Monday, a week ago, Christie and I came over from the manse
to give blood - the regular bi-monthly Red Cross drive. It was
the first time either of us could donate in over a year because
of the restrictions on donations from anyone who has been in
Mexico within the past twelve months, and, of course, we had.
Malaria danger. We went through all the preliminaries - sign in,
read the instructions, blood pressure, pin prick, health
questions - then, finally, up on the table, arm out, tourniquet
on, and voilá, the blood flows.
There are certain things one does not want to happen when
lying there in such a vulnerable position. You do not want to
here someone who is working on you suddenly say OOPS. You do not
want to look at the face of the technician and see a reflection
of horror. Suddenly, the technician speaks in a voice of barely
disguised panic to one of her supervisors, "Could you come over
here and look at this?" Uh-huh. Then the supervisor comes,
looks quickly and calls to HER supervisor, "Could you come over
here and look at this, please?"
Meanwhile, I am lying there more than a little curious.
"What's the matter?"
"It's the wrong color."
Wrong Color? Well, I AM Presbyterian, so a certain tint of
blue might not be unexpected. "Wrong color?" I asked. She held
up the bag for me to see, and she was right - it WAS the wrong
color. Fire engine red instead of the deeper burgundy that one
would expect to see. On top of that, the bag filled up in
seconds, not the several minutes it normally takes. It seems
they had gotten an artery instead of a vein, and that was not
supposed to happen.
I told them if I died on that table, one of them would have
to preach this Sunday, another shock for which they were not
prepared. One of the supervisors asked if I were the pastor here
and, of course, I said yes. She turned to the technician who had
initially taken care of me and said, "If you didn't have BAD
luck, you wouldn't have any luck at all."
Well, as is obvious, they managed to keep me alive. They
gave me instructions on what to do upon returning home, and if
any problems arose, call 9-1-1. They also said that someone from
the Red Cross office would be calling to check on me in the next
few days to see how things were going. No problem, and no
problems later either, except for a massive ugly bruise that they
had said was likely. I thought no more about it, but I let
Christie know that evening that I would not be able to help much
around the house - doctor's orders, you know. She said, "You
going to milk this for all it's worth, aren't you?" I just
sweetly smiled.
A couple of days later, 7:15 AM, the phone rang. It was the
Red Cross. This was the call they said I would get. They wanted
to know if everything was all right, had there been any
aftereffects, if there were anything they could do, etc., etc.,
etc. No, no, no - everything is fine. No problems at all.
Finally, with relief in her voice, the conversation came to an
end and she said, "Oh, and by the way MERRY CHRISTMAS. It just
feels SO GOOD to say that." The sense of joy in her voice was
almost palpable as she said something that, one would have
thought, had been absolutely forbidden up till now. WOW! Merry
Christmas!!! Sounded a little weird, frankly. I think I held
the phone away from my ear a moment and looked at it before I
responded, "Yes, and Merry Christmas to you too." And that was
the end of it.
Of course, it was not the end of it, as this morning
attests. I had told the staff at the blood bank that this
incident WOULD end up as a sermon illustration sometime. After
all, blood holds a prominent place in our faith. Some of the
Bible's most important truths involve blood - the life of the
flesh is in the blood (Leviticus 17:11); we have redemption
through [Christ's] blood, the forgiveness of sins (Ephesians
1:7); the blood of Jesus...purifies us from all sin (I John 1:7);
just to name a few. Blood is a big deal biblically.
But that is not what got those anxious technicians into this
morning's sermon. It was the almost joyous kicking over the
traces of that wish for "...MERRY CHRISTMAS. It just feels SO
GOOD to say that."
Well, it has always felt good for me to say it too. And, to
be honest, I never worried much about it. I have tried to be
somewhat sensitive and not extend the wish to my Jewish or Muslim
friends. That would have made no sense, but I never felt
particularly reluctant to say it. Did you?
