An angel of the Lord appeared to Joseph in a dream and said, “Joseph, son of David, do not be afraid to take Mary as your wife, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit. She will bear a son, and you are to name him Jesus, for he will save his people from their sins.” All this took place to fulfill what had been spoken by the Lord through the prophet:
“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and they shall name him Emmanuel,” which means, “God is with us.”

Find something to write with and begin thinking about and writing down words or phrases that describe your thoughts about the holiday season. Don’t over-think it, just go with your gut. Also, please only write down the words or phrases that are authentic representations of how you really feel this time of year; don’t write down how you think you should feel.

I did this activity earlier. Here’s what I came up with:
busy
Christmas music
logistical nightmares
lots of coffee
excited kids
shopping

Apparently that’s what Christmas means to me. Can we all agree that is less than inspiring?

Fortunately, I didn’t have to look far to find the answer to what ails me at Christmastime:
For what to my wondering eyes should surface, but my “2014 Holiday Playbook” from the United States Postal Service. Dropped off by my mailman, on the coldest of days, it would tell me everything I need to win the holidays!

Yes, winning the holidays; that’s what Christmas has come to. Hosting the best meal; putting up the best decorations; working the hardest to get the biggest bonus; giving the best gift; and, of course, getting the best deal. “Winning” wasn’t one of my words from the earlier activity, but I can see it lurking in the shadows; fueling my caffeinated busyness, my shopping, and my logistical nightmares.

Out of curiosity I opened up the “2014 Holiday Playbook,” finding a list of seven things the postal service can do for me without me ever having to leave my house. How convenient! Thanks to the USPS now I can win the holidays and never have to make any contact with another human being. Ok, I’m an introvert and even I think that’s messed up!

I don’t mean to pick on the USPS; of all the forces plotting against an authentic and profound experience of a religious holiday season commemorating the Son of God being born into poverty to an unwed mother, they’re among the least venomous assailants. But this phrase “Everything you need to win the holidays” really hit me hard; it’s just another symptom of a larger disease – namely, our “dis-ease” – or more accurately, our rush to treat our “dis-ease” with the medicine of money.

We are not content. That’s a fact of life. Not a single one of us is content; which is understandable. Not being content prevents us from becoming complacent. Not being content is what leads people to innovate, invent, and improvise. And, frankly, how could we possibly be content given the state of our world today?

Millions go to bed hungry and have no access to clean water.
Wars rage, fueled by money, territory, cultures, religious beliefs, and politics.
Pundits on “news” channels are paid absurd sums to stoke irrational fires and to draw lines of who is right and wrong, who is in and out.
Children are shot in our schools, most often at the hands of individuals with severe mental disorders which our country has no funding nor political willpower to adequately address.
We work ourselves ragged, thinking that sacrificing time with loved ones in order to earn more money will ultimately result in a better life for them.

Each one of us is aware of something missing from our lives; an emptiness that yearns to be filled, a hunger that craves to be satisfied. Yes, how will we fill the emptiness and feed the hunger? How will we win the holidays?

The answer is not in a USPS guide to winning the holidays; it's not in the the sale flyers that stuff our newspapers; it's not in our credit cards or bank accounts.

I’m sorry. I wish money could buy happiness; just like I wish an expensive gift could fill people with love; just like I kind of wish we could win the holidays by staying inside all month in our PJs typing on a computer and waiting for the mail carrier to come. It would all be so much easier.

But it’s all a lie. We can’t buy love. We can’t make the world a better place by shopping for the perfect gift.

This Advent, we are asking you to conspire against the hyper-consumerist mindset that threatens to obliterate the gift of the Christ-child with its lie that expensive and extravagant gift-giving is the best way to express love.

One of the pastors who created the Advent Conspiracy concept, wrote this, “We are constantly searching for the one thing that will satisfy us. Yet each time we trust the promises of our possessions, more barriers are raised between our true selves and God’s plain command to love [Him] above all things. It’s not that we necessarily want more – it’s that what we want is something we can’t buy.” (From Advent Conspiracy, page 24)

As we recognize our dis-ease, we are challenged to embrace a way of living which seeks to provide relationships over retail and presence over presents.

“Look, the virgin shall conceive and bear a son,
and they shall name him Emmanuel,”which means, “God is with us.”

