The Gift Table - Week Four
January 25, 2026
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The gift to see ourselves as others see us… — Discipleship!
Introduction:
This week we think about discipleship, humility and “the gift to see ourselves as others see us” as Robert Burns famously wrote in his Scots poem ‘To A Louse.’
O wad some Power the giftie gie us / to see oursels as ithers see us! / It wad frae mony a blunder free us, (from To A Louse, Burn’s poem puncturing pomposity and vanity).
Discipleship — shared life following after Jesus — is a gift of humility and new perspective that reminds us that we are not the centre of our own universe, we are constellations in a much more exciting one!
Seeds to sow:
This weeks marks Burns Day (25th January) in Scotland. Let’s read ‘To a louse’ that inspired this week and share our thoughts on it!
Read Philippians 2: 1-11
The gift of humility. An essential part of our relationship with God is our relationship with God’s world and the people who live there!
Q: Why is Christianity not a solo pursuit; simply a closed loop between each of us as an individual and Jesus?
Q: What is it that makes humility such a challenging idea? What lies behind the humility of Christ?
Read 1 Corinthians 1: 18-31
Accidentally foolish and willingly foolish. In Robert Burns’s ‘To a louse’ we see unwitting foolishness, but in Christ we see deliberate foolishness! There’s a difference between looking foolish as a result of being arrogant and looking foolish out of joy!
Often the world calls it foolish to act out of love rather than ‘logical self-interest’ (however that is defined at the time). But this passage challenges the way we humans think. God’s world is an upside down world where our reason and rationale can only go so far — God invites us to step beyond into love.
Q: How can the cross be seen as a stepping stone to love?
Q: What are some joyful things we could do together to bless others — that might look like foolishness to the world — that connect us to God’s gift in Jesus Christ?
Read 2 Kings 5: 1-14
“Nae, man!” says Naaman. Naaman wants a grand solution to befit his grand status.
Q: What do you make of Naaman here? Do you find him at all relatable?
Q: How often do we ourselves reject God’s simple gifts when we would rather a grand complicated one?
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