Preparing for Christmas: Giving Gifts

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Matthew 6:1-4

December 22, 2013

Beware of practicing your piety before others in order to be seen by them; for then you have no reward from your Father in heaven.

So whenever you give alms, do not sound a trumpet before you, as the hypocrites do in the synagogues and in the streets, so that they may be praised by others. Truly I tell you, they have received their reward. But when you give alms, do not let your left hand know what your right hand is doing, so that your alms may be done in secret; and your Father who sees in secret will reward you.

            So,… how many of you are done your Christmas shopping? That’s good, about 1/3^rd of you. Now, how many of you love Christmas shopping? Wow, that’s about 1/3^rd of you, too. How many don’t like Christmas shopping? That’s about 50% of you. For many of us, Christmas shopping is a drag.

            You know, there’s a reason why so many people don’t like Christmas shopping: it’s compelled giving. The basic problem for many people is that Christmas giving is meant to be giving out of love and generosity, but it doesn’t always feel like that. Often it can feel like forced giving where we give gifts to others because we are supposed to, not because we want to. I’m not criticizing Christmas giving. Christmas gifts can be incredible, tangible expressions of our love. I’m just pointing out that while Christmas is a time of love, it can become so focused on giving gifts that it causes people to forget about giving love

            The fact is that Christmas giving all started with love. It all started with St. Nicholas. Do you know who St. Nicholas was? We know him now as that chubby guy in red who lives in the North Pole. But 1700 years ago he real as can be, and a bishop in the early Christian Church in what is now southwestern Turkey. He was born in 275, and became a priest in a very dangerous time to be a Christian. It was during the reign of Diocletian, who, between the years 283 and 305 significantly increased the persecution of Christians to the worst ever in the Roman Empire. His persecutions only ended after he resigned as emperor, and Constantine became emperor, eventually making Christianity the religion of the empire.

            Diocletian was a reformer who wanted to restore the Roman Empire to its former glory, and Christians were seen as a problem sapping the empire by instilling weakness. His belief was that if he could get rid of Christians, he could both solidify his power and rid the empire of this rapidly growing nuisance religion. So, he instituted rules that demanded each person submit once a year to making a sacrifice to the Roman gods, and specifically Jupiter (Zeus). Failure to do so could lead to imprisonment and possibly execution. He then destroyed many, many churches, forcing Christians to worship in secret. He also imprisoned and executed thousands of Christians.

            At this time many priests and bishops protected themselves by making the sacrifices despite remaining Christians. Bishop Nicholas refused to do so. He was the bishop of the region around Myra, a town on a peninsula jutting out into the Mediterranean from what is now southern Turkey. Nicholas refused and was imprisoned for a while. This made him popular among Christians because he stood up for his faith and gave them an example of how to hold out in hard times. But what really made him popular was his work among the poor.

            Much like Pope Francis does now, where he apparently sneaks out at night to serve in soup kitchens and homeless shelters, Nicholas spent much of his time caring for the poor. That’s where he gained his reputation for giving. He was especially known for giving gifts to children. He often secretly left money in the shoes of poor children while they slept.

            This is the man who eventually became what we know as Santa Claus. The reason we call him that today is that when the Dutch came to America in the 1600s, they revered St. Nicholas, and called him Sinter Claes. The English garbled it to Santa Claus. The point, though, is that the whole idea of giving gifts on Christmas, and of Santa Claus, came from this 4^th century saint, who embodied the spirit of Christ in giving to the poor.

            Many people still have the spirit of St. Nicholas. They give gifts out of love, not compulsion. Christmas just gives them an opportunity to express their love in gifts. What St. Nicholas understood, which a lot of people, including us Christians, seem to forget is that at it’s foundation the Christian life is all about love. It’s about agape.

            Do you know what “agape” is? It is the Greek word that Jesus and John use for love. It was not a common Greek word, but it is common in the New Testament. The closest we come to “agape” is the term “unconditional love.” Agape is the love that God has for us, which is undying, awe-inspiring, overwhelming, complete, and eternal. It is a love God has for us no matter how much we mess up or work against God in our lives. Jesus uses the word “agape” when he says that we should “love the Lord our God with all our hearts, all our minds, all our souls, and all our strength.” John uses the word “agape” when he says in the first letter of John that “God is love, and all who live in love live in God, and God lives in them.” Both are telling us that there is a love that transcends any kind of love that humans typically have, and we are invited—actually created—to live that love.

            We confuse agape with other kinds of love. As I said, the Greeks had different words for love. Often, when we are young, we confuse love for “eros.” Eros is the root of the word “erotic.” Eros is a desire for another person. I can be lust, but it is also infatuation. When we are first smitten by another person, we become infatuated. As our love for them grows, it moves away from “eros” and more toward “agape,” that is if we keep loving them. Our culture prizes eros, but not so much agape, and that makes it hard for us to reach agape.

