In my office at the church it is such a common occurrence that I get thanked profusely and sometimes with tears for the work that I get to put a face on.  I rarely have done much other than served as a vehicle for others.

The blessing is that I get to be there when the realization comes that a grace too big to be repaid has just entered into your life.  I get to be there for the usually quiet “thank you.” Sometimes all it took was an envelope or a piece of paper or a pile of boxes or a card or a key.  Sometimes I have had to cajole and coerce people to open their hands and hearts to something that is too big, too gracious to be acceptable.  Again, it is important to know that I am rarely responsible for the gift, I am a delivery guy, a butler in this house of God we call Grace.

And I have one little sermon for this moment that many people have heard over the last decade or so.  It may be my best sermon.  It goes like this.

Look, we are all just heads of wheat in a ripe field of harvest.  The Wind blows, and we bow.  Today I am bowing to you, and you are overwhelmed, but there are a million heads of wheat bowing behind me.  I can bow to you because they are bowing to me.  Tomorrow the Wind will change, and we will change directions.  Then you will bow to someone else, and so will I.  This moment, right now, let me bow to you.  You will bow too, and this is the way of God in the world.  The Wind blows, and we bow, and Grace is passed from one to another like a harvest in the wind.

Be generous this Christmas, for we all bow and are bowed to again.  I love you because I am loved.  May the Wind blow through us all.