Squandered Gifts

Have you ever had the experience of offering someone a valuable gift only to have them dismiss the gift with indifference? Maybe you have saved money for months to take someone to some awesome and majestic place and your travel companion spends the whole trip complaining about the lack of cell phone service. Or maybe you’ve worked for countless hours knitting an elaborately patterned afghan from pure wool only to find out that the recipient uses it on camping trips right along with the fleece throw from Target. Or you’ve spent all afternoon making homemade lemonade squeezed by hand only to have a teenager down the whole batch in a minute and then move on to a two liter bottle of Mountain Dew and not notice the difference. Or you’ve put every ounce of love you have into a gift for someone you love only to see that gift never worn, never used, forgotten.

If you have ever cared for anyone at all, you’ve undoubtedly had this experience to some degree or another. You know how it feels to have a value-able gift you have given squandered, dismissed, forgotten, not valued by the person who received it.

God is the gift giver. We are the indifferent recipients.

And we need to remember that it is the transaction of the gift giving and the relationship that lies behind it that are the most important parts of this picture. If you can identify with the gift-giver you know that, when a value-able gift is not valued by the recipient, a dark blot enters into the relationship. The nature and severity of that darkness depend upon the circumstances, but the relationship is marred. When a valuable gift is squandered or forgotten a part of the relationship between giver and recipient dies. Only repentance, forgiveness and reconciliation can restore the light to the relationship, mend the breach.

Lent calls us all to self-examination, to the act of inventorying what the Great Litany calls "all our sins, negligences and ignorances." But we need to remember that this Lenten soul searching isn’t really about just us or our souls. The point of Lent is not to fix our faults, clean up our garbage, pay for our mistakes. The point isn’t even really for us to be absolved of our sins. The point is to restore a relationship that has been marred by our indifference. Acknowledging and repenting of our sins is just the beginning. The point is to reconcile us to God, to heal the estrangements that result when we squander or dismiss the wondrous gifts that God has given and continues to give to us in our lives.

In a bit we will say together the Litany of Penitence. As we do, try to hear and understand its phrases within the context of God’s gifts offered to us. Think about God’s gift of life itself… our lives that are so much more than dust… a gift we should accept with awe and humble thanksgiving and yet we squander it with pride and hypocrisy. How must God feel towards us when we squander the life God has given us? God offers us the gift of God’s own presence with us when we gather in worship, and we respond with indifference and negligence in celebrating and sharing the gift of God’s presence. God gives us hearts that can feel joy and wonder, but we selfishly cling instead to greed and envy within our hearts. How would you react if you were God offering joy and wonder to people whom you loved only to see those gifts brushed away? God gives us other people to share our lives with us… God gives us the opportunity for community… by God’s gift we have the potential for human relationships… a gift that we self-indulgently exploit. God literally touches us, speaks to us, cares for us through the presence of Christ incarnate, made flesh, in one another. But we turn away from God’s own love and touch when we show only judgment and contempt for other human beings who bear the image of Christ for us. Just imagine, from God’s perspective, what that attitude does to our relationship with God. God gives us the opportunity share as partners in God’s own work in the world, to have the richest of "quality time" with God, and we put those opportunities at the very bottom our to do list. God gives us all of creation, and we couldn’t care less.

Yes, we sin when we abuse or ignore God’s gifts. But even more importantly, we destroy, bit by bit, our relationship with the giver.

There is a portion of every celebration of the Holy Eucharist that we call The Confession of Sin. I wish we had a better name for that part, because our confession is only one piece of what happens. Our confession is an essential first step. An essential first step, but only the first step. We confess. God forgives. By Christ’s gift, the church absolves. And, by God’s grace, reconciliation occurs.

Most of you know that the opportunity for private confession exists within the Episcopal Church. At least linguistically, we do a better job there. The practice is not called "going to confession" or "making your confession." It is called "The reconciliation of a penitent." "Reconciliation. Reconciling an indifferent recipient of God’s gifts to God, the ever-loving giver of those gifts. It’s about restoring us to God’s good graces after we have defaced or squandered or ignored the immensely valuable gifts God has given us. Listen to part of the service, spoken by the penitent.

"Holy God, heavenly Father, you formed me from the dust in your image and likeness, and redeemed me from sin and death by the cross of your Son Jesus Christ. Through the water of baptism you clothed me with the shining garments of righteousness, and established me among your children in your kingdom [what incredible gifts!]. But I have squandered the inheritance of your saints, and have wandered far in a land that is waste.

"Especially, I confess to you and to the Church…"

Finishing that sentence is the work that lies ahead of us all this Lent. It is the first step towards reconciliation. Reconciliation. God’s gift to us from the cross.