What brings it to mind this year is this bizarre concern
that some people are supposedly feeling about being prevented
from wishing folks Merry Christmas. Apparently, it all started
again last year when Fox News commentator Bill O'Reilly started a
"Christmas Under Siege" campaign to call attention to the fact
that many businesses were not wishing shoppers "Merry Christmas"
upon the completion of their transactions, but rather something
innocuous and non-specific like "Happy Holidays." (By the way, I
say "again" because the ultra-right wing John Birch Society said
the same thing in the 1950's - they said it was a conspiracy
concocted by the Godless United Nations.) Meanwhile, Focus on
the Family's James Dobson now has something called the Alliance
Defense Fund which is running a project with the motto: "Merry
Christmas. It's OK to say it." Jerry Falwell has launched a
"Friend or Foe Christmas Campaign," with promises to file suit
against anyone who spreads what he sees as misinformation about
how Christmas can be celebrated in schools and public spaces. He
says he has 750 lawyers who are ready to pounce if, for example,
a teacher is muzzled from leading the third-graders in "Hark! The
Herald Angels Sing." Of course, those 750 lawyers do not come
cheap, so your tax deductible contributions are most welcome to
insure the success of this important venture.
Now, one of O'Reilly's compatriots at Fox News, John Gibson,
has published a book called The War on Christmas: How the Liberal
Plot to Ban the Sacred Christian Holiday Is Worse Than You
Thought. Huh? I am a liberal, and proud of it, but the only
thing I have been plotting this Christmas is how to survive
without going into bankruptcy.
Even Fox News's favorite president has been taking heat.
This year, as every other year, the Bush family sent out 1.4-million cards wishing friends and supporters "best wishes for a
holiday season of hope and happiness." How terrible! In the
words of William Donohue, president of the Catholic League for
Religious and Civil rights, "This clearly demonstrates that the
Bush Administration has suffered a loss of will and that they
have capitulated to the worst elements in our culture."(1) Say
what? I thought he was supposed to be President of all the
people, not just Christians.
Truth is America has a complicated history with Christmas,
going back to the Puritans, who despised it and considered the
celebration un-Christian. They could not find December 25th in
the Bible, which was their sole source of religious guidance, and
insisted that the date simply derived from Saturnalia, the
Romans' wintertime celebration (which, as I have explained
before, is NOT correct). On their first December 25th in the New
World, in 1620, the Puritans worked on building projects and made
an ostentatious point of ignoring the day. From 1659 to 1681,
Massachusetts went even further, making celebrating Christmas "by
forbearing of labor, feasting or in any other way" a crime.
The concern that Christmas distracted from religious piety
continued even after Puritans faded away. In 1827, an Episcopal
bishop lamented that the Devil had stolen Christmas "and
converted it into a day of worldly festivity, shooting and
swearing." Throughout the 1800's, many religious leaders were
still trying to hold the line. As late as 1855, New York
newspapers reported that Presbyterian, Baptist and Methodist
churches were closed on December 25th because "they do not
accept the day as a Holy One." (Hmm. Maybe some of the mega-churches could have used that excuse in announcing that they will
be closed next Sunday.) On the eve of the Civil War, Christmas
was recognized in just 18 states. It did not become a federal
holiday until 1870.
Christmas began to gain popularity when it was transformed
into a domestic celebration, after the publication of Clement
Clarke Moore's "Visit from St. Nicholas" and Thomas Nast's
drawings in Harper's Weekly which created the image of a
white-bearded Santa who gave gifts to children. The new emphasis
lessened religious leaders' worries that the holiday would be
given over to drinking and shooting and swearing, but it
introduced another concern: commercialism. And we have been
battling that ever since with a notable lack of success and to
the great relief of the nation's retailers who do their best
business of the year just prior to Christmas.(2)
This year's Christmas "defenders" are not just tolerating
commercialization - they are insisting upon it. Shop at the
places that will wish you MERRY CHRISTMAS, not just Happy
Holidays.
One of my cyberfriends, a colleague in an internet sermon
preparation service, recently wrote, "A friend of mine's daughter
just got out of college and is working as the manager of a retail
store. Her clerks were wishing people 'Happy Holidays' but some
'Christians' were so offended that the clerk did not wish them
'Merry Christmas' that they tore into the clerks and left
several of them on the verge of tears. They have now been
instructed to politely thank the customer and make absolutely no
reference to the holiday season whatever. This is the kind of
behavior that is getting press as being representative of the
Christian faith."(3)
Some of you heard Martin Marty this summer at Chautauqua.
