Let us pray: O God, you are the giver of gifts. May we open to receive all that you offer. May we open to return your gifts by working for the common good. May these words I speak be ones which tell of your presence and power in our lives and in the world. Amen.

On this Epiphany Sunday, one of the biblical stories that we heard is the story of the visit of the Magi to the young Jesus. I would like to invite you on a journey as well. This is not a journey which has geographical dimensions. It is a journey which will take you on a trip into the heart of your heart and soul and mind.

Take a moment and think about something that you love to do. I believe everyone has something in their lives that can be described that way. It may be something which has led to gainful employment, or it may be something that you do or would like to do in your spare time. The only requirement is that it must be something you love to do. Perhaps you know other people who find the same skill or activity boring or complicated or unnecessary, but you would gladly do it for hours on end. You would do it regardless of whether you were paid to do it. Perhaps you are – that's a bonus, but you would still do it even if you weren't being paid.

I really hope that whatever it is came readily to mind. As I've already said, I believe everyone has something that qualifies.

Let's call whatever it is that came to mind and heart and soul, your passion. It's a convenient name, because that's what it is – a passion – something for which you have an unbounded enthusiasm.

Can you think of this passion as a gift? Imagine it as a gift in two ways. First of all it is a gift because it is something you have been given. We'll talk about where it came from in a moment, but if you have it, it came from somewhere and therefore it can be considered a gift. I would also contend that it came without cost. That can be hard to discern sometimes, because we quite often invest in our passions quite heavily – spending prodigally in order to improve our expertise, or to provide ourselves with resources needed to satisfy our desire to satisfy this passion, this love.

There are gifted children education programs all across our country that have been formed with this same concept in mind. Young people who are unusually accomplished in a particular subject or discipline are given extra work and extra opportunity to pursue the particular skills and abilities that they have been blessed with.

The very fact that these programs are called “gifted” is confirmation of the idea that these passions, interests and abilities are considered to be given to us as gifts.

So, if these are gifts they must come from someone or somewhere. I think for us, as members of a faith community, the source of these gifts is pretty clear. They come from God. Here we can turn to the passage we heard from the letter to the Ephesians this morning. As we heard, the author is somewhat mystified that he has been chosen to bring the message of God and Jesus to the people. Here is how my translation puts it: It came as a sheer gift to me, a real surprise, God handling all the details. When it came to presenting the Message to people who had no background in God’s way, I was the least qualified of any of the available Christians. God saw to it that I was equipped, but you can be sure that it had nothing to do with my natural abilities. So, Paul, or more likely someone writing in the name and style of Paul says that this passion to share the Message came as a calling, as a gift, as a surprise. Despite feeling unqualified, this is the job, this is the passion that was given. If you do a bit of quick research on the purpose of the letter to the Ephesians, you will find that an appropriate tag phrase for the letter is this: the Church, the body of Christ. This of course, alludes to Paul's insightful and ubiquitous description of us as Christians as members of the body of Christ. In other places, he describes the Christian faith community as akin to a body – which has many parts which need to work together in order to function as a whole. Eyes, ears, hands, feet and all the other body parts need to function in rhythm and harmony to get things accomplished.

So, return to that passion which I invited you to consider. Is it new to you to think of it as a gift? Is it new to you to think of it as a portion of what it takes to function as the body of Christ? If it isn't a new idea to you – that's great – you are already on to what I have to say today, but if it is a new idea, how does it change your perspective?

If your passion, if the thing you love to do above all others, the activity or skill (regardless of how skilled you may be at it) that you can most often describe as fun, when you do it, is seen as being a gift from God, does this change your opinion or attitude about it? Are you more likely to want to pursue it and less likely to see it as a time waster? Are you more likely to think of ways that you can increase the amount of time or the level of ability that you bring to this particular passion?

I invited you before to think of this passion as a gift in two ways. Firstly, I asked you you think of it as a gift given to you. Now I want you to think of it as a gift that you can give. If it has been given to you, then surely you have a responsibility to return it as a gift to others. Perhaps your particular skill or ability is something that not many others find enjoyable, interesting or even possible. But you do, and therefore you can offer it as a gift – perhaps in the doing, or as a product of your doing.

I would also contend that when you think of your passion as a gift given to you and a gift you can give in return, your attitude about it will change as well.

While it doesn't come up much in protestant theology, the list of cardinal sins includes the sin of pride as either the foremost among, or the basis of, the other six cardinal sins.

As a result I think there is a real tendency to want to downplay our particular skills, abilities and passions. We want to minimize talking about or demonstrating the things for which we have a passion for fear of being accused of being overly proud. If someone does spout off about the things they are good at, the things they love to do and how well they do them, we generally would consider them a blowhard, a selfish person, an egotist or perhaps a narcissist.

But what if rather than an opportunity to express or display how good we are at something and bring attention to ourselves we used our passion as a way of bringing glory to God, contributing to the smooth functioning of the body of Christ, and as a way of saying thanks for the gift that we have been given.

I would go so far as to say that if we have been blessed, gifted, by God with a particular passion, ability and aptitude, that we fail to serve God faithfully if we don't use that aptitude, passion and ability in the best way we can – not to bring glory to ourselves, but as a way of bringing glory and expressing our thanks to God who has blessed us in this way.

Jesus put it this way – don't hide your light under a bushel where no one can see it! Let it shine where it will bring light not on you but on God who has blessed you with that love, passion and desire.

What I have just described for you is an epiphany I had a number of years ago, as I tried to reconcile the passions and calling that were part of my life. There were certain things in my life that I wanted to do and which I felt I was pretty good at doing. But as I considered these passions in my life, I felt a certain reluctance to pursue them to the level that I desired because they seemed self-serving, wasteful and somewhat prideful. It wasn't until I started to understand them as a gift from God – that I became comfortable in accepting them as my role, my purpose and part of my calling as a follower of God. And as that perspective changed, so did my response to it. I began to understand that when I followed my passion and continued to improve my skills and abilities in response to that passion, that I should adopt an attitude of gratitude – a deep thankfulness for the gift of this passion and a desire to use this gift in pursuit of the common good.

It all sounds more clear than it has been – but ever since that epiphany – the light that God invested in me as that passion, that calling, that aptitude, that ability has been like a light to guide my way in life and in faith.

I hope that perhaps this journey I've led you on today, has resulted in its own epiphanies (small though they may be) for you. Give thanks to God for the gifts you have been given and give thanks to God by using those gifts in pursuit of the goodness that God calls us to bring to the world, as a light for those around us, as the light of God that shines within us, and from us. Amen.