I find gift giving to be a tricky business. It's not the giving, that part is easy, it's the gift. What to give? Of course, sometimes people are helpful, as when she sees something in a store window and casually remarks, "Oh, isn't that lovely," in that "If you really loved me you would do more than call me darling, Darling" voice. Or every time he goes to Home Depot he picks up the same power tool and salivates. These people make gift giving easy. If you pay attention to the signs they will lead you, as it were, to the gift you are to give and will do everything except wrap it up and deliver it to themselves on the appropriate day. As a bonus they will even act surprised that you knew exactly what they wanted.
       There are, however, those people who don't help at all because they don't seem to know what they want. "What do you want for your birthday?" you ask, and they reply "I don't know" or worse, "Oh, nothing." Nothing is worse because it is hard to find and very hard to wrap and people don't generally like it so much once they get it. On the other hand, if you ask children what they want you find out that they want the opposite of nothing which, of course, is everything. Everything is equally hard to find and wrap and as far as I can tell from Lifestyles of the Rich and Famous, grossly overrated.
      It is Eyeore's birthday and it appears that no one has taken note. When Pooh finds out he is very upset and runs home to get Eyeore something that a Pooh would like very much, a pot of honey. Which, when you think of it, is a very hard gift for a Pooh to give, seeing as you never know when you might be in need of a little smackrel. Piglet finds out from Pooh about Eyeore's birthday and wishing very much that he had thought of it before Pooh runs home to get a large red balloon, which is a very festive gift to give a melancholy donkey.
      Everything seems to be going quite well except that Pooh forgets where he's going with the honey and doesn't remember until he's eaten it all. "Oh bother." But he decides that an empty pot might be useful for putting things in so he decides to give it to Eyeore anyway.
       Meanwhile, Piglet, who is running to reach Eyeore before Pooh, trips and falls and bursts Eyeore's birthday balloon. Poor Eyeore. It's his birthday and all he gets is an empty pot and a broken balloon. Both Pooh and Piglet are very apologetic and feeling quite sad but Eyeore doesn't seem to notice. He's too busy putting his broken balloon in his empty jar and taking it out again, and putting it in and taking it out, as happy as can be.
      But the free gift is not like the trespass. For if the many died by the trespass of one man, how much more did God's grace and the gift that came by the grace of the one man, Jesus Christ, overflow to the many. Romans 5:15
      It is the trespass, which we have inherited and compounded, that empties our honey pots and bursts our balloons. Certainly we want to give good gifts, to be people who care for others, who stand up for what is right, who make sacrifices for those less fortunate. We want to be kind and gentle and forgiving, but then we forget what we're about and before we know it we've eaten all our honey and there's none left to give. Or we rush to be first, not in a mean sort of way, but in the way a very small animal who would very much like to be bigger might, and in our rushing we fall and burst our balloon and have nothing left to give but a small piece of damp rag.
      But the free gift is not like the trespass... It is a lovely surprise that God uses our broken gifts to make something new, something we could not have foreseen. For God takes what is left from our self indulgence and what is broken by our self absorption and puts them together  and calls it church. A place where damp bits of rag fit nicely into empty pots so that what was useless, by the grace of God becomes useful.