Cherish the gift!
Thanksgiving c13, John 6:24-35 with Philippians 4:4-7 and Deuteronomy 26:4-10 in b.g.
Have you ever received a gift?
When I first met Kevin, I knew there was something different about him. The things that I first noticed were the outward things. His complexion could best be described as blue. That's right I said blue. You see, Kevin was born with congenital heart disease. That's a medical way of saying that his heart simply didn't function "normally". Because his heart couldn't pump blood throughout his body, his face and hands looked quite blue. Not only that – but his fingers were different than yours and mine. They literally had knobs at the end of them. Again, a result of congenital heart disease.
That day I first met Kevin he was in his late 20's having already outlived the prognosis of his life – which was 10. And get this – he was playing the organ in church, with cowboy boots on. Again these are the things I first noticed about Kevin – outward things.
But in the 17 years I worked with him and lived close by him I began to notice other things. Kevin was as honest as the days are long. He couldn't get going in the mornings – due to his CHD but let me tell you once he got going, he really went. Although he played the organ painfully slowly on Sunday mornings, during the mid-week Lenten services when we wanted a slower pace, we simply couldn't keep up. Kevin would give me that toothy smile of his as I glanced over at him. How could I be angry? Kevin's living literally defied death.
But not only that – Kevin was honest. It didn't matter if he was phoning me from his bathtub at 4:30 on a Sunday morning telling me he was going to sleep and hoping that I would have a good sermon that morning or if he was calling to tell me that his brother or father had just died – he was always so honest, no pretension. I'll never forget the day when he finally managed to get his driver's license. No 16 was he. No sirree. He was 40 but for the first time in his life he was deemed well enough by the province of BC to drive a vehicle. We had to go for a spin. Again he flashed that toothy grin.
Kevin's life made music literally and figuratively on violins and guitars, on pianos and organs – in the lives of old and young. Three years ago – he called me all excited. He had qualified to receive a heart and double lung transplant. I asked him how he felt? You know what he said, EXCITED! Now I ask you, if you required a new heart and 2 lungs to "survive" – would you feel primarily excited? I'm not so sure.
But that's the way Kevin lived. He lived life fully, on the edge, anticipating what COULD BE, WHAT MIGHT BE. He was a gift- to myself and to so many others. His life is not something I could ever deserve to have been part of. Yet I observed as he invested and shared his life with so many others. What else can I do with such a gift – but give thanks, learn and grow from him? Indeed I sometimes catch myself wondering how I can complain about my minor aches and pains when I look at Kevin. My minor set-backs and disappointments, my occasionally feeling blue pale in comparison to Kevin's journeys and battles with his CHD and then receiving a double lung/heart transplant. And you know what – within a year and one half of having received his transplant he was out in a walkathon campaigning for many to become organ donors. What a gift he has been!
So I ask again, have you ever received a gift?...
I don`t only ask because today is Thanksgiving Sunday. Instead I ask because receiving gifts are at the very heart of life!
On day Jesus fed over 5000 people. Those people were thankful. The growlies stopped. But I am not convinced that they really saw THE GIFT. They saw the blueness of Kevin`s complexion – the blue face and fingers, the weird shapes of his finger tips. That day they saw bread – but not THE BREAD. They saw Kevin but not THE KEVIN. They received a gift but MISSED THE GIFT.
How about you? How about me? Are we living or merely surviving. Are we being opened to gifts or just exchanging stuff?
Today, each day we are offered the very gift of life by God. This entails breathing and thinking, moving and feeling, laughing and crying, eating and drinking. All of these are miraculous. All of these are wondrous gifts. But before and underneath these is God, the Creator of the universe; God the One who fashions each of us in our mother`s wombs; God the One who loves us as we are and hopes for us an ongoing transformation where we might be enabled to both love ourselves, others and this world – regardless of the pain, the struggle involved.
Do we behold this gift – this love of God, this communion that God wills to have with us each and every day, each and every single moment?
Now that`s a gift – the gift that my friend Kevin reflected in his far less than perfect but yet so wonderfully unique way.
Today, dear people may we be opened to receive this gift of God, this One who takes on our frail flesh and comes to us as the living Bread from heaven, the bread of life. For as we are blessed to receive Him – we are moved beyond survival, beyond fear, beyond grumbling and keeping track, to actually living now and life forever.
Our eyes are opened to see the Kevin`s of this world – to behold ourselves as we are, to be honest with ourselves, others and God. Our hearts are being transformed to love and give thanks with all we are and have. We begin to wonder in the reality that all is gift to be shared, to be lived, to dance and sing, to laugh and cry, to hold and trust, to give away!
Such is the work of God – a gift to us- that we hold God's promises dearly, that we trust God. For in this is life, living now and living forever, hope for the whole world.
This is a gift – to be opened, given away, cherished with all that we are! Amen.