| A Beachhead |
Evening Worship, December 24, 2000 |
A few years ago, someone near and dear gave me a Polo shirt for
Christmas,
and I said thank you, of course, and put it on, and tried to look
pleased,
but what I was thinking was,
"Burgundy?"
In my experience, burgundy shirts are worn by guys who smoke
cigarillos,
drive Buick LeSabres,
sit in the dark corners of
cocktail lounges
and place large wagers on basketball games.
I'm more of a wheat type of person.
Wheat or forest green or antique blue.
Did I turn to the giver and say,
"Sorry, I'm a History major.
We don't wear this color?"
No.
I put it in a special section of my closet where I keep
never-to-be-worn clothes.
After the three-month Christmas-gift cooling-off period required by
law, I gave the shirt to a shelter for the homeless.
I hope it's being worn by someone, and yet I can imagine a
homeless person being offered this shirt and saying to the
volunteer,
"You wouldn't have something in a pale green or aqua would
you?"
Just because you're homeless doesn't mean you look good in
burgundy.
So it is when we think about the perils of Christmas getting.
I didn't say Christmas giving.
At this time of year, some of us think the toughest job is to go
out and find the perfect gift--
But, if we are honest, we must admit that there are also perils of
Christmas getting.
Much is required to be the sort of person who is able to give the
right gift.
But it also takes a great deal to be a person who is able to receive
Christmas gifts in just the right way.
A Christmas gift represents somebody's theory of who you
are, or who they wish you were, and of course, we know how to
handle the
wildly inappropriate gift from a stranger...
but what if you see yourself as a suave dude and a swift intellect
and then one year your wife--your beautiful wife-- gives you a pair
of singing undershorts that perform
"O Tannenbaum"when you sit down
and a battery-powered coin bank in which a little farmer picks up
the coin in his pitchfork and hoists it into the silo?
That's when you go through a sort of identity crisis.
You'd like to get a gift that aims high-- Whitman's Leaves of
Grass, a ticket to Nepal for spiritual reflection and renewal
...
but instead here is a pair of bedroom slippers with lights in the
toes so you can see your way to the bathroom at night, or a rubber
ball on a paddle.
What do you say?
"Do you want me to be a hopeless nerd?
Do you want me to never be invited to parries?"
Christmas is "a holiday fraught with peril."
Part of the peril of all this gift giving and gift receiving is
that we are stunned when we realize somebody whom we love and who
apparently loves us, perceives us in a way different from our own
perception.
One of the toughest parts about Christmas is on Christmas
morning, tomorrow, opening up gifts in front of the
giver, and you are shocked, stunned by what you receive.
What can you say?
All you can do is sit there and exclaim,
"Oh! Look at this!
How interesting!
Who would've thought!"
You can't tell them what you're really thinking.
Namely,
"What on earth have you done?
Who do you think I am?
Are you crazy?"
Christmas is the time when Christians gather to celebrate a great
gift given to us.
Unto us a child is born.
Unto us a son is given.
All of our songs are songs of joy, complete, unrestrained
joy and gratitude for this gift.
But our Scriptures do much to remind us that the birth of Jesus
was not seen by all as a great, good gift.
The way the Bible tells us, the birth of Jesus was announced to
Joseph, who was thrown into deep consternation.
Mary is told by the angel that she will have a baby out of wedlock,
and she is greatly troubled.
A moment ago we heard the message of the angels telling us that
we were to be in great joy because of the birth of Jesus, do you
remember the first thing the angels said?
Fear not.
There were many in Judea who thought that what they needed was
a military genius to come in, raise an army, and run the Romans
out.
That's what they needed and wanted.
They wanted revolution, the violent overthrow of the oppressive
Romans.
There were others in Judea at that time who prayed for
and expected
the gift of some great religious leader.
It would have to be someone who stuck to religion and stayed out
of politics.
Someone who quoted just the right verse of Scripture, who had
sweet, uplifting sayings that might help everyone better adjust to his
or her situation in captivity.
After all, isn't this what religion is for, a bit of inspiration
and uplift?
Religion makes us feel better about our situation without
fundamentally changing it.
But you will note that was not the gift they received.
What they got was Jesus.
Here was one who, as the Scriptures said, would bear the government
on his shoulders.
He would be a prince, but a prince unlike worldly princes.
He would be a prince of peace.
He would be a disturber of the status quo, a critic of the religious
establishment, one who would call people to help him turn the world
upside down.
This is the gift they got, even though it was not the gift they
wanted.
The trouble with me is, many of the things that I want are not
the things I ought to have.
I cannot be trusted to draw up my gift list for myself, can you?
I tend to be dishonest about myself, deceitful about who I really am
and ought to be.
And so we received an unsought, unexpected gift named Jesus.
Thanks be to God!
In this world that worships power, success, prestige, and raw
force, we received a baby.
Vulnerable, gentle, meek, and mild.
And from the beginning a man robed in power, success and prestige
used raw force to try to kill this baby.
And when that baby grew up, he became for many even less of what
they wanted.
He spoke biting, challenging words to the establishment.
He challenged many of our conventional notions about who God was and
what God wanted.
He called us from our smug securities toward a life of high
adventure and rebellion.
Even at the end, particularly at the end, even after he had been
with us for a number of years and we'd heard his teaching and seen
his work, we rejected this gift.
Still, God kept on giving, and keeps on giving even today.
There are many skills that are required to be a faithful
Christian.
You have to know something about the Bible, need to be able to find
your way around the Scripture.
You need to know how to think like a Christian.
You need to have the will and the wherewithal to act like a
Christian.
But I think, on this day, we are reminded that one of
the qualities required of Christians is the ability to be able to be
surprised by the gifts God gives us.
We need to expect that God will send gifts our way that we did
not ask for or expect, gifts that perhaps we did not want, but gifts
that we really need.
I know a couple whom God gave a very special child.
The world might label this child as "disabled,"
"handicapped," maybe that's what they thought when they
first received their new baby.
And yet, in a very short time, they came to call this child
special--a gift.
This gift required many changes in their lives.
But looking back, they say that these were changes they needed to
make.
They are better people this day because of that unsought, unexpected
gift.
I know that this past year some of you have received many
challenges and difficulties that you did not desire.
Some of you are in the middle of a health crises.
Some of you have gone through a period of great distress or
trauma.
In many of these cases, I would be the last person to speak of
such difficulties as "a gift."
However, by the grace of God -- and you know the word grace
means "gift", even some of our worst difficulties can be
transformed and seen as gifts.
I have heard people speak of cancer as a gift.
It was certainly not something they wanted, but through
the grace of God, even something so frightening and difficult as this,
helped them put their lives in perspective, drew their family closer
together, brought out the best within them.
Having received the gift of the babe at Bethlehem, a gift we
did not ask for or expect, but yet a gift that changed the world and
us, live in the expectation that God will bring things into our lives
that at first may seem like great burdens, but by the grace of God
become deep blessings.
So, I don't think that we are the ones who can give us gifts we
really want.
I believe that the gifts we really need come from a loving God.
Merry Christmas!
This day has been born to us a child, a Savior, whose name is
Jesus.
He is God's greatest gift.
He is the one who, though we did not desire him, is a sign of God's
great desire for us.
And that's why we say, confronted with this gift, Merry Christmas!
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