We are gathered together as people of God who believe that God is real, God loves us, and God has given us the ultimate gift of his presence in our lives. God is not “up there” watching our lives unfold on a two-dimensional flat-screen like a soap opera. Instead, god is Emmanuel – “with us.” God’s presence in our lives is so great that not even death could separate it from us.

Let’s not cheapen the gift of God’s presence by rushing out and buying expensive crap. Instead, let’s be more thoughtful, intentional, personal and relational. Let’s give something of ourselves to the people who are in need. That’s the only way to truly honor God’s presence in our lives.

To be clear, I don’t want you to leave tonight and say, “Sorry dear, Pastor Aaron told me not to give you any presents this year.” What I’m saying is that I want you to give a better present, something that’s value isn’t measurable with a dollar sign.

Here is a link to the Advent Conspiracy page on Pinterest. It has some wonderful and thoughtful gift ideas, so please check it out. Here are a few ideas to spark your imagination:

you could buy two blank journals, one for you and one for someone else, with the understanding that you would write down thoughts throughout the year and next Christmas you exchange them, allowing the other person a unique glimpse into who you really are;
you could write down your favorite stories of someone else and give them as a gift;
you could give a gift of a mug along with the stipulation that it only be used when you get together once a month for coffee and catching up;
make a meal for someone who you know is struggling.

Those are just a few examples of meaningful gifts they convey the real reason for the season.

To conclude, I want to invite you into silent reflection. At that time I would like you to look at the worship bulletin and circle the words that you want Christmas to be about this year. Then print the bulletin and take it with you. Use it as your new Christmas gift-buying guide, thinking of ways to give gifts that spread the true meaning of Christmas: Emmanuel–God with us.

“When the Son of Man comes in his glory, and all the angels with him, then he will sit on the throne of his glory. All the nations will be gathered before him, and he will separate people one from another as a shepherd separates the sheep from the goats, and he will put the sheep at his right hand and the goats at the left.

Then the king will say to those at his right hand, ‘Come, you that are blessed by my Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world; for I was hungry and you gave me food, I was thirsty and you gave me something to drink, I was a stranger and you welcomed me, I was naked and you gave me clothing, I was sick and you took care of me, I was in prison and you visited me.’ Then the righteous will answer him, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry and gave you food, or thirsty and gave you something to drink? And when was it that we saw you a stranger and welcomed you, or naked and gave you clothing? And when was it that we saw you sick or in prison and visited you?’ And the king will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did it to one of the least of these who are members of my family, you did it to me.’

Then he will say to those at his left hand, ‘You that are accursed, depart from me into the eternal fire prepared for the devil and his angels; for I was hungry and you gave me no food, I was thirsty and you gave me nothing to drink, I was a stranger and you did not welcome me, naked and you did not give me clothing, sick and in prison and you did not visit me.’ Then they also will answer, ‘Lord, when was it that we saw you hungry or thirsty or a stranger or naked or sick or in prison, and did not take care of you?’ Then he will answer them, ‘Truly I tell you, just as you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me.’ And these will go away into eternal punishment, but the righteous into eternal life.”

This text is one I don’t like, mostly because it appears so black and white, so judgmental, so dangerous if used incorrectly and carelessly.

When I read this scripture I end up feeling pulled in one of two ways:

1) If I’ve recently done something charitable and kind, this story makes me feel like a sheep; I'll think quite highly of myself and, consequently, take a high moral position over against people who don’t appear to have recently done anything charitable or kind. Sheep, after all, are at the right hand of God, blessed, inherit the kingdom, and will go away into eternal life.

2) If I feel like I have not been charitable and kind, this story makes me feel like a goat; to continue sulking in my failures and limitations, feel the oppressive weight of guilt and shame, and I begin to doubt how God could ever love someone like me. Goats, after all, are at the left hand of God, cursed, inherit the eternal fire, and will go away into eternal punishment.

There is a common temptation is to let scripture like today’s from Matthew lead us into believing that being a Christian is all about keeping score; a temptation to want to follow the model of coffee shops and gas stations with rewards programs – get a hole punched in a card or earn reward points every time we did something Jesus expects of us. That way we would know how close we are to earning our individual prize – the kingdom & eternal life. That way we would know just how bad we are, or how much better we are than others.

