace upon grace, as John writes. The word he uses is the root of the word for gratitude (you can hear “grace” inside “gratitude”) and thanksgiving. How we respond to that grace is an ongoing and lifelong quest, for the church as a whole, for this church, and for each of us. But we can start, on this the second Sunday in the season of Christmas, with a simple thank you.

Thanks to God for all God has given us. Hooray! God is good.