What Did You Get Me for Christmas?

 Do you open presents on Christmas Eve or Christmas morning?  It’s the question of the day!

No matter your traditions (if you are a cultural American or religious Christian alike), the next couple of days are those consumed in the practice of gift giving and recieving. Depending on expectations on both ends, it can often be a stressful time of hoping the other likes what you get and/or being satisfied (or not) with what you received.

But, have any of you gotten a gift this season from someone that you didn’t expect already? It happens to me every year and is quiet a quandary.

Consider this story from Will Willimon (former dean of Duke Chapel of that wonderful basketball school where I received my seminary education).

The following could really preach (oh you preachers looking for last minute sermon ideas, read closely), but as I am going a different homiletical direction this year, I thought I’d share it on this blog in hopes that all of us who have a second to take a breath this Christmas Eve will consider the marvel of God’s grace given to us in Jesus. It’s the gift we could never reciprocate, ever.

Probably most of us have had the experience of receiving, right out of the blue, a gift from someone we really don’t know all that well. And, perhaps, to our consternation, the gift turns out to be nice, something that we didn’t know we wanted and certainly didn’t ask for, but there it is, a good gift from someone who is not really a good friend.

Now, what is the first thing we do in response?

Right. We try to come up with a gift to give in return — not out of gratitude (after all, we didn’t ask for it) or out of friendship (after all, we hardly even know this person) , but because we don’t want to feel guilty.

We don’t want to be indebted. The gift seems to lay a claim upon us, especially since it has come from someone we barely know. This is uncomfortable; it’s hard to look the person in the face until we have reciprocated. By giving us a gift, this person has power over us.

It may well be, as Jesus says, more blessed to give than to receive. But it is more difficult to receive. Watch how people blush when given a compliment. Watch what you do when your teen-aged son comes home with a very expensive Christmas present from a girl he has dated only twice. “Now you take that expensive sweater right back and tell her that your parents won’t allow you to accept it. Every gift comes with a claim and you’re not ready for her claim upon you.” In a society that makes strangers of us all, it is interesting what we do when a stranger gives us a gift.

And consider what we do at Christmas, the so-called season of giving. We enjoy thinking of ourselves as basically generous, benevolent, giving people. That’s one reason why everyone, even the nominally religious, loves Christmas. Christmas is a season to celebrate our alleged generosity. The newspaper keeps us posted on how many needy families we have adopted. The Salvation Army kettles enable us to be generous while buying groceries (for ourselves) or gifts (for our families). People we work with who usually balk at the collection to pay for the morning coffee fall over themselves soliciting funds “to make Christmas” for some family.

We love Christmas because, as we say, Christmas brings out the best in us. Everyone gives on Christmas, even the stingiest among us, even the Ebenezer Scrooges. Charles Dickens’s story of Scrooge’s transformation has probably done more to form our notions of Christmas than St. Luke’s story of the manger. Whereas Luke tells of God’s gift to us, Dickens tells us how we can give to others. A Christmas Carol is more congenial to our favorite images of ourselves. Dickens suggests that down deep, even the worst of us can become generous, giving people.

Yet I suggest that we are better givers than getters, not because we are generous people but because we are proud, arrogant people. The Christmas story — the one according to Luke not Dickens — is not about how blessed it is to be givers but about how essential it is to see ourselves as receivers.

We prefer to think of ourselves as givers — powerful, competent, self-sufficient, capable people whose goodness motivates us to employ some of our power, competence and gifts to benefit the less fortunate. Which is a direct contradiction of the biblical account of the first Christmas. There we are portrayed not as the givers we wish we were but as the receivers we are. Luke and Matthew go to great lengths to demonstrate that we — with our power, generosity, competence and capabilities — had little to do with God’s work in Jesus. God wanted to do something for us so strange, so utterly beyond the bounds of human imagination, so foreign to human projection, that God had to resort to angels, pregnant virgins and stars in the sky to get it done. We didn’t think of it, understand it or approve it. All we could do, at Bethlehem, was receive it. A gift from a God we hardly even knew.

As We Wait

With four more days of Advent in the Christmas countdown, it’s that time of the year when we all get a little crazy, even the most well-meaning, joyful, and kindhearted among us.

Those of us who hate the mall and all things shopping related find ourselves in overcrowded stores with poorly trained temporary workers checking us out, causing scenes of complete chaos when sales prices are not debited to our bank cards. 

Those of us who wait to do everything last-minute are finding it hard to get the sleep we need to keep going as lists and lists of holiday related chores call our names: parties to attend, presents to wrap, and cookies to bake (even though we’ve already eaten way too many).

Those of us who must prepare to travel to be with loved ones wonder when the laundry is going to be done as the Christmas activities are all-consuming.

For me, yesterday, I thought I might be assaulted in search of a parking space at the Post Office. Then, it appeared that the woman behind me in line might have a temper tantum when she saw how long the line in front of her was!

Yes, it is a time of peace on earth and goodwill toward all, but such is not often felt if you are the mall, if you are in a house full kids needing stocking stuffers, or if you go 100 feet of a Post Office anytime between now and tomorrow (the last day to ensure your Express Mail packages arrive on time).

For these reasons and many more, I was delighted to have stumbled on this great resource of Advent prayers– self-reflective prayers for almost any December related situation. The author provides a resource to slow us down and be able to see God even in the fury of pre-Christmas activity.  I just felt calmer when I read this prayer:

My brother, Jesus. It happens every year. I think that this will be the year that I have a reflective Advent.

I look forward to Sunday and this new season, Jesus. But all around me are the signs rushing me to Christmas and some kind of celebration that equates spending with love.

I need your help. I want to slow my world down. This year, more than ever, I need Advent, these weeks of reflection and longing for hope in the darkness.

Jesus, this year, help me to have that longing. Help me to feel it in my heart and be aware of the hunger and thirst in my own soul. Deep down, I know there is something missing in my life, but I can’t quite reach for it. I can’t get what is missing.

I know it is about you, Jesus. You are not missing from my life, but I might be missing the awareness of all of the places you are present there.

Be with me, my dear friend. Guide me in these weeks to what you want to show me this Advent. Help me to be vulnerable enough to ask you to lead me to the place of my own weakness, the very place where I will find you the most deeply embedded in my heart, loving me without limits.

Remember in the craziness of whatever you find yourself in on this December 21st that we are all still waiting. And, sometime BIG is about to come– if only we wait long enough to see it. And the “something” won’t be found under any Christmas tree, no matter how much we shop or bake . . . .