Every Good Gift: An Easter IV Sermon – May 18, 2025
Anthony G. Cirilla
May the words of my mouth and the meditations of my heart be acceptable in thy sight, O Lord my Strength and my Redeemer. In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost. Amen.
The sermon this morning is from the Epistle lesson from James 1:17, found on page 174 in the Book of Common Prayer. This is one of my favorite passages in all of Scripture so I’ll have to restrain myself from emulating Paul and preaching until midnight.
EVERY good gift and every perfect gift is from above, and cometh down from the Father of lights, with whom is no variableness, neither shadow of turning. This verse alone holds incredible power for understanding our relationship with God and every element of existence we experience. The verse seamlessly ties together two truths of the Christian view of goodness: that the goodness of the giver is greater than the goodness of the gift, but also that the goodness of the gift manifests and shines as a testimony of the goodness of the giver. We often may be tempted to think of God’s goodness and the good things of life as in tension, but James 1:17 teaches us to elevate the goodness of God as giver of all things as the font from which every other blessing flows. There’s nothing in the structure of Creation to which this verse does not apply. In fact I would say that it gets to the sacramental nature of creation itself. The Prayer Book defines a sacrament as an outward and visible sign of an inward and spiritual grace. Now, I do not say this to water down the importance of the Sacraments of the Gospel and Baptism, but to say that where the sacraments, by the power of the Holy Spirit lift our souls to the Ascended Christ in witness of the blinding light that shines from the Throne of the Father, they also teach us how to put every other gift of creation, of our bodies and our lives into the right framework. The sacramental nature of Creation is indicated by Paul in Romans 1:20 “For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead.” In other words, the very fabric of existence is an outward and visible sign of God’s invisible grace. The sturdy foundations of the earth reflect God’s immutable character. The coolness and refreshing vitality of water reflects how all blessings flow from the river that proceeds from the Throne of Bounty. Even the structure of the hidden parts of our bodies which give us structure, our bones and muscles and nervous system, serve as metaphors for the spiritual interior – as for example our immune system fights off microscopic dangers, the Holy Spirit ministers in an even more secret way in the realm of things invisible to us through things visible. The shadows in creation stem from sin, from the Fall of Adam and Eve and the rebellion of Satan and his demons; the variableness and shadow of turning we experience from creation was not inherent to its design. Indeed, the fall of Adam and Eve, as well as Satan, can be summed up in a failure to comprehend the truth of James 1:17: they confused the gift with the giver. I have this gift right here, this pendant, that Camarie gave me for our wedding day. And I love it, because it reflects the light of Camarie’s love for me, and her love for my relationship with God. I value it more than I would on its own terms because she gave it to me. Naturally, I need to value it in subordination to how I love her. But to value this piece of jewelry over her would be self-evidently silly. But that is the drama of mankind’s failure to seek God properly: we confuse the goodness of the gift with the goodness of the giver, and that is what causes us to fall into shadow. The Fall, and every sin, our whole fight with the world, our flesh, and the devil can be defined as an attempt to enjoy the goodness of creation apart from the goodness of God that gave that good thing its being. Even the world, the flesh, and the devil are parodies of the goodness of creation, the goodness of the union of body and soul, and the goodness of the angels which all reflect the Creator’s glory. But rather than dismissing the value of those things, we have to remember that everything was made to perfectly reflect, in its limited way, the limitless goodness of God.
Of his own will begat he us with the word of truth, that we should be a kind of firstfruits of his creatures. Our salvation is a good and perfect gift. The Word of Truth, nothing less than Christ as God the Son become Man and dying for our sins, rising from the dead in overcoming them, and ascending to the Father to lead the way back to the Father of Heavenly Lights which the wayward human race had lost is precisely the bridge Christ builds between all of our shadows of darkness and the dazzling brilliance of the Father’s love. We were initially made in the image of God, which moved the giver of goodness in Genesis 1 to call His creation very good, so we were meant from the outset to be the crowning feature of creation that wedded the spiritual and the physical as living sacraments to God’s nature. Christ came not only to restore that image marred by the fall but to elevate it to a greater likeness by Incarnating God directly within the human race through His Son and joining us together as a family in His Holy Spirit.
Wherefore, my beloved brethren, let every man be swift to hear, slow to speak, slow to wrath: for the wrath of man worketh not the righteousness of God. The steadiness of knowing we are centered in God means we are better listeners. When we reflect on the goodness of God in His gifts, we can cultivate patience with others. For one thing, we remember the person we’re talking to is from God. If someone is upsetting us we should remember we don’t know what shadows of turning they may be facing. I’m not saying there is no place for righteous anger, but that wrath suggests we have lost sight of the origin of the human person in God if our immediate response to that person is wrath. We should remember that every person we meet is a more dignified gift because unlike any other gift that person we’re angry with is in the image of the giver, and with whom we have the responsibility of sharing the Gospel. We might be acting wrathfully towards something good the Father of Lights has put in that person. Or we might be responding to the darkness of a person’s wounded relationship with God with more darkness, and we just compound the problem instead of helping to be a conduit of the Father’s light. So a check on wrath is of utmost necessity.
Wherefore lay apart all filthiness and superfluity of naughtiness. Filthy speech, unnecessary behavior, it doesn’t suggest the gratitude we should have. If you inspect any sin in your life, you’ll find there a lack of gratitude for the good version of that which the Father gave to you purely. For every idol of darkness, there was a chance to worship God. For every dishonorable word to your parents, there was a lack of the honor God commands us to give them. For every inappropriate thought about someone who isn’t your spouse, there was lack of gratitude for your marriage. For every covetous thought, every time your joy is stolen because you don’t have something you think you’d be happy if only you had this or didn’t have to worry about that like that other person seems not to have to, you confuse the limited peace that comes from good things with the limitless peace that comes from the only one who is Good. The failure to uphold any of the ten commandments in their fullness means that your soul turned to some degree out of the Light of the Throne of Heaven and resorted to the shadows within. Don’t consult the shadows anymore – see every good and perfect gift as a manifestation of the light of the Father’s love.
And receive with meekness the engrafted word, which is able to save your souls. The words of Scripture are a light to the soul. Often Christians think about reading Scripture as a burden or a duty. But if someone you loved gave you a gift, you’d be excited. Imagine if you bought your loved one a special present for Christmas or your anniversary and instead of opening it he said, “Eh, I’ll open it tomorrow.” That’s what we do when we neglect God’s Word. Scripture is a gift greater than any other we will ever receive, except two deeply related ones: the Word of God to whom God’s Word points, Christ, and the sacramental Union with God’s word and the word of God experienced in the Lord’s Supper. As surely as the tree tops reach up to soak in the sunlight, when we come forward and receive that Holy Communion, we are experiencing the ingrafting of the truth of Scripture into us, which brings us into intimate association with the Ascended Body of Jesus Christ, by whose real spiritual presence we feed directly on the Light shining upon us from the Heavenly Father, who pours the perfect gift of His son’s goodness right into our souls and makes us shine afresh by the power of the Holy Spirit. Amen.