            The final kind of love is “philia.” You know this word at the root of the name for Philadelphia (the city of brotherly love) or philosophy (the love of wisdom, phil+Sophia). Brotherly love was the highest ideal for the Greeks and Romans. To love someone as if she or he was a family member was sought as the ideal in those cultures. Christian culture wasn’t satisfied with brotherly or sisterly love. It sought divine love.

            The problem is that too many Christians make Christianity out to be about everything BUT love. For example, they make faith out to be a question of whether we believe the right things. Do we have believe the right things about Jesus, God, the Bible, the virgin birth, the resurrection? If we don’t, we’re considered to be damned by God.

            Others stress whether we have the right kind of faith? Do we live out our faith in the right way? Are we moral enough? Committed to social justice enough? Giving enough?

            Still others make Christianity out to be a question of whether we go to the right church or are part of the right denomination. The more contemporary question is whether we are part of the right non-denomination. So many people are now part of non-denominational churches, and say that they are so because they don’t want to be part of something that tells them what to believe. The massive irony about that is that most denominations don’t tell you what you must believe. In fact, if you look at a denomination such as the Presbyterian Church, you don’t have to believe the right things to worship or even join the church. And if you look across the country at individual Presbyterian congregations, you’ll find seriously conservative ones and majorly liberal ones and everything in-between. If you go to most non-denominational churches, you will find that most believe mostly in the same thing, and expect the same kinds of beliefs from their members. The point, though, is that what matters is not so much what beliefs we have, what faith we live out, or what church or denomination we belong to. It has to do with our love. Do we love with God’s love?

            I think that many of you already know this, but over the years I have spent a lot of time reading about Near Death Experiences (NDEs). I’ve been fascinated with them ever since I read Raymond Moody’s book, Life after Life, in the mid-70s. He interviewed a large number of people who had died in car accidents, heart-attacks, and other calamities, and then were revived. That coincided with my girlfriends’ mother telling me of her NDE when she gave birth to her youngest child, after she had died in childbirth and was resuscitated. Since then I’ve read easily over 15 books on topic, talked with over 30 people who’ve had these experiences, and gone to several conferences on it. And the one constant that most people who have NDEs experience is a God of overwhelming and complete love.

            Many to most say that there is a judgment, although not in the way we think it is. Either Jesus or a being of intense light and love shows the person her or his whole life. The person watches while simultaneously feeling God’s love filling them. They actually experience again everything that had happened in their lives, as well as other people’s feelings and thoughts in response. It’s not God who judges them, but these people who judge themselves in light of God’s love. No one escapes the judgment feeling satisfied, but all come away from it knowing that God has loved and forgiven them completely. And they return to life ready to change their lives so that they can live lives of love.

            One of the most interesting things that many have spoken about is what happens to many fundamentalist Christians who are so certain about who is and who isn’t accepted into heaven. John Price, an Episcopal priest in Texas who has written a book, Revealing Heaven, speaks about a former pastor he knows whom he calls Robert. Apparently Robert was a very successful evangelical/fundamentalist pastor who had a church with thousands of members, and a radio program broadcast over more than 30 radio stations nationwide. He said that his whole message was one of sinners in the hands of an angry God, fire and brimstone. He preached God’s hate and anger, and the more he did the more his church grew.

            Then he had an accident in which he died and experienced God. He did not experience an angry God, wrathful over his sins, but an overwhelmingly loving God who forgave him his sins. God’s love was indescribable. When Robert was resuscitated, he became angry because he wanted to remain with that God of love. He had no choice, when he returned to the pulpit, but to change his message to one of love. In doing so he killed his ministry. First 1000 left the church. Then 2000 left. 3000 left. Then the radio stations dropped him.

            He eventually had to leave ministry because the people he had attracted to Christianity wanted to believe more in a God of anger than one of love. The lesson of Christmas, though, is not one of anger, but one of love. It’s the idea that God loves us more than we can even fathom, and that as we tap into this love, this agape, it leads us naturally to become giving.

            The point of all of this is that Christmas is about giving love, and the gifts we give are only expressions of love. But they can be incredible expressions. As long as we remember that God and love are what truly matters both in the beginning, and the end.

            Amen.

Preparing for Christmas: Cleaning Our Houses

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Isaiah 38.1-6

December 1, 2014

In those days Hezekiah became sick and was at the point of death. The prophet Isaiah son of Amoz came to him, and said to him, ‘Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.’ Then Hezekiah turned his face to the wall, and prayed to the Lord: ‘Remember now, O Lord, I implore you, how I have walked before you in faithfulness with a whole heart, and have done what is good in your sight.’ And Hezekiah wept bitterly.

