What We Want for Christmas
One of the reporters for our local newspaper called the church a few days ago, asking for an answer to the question, "What Do You Want for Christmas?" - from a church's point of view. This is what I wrote back:
All we want for Christmas is the recognition that Christ came for more than gold holly and green wreaths. Christ came to turn the world upside-down - to bring about the kingdom of God on earth. Now. And this kingdom is one of radical equality: where our worth is measured in who our Creator is, not how much is in our 401(k) plan.
And so, our answer is pretty different than our two front teeth. If anything, we believe a community of Jesus-followers would answer the question, "What do we want for Christmas?" in good Christian fashion: by realizing that it's not about us, and pointing the way to a place outside of us, and into the world God so loves.
So, in a way, it's not what WE want, but what we believe GOD wants - a place where we'll be known by our love for our neighbor. And our "neighbor" is more than other Christians, or those whom it's easy to love. When we take seriously the command (not the suggestion) to love our neighbor, it means loving our homeless neighbor, our addicted neighbor, our mentally challenged neighbor...
...all those who receive assistance at the Edgerton Community Outreach or find a safe place at the Non-Toxic Teen Center...
...and it means supporting those places with gifts of time, money, and prayer.
It also means not spending all our time complaining about trying to keep the word "Christ" in the word "Christmas" - and, instead, trying to BE Christ this Christmas (as this fantastic article mentions). It means celebrating Christmas, not by seeking to eradicate the apparently horrific greeting, "Happy Holidays," but instead by seeing God in every face and caring for the world God made.
No comments:
Post a Comment