But we can’t give in to this temptation. Anyone who engages with these difficult stories from scripture cannot walk away until the drops of good news from the dry pages; cannot walk away until we have something better to proclaim than religious superiority or debilitating shame.

Yes, the text is clear that we are to participate in God’s mission in the world by rushing to the aid of those in need. However, rather than being guided by less-than-helpful thoughts about how many is enough to help or which ones are worthy of our help or feeling like we couldn’t possibly help; I would like to tell a story that I feel illustrates the good news of the Biblical command to help those in need. The following story, which I will read it its entirety, is taken from a collection titled, The Impossible Will Take a Little While: Perseverance and Hope in Troubled Times. It is written by Naomi Nye.

“Gate A-4”

Wandering around the Albuquerque Airport Terminal, after learning my flight had been delayed four hours, I heard an announcement: “If anyone in the vicinity of Gate A-4 understands any Arabic, please come to the gate immediately.” Well— one pauses these days. Gate A-4 was my own gate. I went there.

An older woman in full traditional Palestinian embroidered dress, just like my grandma wore, was crumpled to the floor, wailing. “Help,” said the flight agent. “Talk to her. What is her problem? We told her the flight was going to be late and she did this.”

I stooped to put my arm around the woman and spoke [in halting Arabic]. The minute she heard any words she knew, however poorly used, she stopped crying. She thought the flight had been cancelled entirely. She needed to be in El Paso for major medical treatment the next day. I said, “No, we’re fine, you’ll get there, just late, who is picking you up? Let’s call him.”

We called her son, I spoke with him in English. I told him I would stay with his mother till we got on the plane. She talked to him. Then we called her other sons just for the fun of it. Then we called my dad and he and she spoke for a while in Arabic and found out of course they had ten shared friends. Then I thought just for the heck of it why not call some Palestinian poets I know and let them chat with her? This all took up two hours.

She was laughing a lot by then. Telling about her life, patting my knee, answering questions. She had pulled a sack of homemade mamool cookies— little powdered sugar crumbly mounds stuffed with dates and nuts— from her bag and was offering them to all the women at the gate. To my amazement, not a single traveler declined one. It was like a sacrament. The traveler from Argentina, the mom from California, the lovely woman from Laredo— we were all covered with the same powdered sugar. And smiling. There is no better cookie.

Then the airline broke out free apple juice and two little girls from our flight ran around serving it and they were covered with powdered sugar too. And I noticed my new best friend— by now we were holding hands— had a potted plant poking out of her bag, some medicinal thing, with green furry leaves. Such an old country traveling tradition. Always carry a plant. Always stay rooted to somewhere.

And I looked around that gate of late and weary ones and thought, This is the world I want to live in. The shared world. Not a single person in that gate— once the crying of confusion stopped— seemed apprehensive about any other person. They took the cookies. I wanted to hug all those other women too.”

Our mission to be sheep should never, must never, be about a desire to earn salvation for ourselves. Rather, our mission to be sheep must always be firmly rooted in an understanding that by nourishing the hungry and thirsty, by clothing the naked, by caring for the stranger, the sick and the imprisoned, we are being most authentically and truly human.

The world doesn’t need more sheep or goats. What it needs is more human beings, created in the image of God, honoring the image of God in those who seem to be most different, and journeying together into the rich and uncertain world of equality, justice, and eternal life.

On this day we celebrate the festival of Christ the King, proclaiming our faith in a ruler who stands neither on the right or left side of our feeble political farce, but rather stands with the hungry, the thirsty, the stranger, the naked, the sick, and the imprisoned; offering peace in the midst of persecution, love as we deal with loss, and joy as we work justice.

This isn’t about keeping score; this is about giving up what we thought was important and instead choosing to live in a way creates opportunities for love and faith as we bear the image of God to those who doubt there is any grace left to be experienced.

I conclude with the wise words of Margaret Mead:

“Never doubt that a small group of thoughtful, committed, citizens can change the world. Indeed, it is the only thing that ever has.”

Amen.

"Winning the Holidays" – Matthew 1:20-23

"Don't Feed the Goats" – Matthew 25:31-46