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 1/3rd of you. Now, how many of you love Christmas
shopping? Wow, that’s about 1/3rd 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 4th
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.
