Happy new year to you all! Does Christmas seem like a distant memory? Did you get some lovely gifts? Everything you wanted? As we’re celebrating Epiphany today it seems appropriate to think about our gifts- the ones we gave and the ones we received- and the thought behind them.
I spend ages choosing presents but somehow I feel I’ve never quite got it right, whilst there’s always a lot of thought and care behind the gift I always worry about how it will be received.
We can see the meaning and symbolism behind the gifts the Magi bring to Jesus, but I wonder what Mary and Joseph actually thought when they opened them? I’m sure the gold would have come in handy, particularly when it came to organising their safe passage to Egypt, and I’m sure they appreciated the depth of symbolism in regard to the Frankincense and Myrrh, but I secretly imagine Mary in particular wishing they’d have turned up with something a bit more practical for the care of a new born, son of God or not.
I don’t want to lean towards gender stereotypes but I’m sure you’ve heard that if it had been three wise women that had turned up they’d have brought a casserole, cleaned up the stable and organised a nappy laundering service.
Now I’ve preached a lot on Epiphany, maybe more than any of the other festivals, and I’ve always looked for a different angle than talking about the gifts, I don’t know if I’ve ever even mentioned them on epiphany before so I made a conscious decision this year to reflect upon the gift aspect of this festival as it inspires our own gift giving, which if you were to take an objective look at Christmas, away from our lens of faith, it would seem to be one of the most central things about the season.
The predictability of a gift sermon is it ends up being about our own gifts and what we bring to the manger and therefore to the body of Christ, and this sermon was going to look very different to how it turned out, the themes were the same when I was planning it in my head but then….my family became obsessed with the new Disney film Encanto which came onto the Disney channel on Christmas Eve…I think we’ve watched it 7 or 8 times now.
So what is Encanto about? Well it’s about a very special family who each have, I’m sure you can guess…magical gifts…that is all except one. The central character, Mirabel has no gift. She’s completely ordinary and the whole town knows it. The family matriarch, their Abuela (the film is set in Columbia so there’s lots of Spanish names and references, Abuela is grandma), Abuela sees this lack of gift as a failure, something which will damage the family.
I’m sure I’ve mentioned before that I’m a film nerd, and it’s these ordinary characters like Mirabel that I always find the most relatable and interesting. Not the special, magical or superhero characters.
I think a huge part of that is because I myself have always felt completely ordinary- don’t worry it’s not a self esteem or self-worth thing, I know I’m fabulous, but very ordinary, which is perfectly ok, because most people are it’s what keeps the world turning.
Imagine how exhausting it would be if our lives were full of extraordinary people! And yes, we are all special and unique and extraordinary and uniquely loved my god…but in an everyday kind of a way.
What I mean is that we’re not all destined to be a top concert pianist, Olympic swimmer, noble prize winner or Prime minister (although the bar for that one is quite low).
What we see in Encanto is the weight and burden of the gifts upon those who’re labelled as special. Luisa has super strength but feels the weight of the entire town upon her, she feels she would be worthless if she couldn’t fulfil everyone’s expectations, that her only worth is in service.
Isabella is beautiful and can create flowers and plants out of nothing, she makes everything around her beautiful. She feels the need to be perfect in all things and all times- this includes nearly marrying a man she doesn’t love because it’s expected of her. She never makes anything for herself and when she does she’s surprised and amazed to see it’s a spikey little cactus.
And poor Bruno, he follows the fate of so many biblical characters. He’s the family prophet who sees the future and is rejected for telling people difficult stuff they don’t want to hear.
And who is it that saves the day, the family and the town – fingers in your ears if you don’t want spoilers – but it’s Mirabel, of course it is. Ordinary, gift-less and in no way special. Or is she?
Because I see our ordinariness as a gift. How many magi were wandering around Bethlehem? Not many. How many shepherds? Dozens, maybe even 100s dotted around the outskirts of the city. Beyond ordinary, the lowest rung on the social ladder, and whilst the magi’s visit rounds off our manger story, let’s not forget that the shepherds received a personal invite from God’s holy messengers. They knew they had nothing to bring, utterly gift-less, and yet they came.
Now this is part of a gift sermon when we’re asked to contemplate our own gifts and what we can bring to the manger to lay before the Christ child, and how we can use our gifts to contribute to the body of Christ, but I’m not going to ask you to do that.
We have amazing, gifted, glorious people in this room but what I want you to do is contemplate and celebrate your ordinariness, because God does. The special, the exalted, the lifted up…are these the people Jesus chooses to spend his life with when grown? Is that the family and community God incarnate chose to be born into? Nope. Ordinary. The most extraordinary being chose ordinary because ordinary matters.
Ordinary is what keeps the world turning, keeps us going, feeds families, cares for the sick, runs towns and cities, operates valuable services, puts kids to bed…and continues the cycles of love and living that God put into the world when God chose to create earth and life and humankind. Our extraordinary ordinariness.
And as we contemplate our beautiful, ordinary lives, remember that this is what God chose that first Christmas, yes Jesus was for from ordinary, but his choice of an ordinary life, to begin with, is all the proof we need of how much God values us and what we bring to the world. And go and watch Encanto, it’s got some banging tunes. Amen.