He is an elder-statesman of American theologians. This week in
his "Sightings" column, he wrote, "Already fifty years ago, when
I began to moonlight in journalism, we were worrying about the
secularization and commercialization of Christmas. Now the
debate revolves around its politicization. Listen carefully: It
is less about religion than about politics, about who "belongs"
and who sets the terms in America. Enough."(4)
And I say AMEN! Christmas is just getting caught in the crossfire. We are living in a nation that, I am
convinced, is not nearly so divided as some folks who have been
exploiting us want us to believe. The vast majority of us AGREE
on the vast majority of issues - social, political, theological,
whatever. There are some FRINGE issues about which we might
disagree, but so what? We do not have to agree on everything to
successfully live and work together - ask any husband or wife.
My advice is simply this: do not get caught up in these
controversies. They are not worth it, they serve no purpose
except to those who are trying to exploit them and us, and they
certainly do not reflect well on us as Christians.
All I want for Christmas this year is GRACE. Just GRACE.
Why grace? Because somehow, over the course of my life, I have
seen what appears to be an inexorable shrinkage of the pool of
grace available in our world. It is getting meaner and meaner
and meaner out there, and I know you have noticed. For goodness
sake, even the mortgage companies and bankers offer a bit of
"grace" when things get tight, but other than that, no one seems
willing to cut anyone any slack. We are a society that wants
WHAT it wants, WHEN it wants it, and the WAY it wants it. And
heaven help anyone who would dare to disappoint us, even
inadvertently. If someone fails to meet our expectations, they
should be fired or sued or boycotted. History may look on ours
as a "civilized" society (although that could be open to
question), but we have become a not very "civil" society, haven't
we? Where is the grace anymore?
Let it be right here, OK? The story of Christmas is, after
all, at its heart, a story of grace. The coming of Jesus Christ
into our world 2,000 years ago is the affirmation of God's
unmerited favor to us. Scripture is clear. Our brief epistle
lesson from Titus, chapter 2, is regularly read at this time of
the year. Paul writes, "For the grace of God that brings
salvation...Jesus...has appeared to all..." Grace - the essence
of Christmas.
Someone has suggested that love is like the Bible's loaves
and fishes - it works best when given away. I think it is the
same with grace. Perhaps we will have a more grace-filled
society if we in the church who have been the recipients of God's
marvelous grace in Christ Jesus will take it upon ourselves to
begin giving it away, and to encourage our Christian friends to
do the same. I can promise it will make a difference in everyone
of our lives.
You remember Dr. Suess' wonderful story of the Grinch Who
Stole Christmas. Inside a snowflake exists the magical land of
Whoville where live the Who's, an almost mutated sort of
munchkin-like people. All the Who's love Christmas, yet just up
the hill, in a cave on Mt. Crumpit overlooking the village, lives
the Grinch, a creature with "termites in his smile" and "garlic
in his soul," and with "a heart two sizes too small." The Grinch
hates the thought of the village having a happy time celebrating
Christmas. So disguised as Santa Claus, with his dog Max made up
to look like a reindeer, he raids Whoville to steal all the
Christmas things - ornaments, decorations, presents, whatever.
It becomes the personal goal of little Cindy Lou Who to try to
show the Grinch (and everyone else) what Christmas is really all
about. Finally, the citizens of Whoville, now bereft of gifts,
wreaths, trees, and candy, realize that there is more to the
celebration than just stuff - they join hands in a circle and
sing for the sheer joy of it. The point, of course, is that
Christmas cannot be stolen by anyone, regardless of what some of
today's commentators might lead us to believe. In the end, the
Grinch's small heart grows three sizes, he rescues all the
Christmas goodies from plummeting off the side of the mountain
and graciously saves Cindy Lou. Good for the Grinch.
Grace. That is what I want for Christmas this year...GRACE.
You too? And I want to be a grace-giver to you...and you and you
and you and you... because I know that will begin to make this
world more the place that the gracious God who sent us Jesus
wants it to be. Oh, and Merry Christmas. It DOES feel good to
say it.
Amen!
1. Alan Cooperman, "Taking Christ out of Xmas," Washington Post, 12/10/05
2. Historical details are from an article by Adam Cohen, "This Season's War Cry:
Commercialize Christmas, or Else," New York Times, 12/4/05
3. George Reed, pastor in the West Ohio Conference of the United Methodist Church, via
e-mail, 12/8/05
4. 12/12/05
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