What has God given you?

Rev. Pat Baumgartner preached today on Matthew 16:13-20. This is the passage in which Peter identifies Jesus as the Christ, the Child of the Living God.

 

Rev. Pat made an important point about this passage. Peter is declaring to Jesus who he is, which is another way of saying what God has given him. By knowing what God has given us, we can know what God expects us to do. God expects us to use what God has given us.

 

This message speaks to me because I have been struggling with two notions. One is that I should have been who I am now -- an out gay man -- a long time ago. The other is that God expects me to be perfect. Well, perhaps God didn't give me the tools to be an out gay man until fairly recently. Perhaps I am able to be who I am today because God gave me that ability when the time was right, and not before then. And maybe God doesn't expect me to be perfect because God hasn't given me the (questionable) gift of being perfect. And what God doesn't expect of me I shouldn't expect of myself.

 

Today when I offered communion I gave this blessing: may you find yourself this week knowing what God has given you, thereby knowing what it is that God expects you to do, and may you find yourself doing that very thing.

 

And this, my siblings, is the gift I ask for myself.