Sermon: The Gift
The word of the Lord came to Abram in a vision, “Do not be afraid, Abram, I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.” But Abram said, “O Lord God, what will you give me, for I continue childless, and the heir of my house is Eliezer of Damascus?”
Sometimes a word or a phrase I hear in one story will trigger a memory, a thought, distant, perhaps, from my childhood, and it makes me want to smile or cry, or just sit a moment and let the feeling I am feeling wash over me.
When God offered Abram a great gift, it made Abram sad. What use is that to me? he asked. I am old and have no one to whom I could leave anything.
I am reminded of a story from O. Henry, published in the New York Sunday World just before Christmas in 1905. The story was originally called, “Gifts of the Magi.”
It is the story of a married couple, James and Della Young, who sacrifice something very dear to them in order to be able to buy something special for one another.
Jim used to make $30 a week, but that was during good times. Now, he only takes home $20 a week, and the apartment they live in costs $8 a week for rent alone, so Della does all she can to stretch what’s left, negotiating daily with merchants to save a few pennies to put toward that special Christmas gift she plans to get for Jim.
The couple didn’t have much more than the love they help for one another. What they did have, they treasured. For Jim, it was a gold watch handed down to him from Grandfather to Father and now him. To him, it was greater than all of Solomon’s riches.
Della’s prized possession was her beautiful brown hair, which when let down, covered her all the way down to her knees. Whenever she felt the slightest bit unhappy, she would let down her hair and spin around in front of the mirror. She knew Jim loved her hair, and she always kept it soft and clean.
Here she was on Christmas Eve, counting the money she had saved up. One dollar and eighty-seven cents.
And sixty cents of it was in pennies.
No where near enough to buy what she hoped to get her loving, hard working husband.
So, she decided she would sell her hair.
She headed to Mademoiselle Sofronie’s shop which advertised Hair Goods of All Kinds, and she sold her hair for 20 dollars.
She spent the next two hours running from store to store to find the perfect gift, a fob and chain for Jim’s precious watch. She found a fairly plain but very precious platinum chain and fob for $21, leaving her with just 87 cents.
At home, waiting for her husband, she worried that he might not love her as much now that her beautiful hair was so short, and when he arrived home and realized what she had done, his expression scared her.
What Della didn’t know was that Jim sold his watch to buy her a set of combs she had eyed in a local shop.
I remember when I was young and read the short story, I thought it was touching, but foolish in a way, because they wound up with worthless gifts.
I was too young to understand true love, I guess, or maybe just too focused on things I wanted for Christmas, things we could not afford.
Abram cannot see the value in anything God might offer because he is focused on the wrong thing, the end of his life.
He sees himself as too old to matter anymore. There will be no legacy, no one to remember him, except for the son of a family servant who will have no real connection to Abram.
But God doesn’t leave Abram where He finds him. He shows him the stars in the heavens and tries to get Abram to imagine all those uncountable stars as descendants of his.
The situation can change. You can truly father a nation.
It is not the end, but the beginning.
To see things that way takes enormous faith. It requires us to believe in the unbelievable, to trust in the unfathomable, to look in the mirror and see flowing hair that will grow back, or children who will be reunited with their families and return to rebuild after being exiled.
If we lose our faith, we die.
If we give up believing that all things are possible with God, it is like saying that the sacrifice that Jesus made for us is not worth anything.
Not too long ago, we all received an amazing gift, the gift of life from the creator of all life, and that life that came down to live as one of us sacrificed everything for us.
In return, though nothing is expected of us, each of us makes a small sacrifice each day, accepting less than we would love to have, knowing that tomorrow could be a little better, a little brighter.
We cannot give up hope, because so many are looking to us for hope for them. They see the life we lead here, as difficult as it may be at times, and they see freedom, strength, joy, love, peace.
While so many are fighting for a life like ours, we need to keep the fire burning, lighting up the world with God’s love, letting everyone know that hope and faith will never die.
Abram stood firm and moved forward in faith by choosing God, against all odds.
This Lent, we remember that Jesus gave more for us than we may ever be asked to give for him or for anyone.
But there are many today who are lost. Many who have given up. Many who are close to giving up.
Many who are struggling to survive.
All God asks of us is what He asked of Abram.
Do not be afraid. I am your shield; your reward shall be very great.
We answer that call not just for ourselves, but for the millions of stars in the night sky who will come after us.
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, Amen.