Thoughts and Ruminations

“God made us in his own image and likeness and we have never stopped returning the favor.”

In a different shade of the same habit, we have recast St. Nicholas completely in our cultural image, ascribed to him God-like qualities, and religiously sung and spoken of our mythical cultural invention for generations.

If our mythical figures are reflections of our cultural values, what does this picture of Santa Claus reveal about us?

From the daily lectionary today;

“Jesus called (his disciples) to him and said, “You know that the rulers of the Gentiles lord it over them, and their great ones are tyrants over them. It will not be so among you; but whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant, and whoever wishes to be first among you must be your slave; just as the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many.”

- Matthew 20:25-28

Disciples of Jesus stand today just two days from the beginning of Advent.  It is one season of two in the year (Lent being the other) where disciples are encouraged to step back, reflect, and consider our lives under the gaze of a holy God.  Both are seasons of stripping away, of thoughtfully engaging in deprivation rather than sense indulgence, taking away things that provide us comfort and meaning in order to focus in on the meaning of the upcoming time.

Advent, and Christmas, then, are about remembering God’s great love for us, which is so great that he sent his Son as the fullness of truth.  Jesus emptied himself of power, and chose to embrace the human experience, beginning as a deeply vulnerable child.  He was such a threat to the powerful even as a child that a king committed genocide to seek to remove the threat.  He was not born to the elite, but to a common man and his wife.  And over the course of his life, he proclaimed this simple message from the lectionary today;

“Whoever wishes to be great among you must be your servant.”

Why?

“Because the Son of Man came not to be served, but to serve, and to give his life as a ransom for many.”

That last phrase has come to mean so much more to me over the past year.  Jesus gave his life as a ransom.  In his life and teaching, he ransoms us from our selfish, rebellious way of life that makes us comfortable but spits on and denies the dignity of God and his creation.  He redeems us to be people of radical humility, unconditional love, and simple obedience.  In Jesus’ death, he ransoms us from the fear of death; facing his conspirators and his eventual murder with quiet strength.  In this act, even as we crushed him in our rebellion, he showed the love of God and the depth of God’s commitment to forgive and reconcile us.  And we are to do the same.  In his resurrection, he ransoms us further from the fear of death, revealing the power of a God more powerful than death; a God who rewards his people in life with abundant life and meaning, and a God who rewards his faithful people in death with life that extends into eternity.

Jesus ransoms us.

In the absurdity and sadness of what the Christmas season has become.
In the detached time of busyness, complexity, stress, and insane spending.
On this day, Black Friday, the day where we are encouraged to wait for stores to open at absurd hours so we can give them our money to “save.”
This official beginning of the Christmas season, the season where we follow the example of Santa Claus, raining down gifts everywhere in blissful disregard for the cost later,
may one single voice, the voice of the reason for the season,
whisper through,
“One’s life is not found in the abundance of possessions. Cease your striving. Simplify. Give your life, your energy, your money, to those who need it most. Spend your time and money primarily among the marginalized.”
Few will listen to this voice,
in a world where for Christmas, our parades sing the theme, “I believe in imagination. I believe in childlike hope. I believe in love. I believe in…
Santa Claus.”
Yet may disciples of Jesus strip away the stress of the season, taking on the resentment of friends and family who have grown used to the way of materialism, gathering that burden on our shoulders for the sake of our King, and say;
“Jesus is enough.”
Quiet.
Still.
Listen.

“God’s kingdom isn’t about our successes or failures; it’s about God’s movement in this world.  We must learn to simply join in, wait, and hope.”

-Russell Jeung

If you’ve been around as long as me (27 years), you’ve probably heard stories of “Christians” wringing their hands supposedly about our culture’s “recent” and widening lack of respect for Christmas.  Every year I hear another call to boycott store A or B (Wal-Mart or wherever else) that says “Happy Holidays” instead of “Merry Christmas.”  Notwithstanding the fact that most Christians go right back to shopping at whatever store it is on December 26th, I find Christian calls to retrieve the “reason for the season” pretty empty given that Christmas has been a worshiping at the altar of the God of Consumerism for a long long time now.  I have some empathy for people who long for the good ole days of “Merry Christmas” at the register and nativities on courthouse lawns I guess, since our pagan culture at least gave a nod to Christianity in those acts.

But yesterday, I had a little moment to reflect on how the old adage “Do as I say and as I do” applies when it comes to Christians demanding our culture respect Christmas.  I was in the office at the church this week, and on two different occasions, I happened to be mildly listening to the radio that was on over in the secretary’s office. Now, mind you, this is a “Christian” radio station.  I had already heard “Jingle Bells” earlier in the day, which is pretty benign I guess as far as having nothing to do with Jesus but not really pushing anything else other than loving sleigh rides and grandma’s house.  But later,  you could say that  in the other room there arose a strange clatter, and I sprang from my desk to see what was the matter.  I heard the strains of a familiar song  floating through the air, a song that goes something like this;

They know that Santa’s on his way
He’s loaded lots of toys and goodies on his sleigh
And every mother’s child is gonna spy
to see if reindeer really know how to fly

And so, I’m offering this simple phrase
to kids from one to ninety-two
Although it’s been said many times, many ways
“Merry Christmas to you”

Seriously, Spirit FM, seriously?  I must say that there is little to no hope for our culture regaining widespread respect for Christmas when Christians play “Christmas” songs about Santa and reindeer.  Evidently it’s “Do as I say, NOT as I do.”

And while I’m on my high horse, I’m gonna go ahead and say this.  If or when Bethany and I have children, I will tell them Santa is false from the very beginning in addition to instructing them to ruthlessly destroy other kids’ belief in that great figment of imagination.  In the spirit of John Howard Yoder*, I’ll bluntly say that Santa Claus is the bastard child of an actual, goodness-to-life Saint (Nicholas) and the Germanic god Woden and any “believer” in him (whether actual or just to perpetuate a cute cultural story) needs to be told he is not at all a harmless figure. To be fair, I would expect the same approach from any committed Wiccan or Muslim or atheist to tell my kid that Jesus is false/crazy/an-absurd-figure-who-certainly-was-no-God.  So I’m not crusading to knock off pagans who love their Santa stories and waiting in line on Black Friday to feed their feelies; I’m just advocating telling them they’re following an empty, sad life that removes the possibility of true joy.

*JHY famously said that Islam is the bastard child of Christianity and Judaism’s failure to love the polytheistic people group that Muhammed  was a part of.  In the absence of their caring, Muhammed came up in desperation with a monotheistic system to rescue his people from their hopelessly fragmented and ignored culture.  Now, maybe JHY could have used a different term, but I don’t think he meant it as an epithet, but just to illustrate that the child is the result of the unwise decisions of the parents.