In the church year January begins with the feast of the Epiphany on 6^th January: the coming of the wise men, who brought their gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh in worship of the baby Jesus.  In country areas, the Sunday following Epiphany used to be marked as Plough Sunday, when the plough was taken through the streets to the church to be blessed.  The following day was Plough Monday, when work in the fields recommenced after Christmas.

Nowadays, of course, most ploughing takes places in the autumn, so such a ceremony wouldn't be very relevant in January anyway.  A new plough today could cost £10,000, and a tractor to pull it could easily cost £100,000 or much more.  Gold indeed!

What could we bring to God today, from our lives?  The wise men chose their gifts carefully: Gold to show that Jesus was King, frankincense to show that he was a priest (to show God to people and people to God), and myrrh for his suffering and death.  Have we generous gifts, gifts that cost us something, to offer to God?  We make our offering in church (not taking up a collection to keep an institution going!) as a sign of thanksgiving to God for all that he has done for us, our money being a symbol of all that we offer to God.

However we respond, though, God offers his gifts to us from his overflowing love, more generous than we can imagine.  In the feats that we have just celebrated at Christmas, Charles Wesley described it thus:
Our God contracted to a span,
Incomprehensibly made man.

Whatever gifts we may offer to God, God offers us his love, generous and unconditional, in Jesus.

We took the shoe boxes which amounted to some 50 in number to the collection point at Worthing in November.