This is the Sunday during Advent when we pay particular attention to the prophets, and in particular, John the Baptist. One of the things that has always impressed me most about John the Baptist is his humility. If you think about his job – it’s the humble task of preparing the road for the Messiah. He is the one in the wilderness crying out to prepare the way of the Lord. And when people ask him who he is, he does not say, “Oh, I’m the really important guy, without me, there will be no Messiah coming this way.” At every opportunity he tells his followers, “Don’t look at me, you just keep your eyes open so that you may see the Son of God who will bring in the Reign of God”.
And to me, John’s lead is an invitation to all of us – in the same way that John had a very important job, we too have been given gifts and talents by God to use for his glory and for the building up of the Reign of God.
However, there will always be a tension about using our gifts and talents not to draw attention and glorify ourselves but to use our gifts to draw attention to God. In this book I have referred several times this Autumn Ordering Your Private World by Gordon MacDonald, McDonald makes the distinction between being driven and being called – being driven is relentlessly work hard so that you can prove yourself to yourself, and the world, and quite often to prove to the voices in your head that were planted there in your childhood by teachers or parents that you are a success.
I remember a story that my husband told me about meeting with a hospital chaplain in a prestigious teaching hospital in London. The chaplain told Adrian a story about a famous surgeon who had just performed one of the most complicated surgeries of its time. After the surgery, the chaplain congratulated the surgeon on his skill telling him what a great job he had done. But the surgeon turned around and said “please don’t congratulate me. I’m just using the skill that God has given me. Just give thanks to God for giving me this skill and giving me the chance to use it”.
Advent is a good time to reflect on how we are using our gifts and talents. We all tend to fall into three sorts of categories. The first is “Yes, I am marvellous, look at me.” Where we take all the credit for everything, and if someone else gets the credit, even God, we feel a bit put out.
The second category is the “I am so humble; I could not possibly do anything great.” But, do you know, that when you say that, you are actually insulting not only yourself, but also God’s creation. There is this wonderful line in psalm 139 where it says “Lord, you know all about me. I praise you because you made me in an amazing and wonderful way.” The words of the psalmist are not arrogant, they are thankful.
The third way – is to realize that everything we have and every talent we possessed is a gift from God. And when we do that we are free to use our skills and talents to the glory of God.
And the surprising good news about thinking this way is that we don’t have to worry about being perfect. God is made manifest whenever we make an effort, not when we succeed and impress.
One of the things I invite you to do this week is to think about what you are good at doing. What do people keep asking you to do at work or in your volunteer life, or your community? And if you see a pattern in your answers to your questions – maybe you have had a particular gift from God for the building up of God’s kingdom. Just like John the Baptist, we are sent from God as men and women to proclaim the coming of God’s kingdom. And just like John the Baptist we are who we are, and do it best not by pointing to ourselves but to the one who saves us. Amen.
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