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PANDORA, THE NEW ADAM, AND GOD-GIVEN GIFTS

Pandora was the first woman, according to the greeks. Her name means literally “all the gifts,” since according to mythology, all of the gods had a hand in her creation. The story goes that each deity endowed her with a unique “gift,” gifts that were actually punishments the pantheon wished to inflict upon humankind—toil, disease, death and “a myriad other pains,” as the poet Hesiod describes. All of these were released on the world when “Pandora’s Box” was opened, and humanity has suffered ever since.

How different that story is from what we have in Scripture. The Bible tells us the first woman (and the first man) was created in God’s good image and likeness, not by a hoard of jealous and competing divinities. The one true God gifted humanity with personality and intelligence, the capacity to create and to love, and placed Adam and Eve in the beauty of Eden, blessing them with “all the gifts” for their life and joy. Here’s another difference: according to Genesis, it was humankind that let evil loose upon the world when the man and woman used these good gifts—will and freedom and the capacity to choose—to turn away from the One who loved them. They opted for autonomy rather than fellowship with their Creator and one another, and humanity has suffered ever since.

But Jesus Christ came to redeem all this. He came to relieve our suffering and to restore men and women to the Creator’s original dignity and design. Jesus himself is called “the New Adam,” (Rom. 5; 1 Cor 15) since through his death and resurrection he has recreated humankind in his image and restored “all the gifts” we were meant to enjoy and to use well in our love and service of God and one another.

This autumn’s Christian Education program features a class called “Discover your God-given Gifts,” which will be taught by Yours Truly, Fr. Corley, and our Vestry chairman for Parish Care, Ernie Cook. It is based on Romans 12: 6–8, where St. Paul describes the kind of gifts that are given in creation, and then renewed by the Holy Spirit for those who believe in Christ and are baptized into his Body.

Here is the passage: “Having gifts that differ according to the grace given to us, let us use them: if prophecy, in proportion to our faith; if service, in our serving; the one who teaches, in his teaching; the one who exhorts, in his exhortation; the one who contributes, in generosity; the one who leads, with zeal; the one who does acts of mercy, with cheerfulness.”

The first thing we learn from this passage is that people are different. The Body of Christ needs a variety of gifts, and God has gifted individuals uniquely. Our class will go on to show how the seven gifts described in this passage—prophecy (or perception), serving, teaching, exhorting, giving, leading (or administration), and showing compassion—are representative of the primary ways God has created different people, and through a “gifts survey” we will come to discover our own primary gifts and explore how we can offer them in Christ’s love and service.

I am excited about this class and the impact it will have on our parish. I believe it will give rise to new understandings and opportunities for each of us to show forth our Creator and Redeemer’s goodness, growing evermore into the image of the Jesus, the New Adam, in a world that too often looks like the aftermath of Pandora’s Box. It is my hope that everyone who call St. John’s “home” will come out for Christian Education in September —whether you attend this class or another—so that all of us together might be strengthened in “all the gifts” that keep us in Christ’s will and ministering as a community in his name.

Every blessing,