 Then the word of the Lord came to Isaiah: ‘Go and say to Hezekiah, Thus says the Lord, the God of your ancestor David: I have heard your prayer, I have seen your tears; I will add fifteen years to your life. I will deliver you and this city out of the hand of the king of Assyria, and defend this city.

            As we begin the season of Advent, Rev. Frierson and I are beginning a new sermon series for Advent. Normally creating sermon series topics aren’t hard for us, but Advent always presents a challenge. The reason is that over the years the Advent stories become very familiar, with the angels appearing to Elizabeth, Joseph, and Mary, and the story of preparing for Christ’s birth. How do you talk about these events in a fresh way year after year? As we were trying to figure out what to do for this year, Rev. Frierson came up with a brilliant idea, which is to focus on what we normally do to prepare for Christmas as a metaphor for how Christians are called to prepare for Christ’s coming. Advent is a season of preparation, so we decided to use the basics of Christmas preparation, such as cleaning your house, putting up the tree, going to parties, and giving gifts to look at how we can prepare for Christ. And this morning I want to talk about the first of those ideas, which is cleaning our houses.

            So,… how many of you stuck around for Thanksgiving? And how many of you who stuck around hosted Thanksgiving dinner? And how many of you who hosted dinner cleaned your house first? If you are like our family, pretty much all of you cleaned.

            We didn’t host Thanksgiving dinner, but we did have our extended family over to our house the evening after Thanksgiving, which meant that Friday was a day of cleaning in preparation for Friday night. I helped a bit in the morning and early afternoon, but I had tickets to the University of Pittsburgh football game against Miami University, so I got out of some of the heavy cleaning. Still, my wife, Diane, and my kids got to mop, vacuum, straighten, arrange, and wash. Before we could celebrate, we had to prepare.

            In a lot of ways this season of Advent is meant to be a season of cleaning before a party. We don’t normally think of this season in this way, but preparing for celebration is at the center of the season. Christmas is meant to be a celebration, but not just a celebration of food, trees, presents, and family. At its center it is meant to be a season of celebrating Christ coming into our lives. But before we can celebrate that, we have to prepare for it.

            Advent is the season of preparation. It is meant to be a time of prayer, reflection, and centering in preparation for Christmas, but we’ve forgotten it in our rush to celebrate Christmas. Advent reminds us that we cannot celebrate Christ’s coming without preparing, but that doesn’t mean we listen. Let me explain.

            Have you heard that there is a war on Christmas in our culture? You can’t escape the warnings if you watch Fox News. It has become something of a tradition for them to rail against the war on Christmas this time of year. Watch Fox today. Someone will talk about the war on Christmas. They self-righteously complain that nobody says “Merry Christmas” anymore in stores, but substitute “Happy Holidays” instead. They then encourage people to boycott stores that say “Happy Holidays” until they return to saying “Merry Christmas.”

            The irony of Fox’s obsession about the supposed war on Christmas is that they completely miss the fact that in their railing they have been part of the War on Advent. They ignore Advent by consistently proclaiming that we are in the Christmas season. We’re not in the season of Christmas, despite what the consumer culture might lead us to believe. Ironically, the Christmas warriors ignore the season of preparing for Christ’s coming. They act as though the Christmas season begins the day after Thanksgiving, or even Halloween, when it doesn’t actually start until Christmas day and then goes on for another eleven days afterwards. I don’t mean all of this as a particular swipe against Fox News. I mean it to point out the fact that in our zeal for Christmas we can forget a more ancient wisdom, which is that spiritually we can only discover God’s presence when we prepare for it. And in our modern culture, our zeal for Christmas celebration obscures our need for Advent preparation.

            The fact is that while most of us like parties and celebrations, we don’t necessarily like the cleaning and preparation we have to do before them. Who wants to clean? Who wants to straighten? Who wants to prepare? It’s much more fun just to show up.

            In a lot of ways we’re like that spiritually, too. We love spiritual good times. We love those times when we feel complete, joyful, purposeful, and close to God. The problem is that we don’t always like to prepare for them. We don’t like to do spiritual work. We want our spirituality to come easily, and we ignore the fact that while people may be naturally spiritual, spiritual growth and maturity requires work. It requires taking time in self-examination to determine whether or not we are truly open to God. It requires taking time to read the Bible, or religious/spiritual books, to stretch our thinking and understanding. Spiritual growth is always about learning. It requires time in prayer, especially during difficult times. Spiritual growth requires preparation and work, just like anything else in life. And when we take time to prepare, it also allows us to eventually celebrate what we become ready for. The problem is that not everyone wants to do this prep work.

