I don’t want to write a blog entry that makes us feel guilty. Yet, I’ve been struggling, today, as I’ve thought about what it means to celebrate Christmas. You see, I was buying last minute Christmas presents when I thought about
the distance between the birth of Jesus and the way we observe his birth.
We deck the halls, trim the trees and don the gay apparel. Skirts under the trees are covered with packages neatly bowed and tagged. We spend an incredible amount of money in this season. Yet, the birth of Jesus happens in poverty. He is born to a family that can’t even bribe its way into an inn. They are very poor. Joseph is a carpenter in a land where wood is scarce. What kind of income could he have earned?
So, how do we, as people of faith, as leaders of Christian communities, reconcile the difference between the culture of consumerism and the message that God chooses to be born among the poor?
I know, it’s a real bummer to think about. We’re so busy working on having “the perfect Christmas” and providing a great Christmas worship experience for those who will worship with us on Christmas Eve and Christmas Day. Maybe we’ll be wearing the new sweaters given us by our children or new jewelry given by our spouses. (No, Kim, there are no hints in here, nor am I spilling the beans about what I got you.) We’ll go home and rest after the worship services are done, feeling satisfied that we’ve done Christmas well in the church…
But where are the poor of the world in all of this? Can Christmas be celebrated if we choose not to go to those for whom God showed preference? Somehow, we’ve got to get Christmas back on terra firma, and recognize that Christmas is all about God’s decision to enter the world in order that the poor be lifted up.
Mary’s song, known as The Magnificat, from Luke 1, sets out God’s agenda. Christmas should always call us to examine our intent in light of God’s. The birth of Jesus is about bringing down the powerful from their thrones, lifting up the lowly, filling the hungry with good things, and sending the rich away empty (Luke 1:52-53). This season has become a season when the rich become richer: consumerism rules Christmas. God’s intent should drive us toward an opposite action.
Here’s the thing about guilt. It’s what we feel when we are immobile in the face of challenge. I’m interested in action, not guilt. I want to act. I want the church to act. What if all Christians decided that they would make it their mission to go beyond handouts (a little food to the food pantry, a few bucks in the Salvation Army bucket) for the poor? What if we all decided that we would be about lifting up the lowly and filling the hungry? What if we were serious about doing what is needed for God’s intended way to become reality where we are? Moving beyond guilt to action, we can do these things.
I see people doing this often. Sometimes, they are even members of churches. Christmas Day, a handful of volunteers will make sure a meal is served in the community. They will provide hospitality for some who are poor and welcome others who wish to be drawn into a time of fellowship. For the past several months, volunteers have been hard at work with Toys for Tots. They are making sure that those in need are well taken care of in this season. Hilda will continue to buy food for the shelves of our food pantry. Char and her crew will keep on distributing clothing from our clothing closet.
If we are to follow God’s lead in these things, then we will move beyond guilt. We will act incarnationally. We’ll be found in the places where God chooses to become and to be born. We’ll be found in relationship with those cast out and pressed down. We’ll be involved in the tasks of advocating for those whose voices are not heard, whose value is questioned, whose dignity is often dismissed. If we are interested in God’s mission, we’ll do this year round, so that the “promise God made to our ancestors, to Abraham and his desendents…” (Luke 1:55) will take on flesh and continually be born in this world. People will see our witness to God’s loving action, and will remember God’s mercy. They will see it take flesh in the body of Christ.
How might you be called beyond guilt and into action? How might we, as leaders in the church, lead our people into meaningful relationship with those among whom God intentionally chose to come?
The photo, Nativity Scene – Adoration by the Shepherds is by Eusebius Photo. It is used according to its Creative Commons (CC BY 2.) license.
Jabbok's Edge 
The title is a great question Many heroes of the faith in many and various ways have focused on God’s locus of action, e.g. Charles Spurgeon following our Prince of Peace. http://spurgeonwarquotes.wordpress.com/
I think it’s kind of interesting because it made me think about the article you linked to about the Crystal Cathedral. It made me think about how ‘Crystalized’ Christmas can/has become and how we sometimes try to wrap it up in glitzy paper and send it out with cute facebook sayings like “Keep Christ in Christmas” because, like Schuller, we know it’s attractive and people will like it. But when we get caught up in the extravagance of our Crystal-like Christmas and in doing Christmas well, we totally forget about who Christ is and how he didn’t do Christmas well at all, but rather in a stable. I think about the candlelit service that was just held outside for homeless community members in Lacrosse who have recently died that I just saw on the news. That’s probably more of the sort of Christ-like action that brings people together in relationship than the expensive nativity scenes we spend money on to wow our neighbors-or the millions of dollars spent on the Crystal Cathedral. Since Christmas celebrates the guy who came into a lot of ugly and made it new, maybe we could focus our actions on ugly things like homelessness, and our forgetful neighbor who will probably be lonely this Christmas.
I think it’s interesting because it made me think about the article you linked to about the Crystal Cathedral. It made me think about how ‘Crystalized’ Christmas can/has become and how we sometimes try to wrap it up in glitzy paper and send it out with cute facebook sayings like “Keep Christ in Christmas” because, like Schuller, we know that it’s attractive and people will like it. However, sometimes we get so caught up in the extravagance of a Crystal-like Christmas and in doing Christmas well that we forget that Jesus did not do Christmas well, but rather in a stable. I think about the candlelit service that I saw on the news tonight that was recently done in Lacrosse in memory of some of the homeless members of the community who have died this year. I think that’s a much better way to bring people together in relationship in a Christ-like way than to spend money wrapping up and packaging Christmas in expensive nativity scenes for our front lawns to wow our neighbors with (or to spend millions of dollars on the Crystal Cathedral). Since Christmas is about celebrating the guy who came into a lot of ugly and made it new, maybe we could focus our actions on looking towards the ugly things during Christmas like homelessness. These ugly things don’t need to be wrapped up in pretty paper, they need to be swaddled 😉