Most every year my sister-in-law asks me to offer a "toast" at the family Christmas dinner. This means that I get to negotiate the ground between the brother-in-law who is offended by people who say "Happy Holidays" and the brother-in-law who can't stand it when Christians try "to ram their religion down his throat." So I try to emphasize how Christmas helps us to remember and honor family members past and present who have sustained us and that we are also honoring the birth of Jesus, the Lamb of God. Most of all, I try to keep it short.
For me, personally, Christmas has become a profoundly important event, the moment in history when God intervened to restructure radically our relation to the Divine. But I realize that this is not how most Americans view Christmas or, for that matter, Christianity.
Jesus called upon people to repent and to follow him into a life of radical discipleship and service to God and humanity. Of course earnest Christians can and will disagree over what that should look 2,000 years later. But in a world and nation filled with self-preoccupation, injustice, violence, poverty, and ennui, I'll be so bold as to suggest that badgering the beleaguered clerks at Target to say "Merry Christmas" rather than "Happy Holidays" is not high on God's "to do" list.
No comments:
Post a Comment