There's a new word. Although we may be sufficiently out of the loop to have only heard it this year, the word already has enough credibility to have made the most recent edition of Webster's dictionary. The word is "regift." Webster's defines "regift" as "to give as a gift something one previously received as a gift." It's a new word, but the phenomenon has been around. Your mother may have told you that regifting was ill-bred. Miss Manners is still squarely against giving someone a gift you have received from someone else. It used to be that newly weds exchanged their duplicate gifts at the store for something else. Now, if you read "Ask Carolyn," newlyweds are passing on their gift duplicates and rejects to friends as wedding presents to them. Springwater has seen its share of regifting. Isn't there something about elaborate schemes to get the stuffed bear head out of your house and into someone else's? In our circle of friends in Madison, it was the giant stuffed frogs in tutus that were coveted. But only for the purpose of foisting them off on someone else as a gag gift.

But because today we celebrate Epiphany, regifting comes up. Although Miss Manners is opposed to regifting on a human-to-human level, it appears to be the apostle Paul's opinion that there are good theological reasons why God favors it. In 2 Corinthians 8 and 9 (the chapters we seem to hear a lot during stewardship season), Paul says Christ gave up riches for poverty-on our account. By accepting poverty for himself, Christ made it possible for us to be rich. Christians "give in gratitude" for what they have received. Therefore, we don't have to be regifters, we get to be regifters.

Did the mother of Baby Jesus regift any of the stuff she got at the shower? Did the Holy Family use any of it for bribes or travel expenses to Egypt when Herod killed the babies? Those are silly questions. This is Epiphany, which means the revealings of God in Christ. The gifts those wise men give Jesus do some revealing of their own. You may have heard this before. The wise men show up in Jerusalem looking for a new baby, and what they bear reveals who they think he is. Now, the gospel-writer Matthew's schtick is that Jesus fulfills every Messianic prophecy. Today's gifts have been cited in Hebrew scripture for centuries as signs of the Messiah. Gold, especially from far away, is kingly homage. Frankincense was the prophetic signal of the restoration of the kingdom. Myrrh was a key ingredient in the priestly anointing oil recipe revealed to Moses by God. The wise men's gifts reveal Jesus as Prophet, Priest, King. Therefore, when Matthew tells us they've gotta leave by another road, it's not because Herod threatens them, it is because, like us, they will never be the same after meeting the Messiah.

My meditation on regifting this week naturally led to praise for the riches of God. Riches so abundant that regifting is almost mandatory. Any de-clutter guru will tell you: don't bring anything else into this closet until you take something out! Abundant riches of God, but also riches so durable they can be passed on. My theory of baby clothes is that they're worn for such a short time, the clothes don't really belong to your. You get to use them for awhile, but they should be passed on. Which creates a circulating library of baby clothes, moving from family to family. Like regifting the riches of God, this practice creates a climate of generosity. Except that God's riches don't stain or wear out.

Riches so compelling they increase in the regifting. The mystery is that God can neither hoard the riches nor let them sit idle. God's riches are poured on us, but as we regift them, like yeast or yogurt starter, they grow. Like yeast on flour causing the bread to rise or bacteria changing milk to yogurt, the regifting causes change. We change as we receive God's riches. We change as we regift them. But God's riches are unlike English ivy or bamboo, the gifts that keep on giving. Unlike ivy or bamboo, which spread for their own sake, smothering or out-competing or breaking down obstacles, eliminating everything but itself. The riches of God are invested in us, making us simultaneously both more like ourselves and more like the Giver.

As the Franciscans say, "It's all gift." Which always makes me narrow my eyes and look sideways. All? I have personally been around the block frequently enough to know that nothing is perfect-everything has lumps. I would rather think that "gift" is always good news. What is the goodness of gift when it comes with all that pain? I know, if you touch something hot, pain is your friend. It makes you pull away so you don't get burned. In unhealthy relationships, pain might cause you take steps toward healing. In physical ailments, pain reminds you to make choices. The arthritis in your knee-can you handle it symptomatically with aspirin or ought you to use dietary supplements for tendons and strengthening exercises to support the knee? When the pain becomes unmanageable using these resources, ought you to make other choices? Stronger drugs? Accept limited mobility and activity? Replace the joint? Pain is your friend when it invites you to make choices and take action. When you have the opportunity to grow and learn.

The pain I've lived with for years has almost never been my friend, but I'm trying to make peace with it. Some of you know that I've lived with depression for many years. I was whining to a friend about the burden of this disease, and my friend said, "You've wasted a lot of energy whining about and resisting the depression. Why don't you make friends with it?" That got my attention. I hate to waste energy-especially mine. When I remarked bitterly about the futility of that, my friend asked, "Who would you be without it?" Who, indeed! The depression's pain is what triggered my journey inward, the journey to God. The gift of that journey has been the revelation of myself, over the years offering me transformation and growth. My inward journey has given me tools for more effectively seeking God, tools for hearing others in their need of grace. As I have regifted those tools, I have found the courage to stay present to my pain and that of others, the ability to see more deeply than first appearances. In Twelve Step programs, the last step is regifting, the assumption being that you're not in recovery until you share what you've learned. You don't write a thank you note for recovery, you regift. What you have received, you pass on to others.

One of the best gifts I got this Christmas was a regift. It came out of our Advent vesper services. We gathered each Wednesday evening around the communion table and baptismal font in an attitude of "fruitful waiting." Over the weeks we received the fruits of forgiveness, God's new name for us, another chance. The last evening, as we nibbled fruit, I found myself, in an incredibly sacred moment, going face to face with each person, declaring the grace of God for them personally. Christmas Day, I opened a package that had appeared on my desk with the label, "A regift for Eileen from Erin." A long strip of paper was wrapped around a pew Bible, and as I unwound the paper, I realized that Erin was regifting me with what I had regifted to the worshipers that Wednesday evening in Advent. This is what it said: "Eileen, if you were the only person in the world, God would have done all of this, and it would have been worth it." Friends, believe the good news of the gospel: "If you-if you personally-if you were the only person in the world, God would have done all of this, and it would have been worth it."