            Over the course of the past six months I’ve been having conversations with younger people in their 20s and 30s about the growing tendency of many their age calling themselves spiritual but not religious. I’ve asked them what their impression is of their friends, and why they walk away from church. I’ve been surprised by many of their answers, which often boils down to “they’re lazy spiritually.” I asked, expecting to hear them say that they find church boring, that they don’t resonate with our music or ideas, or that they find Christian beliefs hard to grasp and accept. All of those might be true, but the ones I’ve been talking with have been telling me that they think their friends are just lazy spiritually. They say that their friends like to talk about being spiritual, but then don’t want to do anything to build on that spirituality because it might interfere with their leisure time.

            I have no idea if what they are saying is true. And I tend not to be critical of people and to call them lazy. But what they are saying does fit with our struggle with Advent:  people don’t like to prepare. This points out that in this day and age a significant part of the population, including the Christian population, doesn’t see spiritual work as essential. This is different from Christians of ages past. 50, 100, 200, 500 years ago, people were much more willing to work on their spiritual and religious lives, and to work hard. People read and knew the Bible. They made prayer an essential part of their lives, and not just prayer begging God to do their will. Much of their prayers were for God to help them to do God’s will. These people made church and worship essential to their prep work for God.

            If we want to experience God in our lives, we need to be responsible for putting our personal spiritual houses in order, and doing so allows us to actually be blessed by God. That’s what happened in our passage for this morning. Hezekiah was king of the southern Jewish kingdom of Judah as the Assyrians were threatening it with destruction. Hezekiah had been a so-so king up to this point. He had done much to pull the Jewish people back to a centering in God, but he also had done some things that were a bit more self-focused. Then the prophet Isaiah comes to him and says, “Thus says the Lord: Set your house in order, for you shall die; you shall not recover.” Hezekiah is distraught and pleas with God, reminding God of all the good Hezekiah has done. And he prepares to put his house, his spiritual life, back in order. God responds by giving Hezekiah 15 more years, and Hezekiah puts the kingdom back in order.

            In the same way, the angels visits Elizabeth, Joseph, and Mary as preparation for Christ’s birth. And the angels do this because these folks had already put their houses in order. In fact, each had always kept their spiritual houses in order. They were constantly prepared spiritually for God’s coming, and it made them part of Christ’s coming.

            Advent is a season of preparation, and we are called to spend time in it preparing for Christmas by cleaning our own houses. I’d like to close by giving you a final thought. A number of years ago I became a fan of a British television series on BBC America. The show was called “How Clean Is Your House?” It was a fascinating show in which two women travel around Britain looking for the filthiest houses. They then come in and clean the houses, all the while teaching these people how to keep their houses clean. The houses they work on are amazingly disgusting. Often what caused these people’s houses to become so filthy and cluttered was the snowball effect. Something caused them to stop cleaning, and over time the accumulation of filth and mess became overwhelming. They didn’t know where to start, so they just stopped.

            The one episode I remember most was the house of a lifelong bachelor whose house was awful, especially the kitchen and bathroom. He hadn’t cleaned his bathroom in 28 years. It was the must DISGUSTING thing I’d ever seen. Nor had he cleaned his kitchen. They did culture swabs of his kitchen counter and alarmingly found it covered with salmonella, wisteria, e coli, and all sorts of other creepy, harmful bacteria. They told him that his house was actually dangerous to visitors. He smiled and responded that it wasn’t a problem because he hadn’t been sick in over 15 years, so it couldn’t be that bad. They told him that it was only because his immune system was in such constant high alert that he couldn’t get sick, but if he prepared food in his own kitchen to take to friends’ houses, that he could actually kill them.

            Typically, the women made a plan to clean and de-clutter the houses, and then made the owners help them clean. In the process they taught them how to clean. They always started with the bathroom because it was typically the smallest space, as well as the one with the most potential bacteria. Then they moved onto the kitchen, because it was the next smallest, yet dangerous space. They cleaned counters, stoves, refrigerators and tables. Then they moved to the rest of the house moving onto the bedrooms, dining room, and living room. The amount of trash they would pull out was astounding. And when they steam-cleaned the carpets, often they would collect up to 30 gallons of filthy water of dirt just from the carpets.

            I learned lessons from this show about how to put our spiritual houses in order. First, start small. Do the simplest things to connect with God. It might mean reading an inspirational quote once a day from an Advent calendar, or taking three minutes to pray for someone else. Then build on that to add in bigger spiritual acts. The point is to take care of part of our lives, and the move onto others.

            Don’t just make this a season of being pulled out of order in the zeal for Christmas, but make it one where you put God at the center, and put your house a little bit more into order.

            Amen.