First Presbyterian Church of
Isaiah 61
“Oh . . .
and one more thing”
The Rev.
Dr. Fred G. Garry
The shouting
started in September. Our youngest, Dave,
shouts from the front room, “Come quick.
You have to see this.” At first I
thought it was some sort of breaking news or rare animal on the television-
that Dave is five and his television station of choice doesn’t “break” for any
news eluded me for a time. Each bout of
shouting would lead me flying through the house so to see the last few seconds
of a game or a toy or a gadget. “I want
that for Christmas,” he would say.
After four or
five mad dashes I devised a new strategy.
When Dave would run into the room begging me to come I would say, “Just
put it on the list. If it’s for Santa I
don’t need to see.” This worked like a
charm. Some part of me figured that Dave
saw me as only a fall back anyway. Our
children discover young that I am an easy touch for the small things, but for
big stuff you need to talk to mom.
Sitting through
a couple of cartoons with Dave I found the source of his enthusiasm. Dave is watching Nickelodeon, an entire
network dedicated to children. Starting
in September a lion share of their commercials is geared toward children just
like him, boys and girls thinking in terms of Christmas and Santa and “the
list.” I have to tell you the
commercials are pretty cool. It didn’t
take long before I was tempted to encourage Santa on Dave’s behalf regarding a
few of the toys.
While there
were certainly commercials during my childhood, television wasn’t what it is
now, nor was it the source of my Christmas hopes. For me this was the Sears catalog. In scope and sheer size each one could be
understood as an example of deforestation.
But the Sears catalog had everything.
Toys, sports equipment, guns, and the ultimate: sheets,
comforters, curtains, trash cans, lamps, radios, and of course pajamas
all emblazoned with the Miami Dolphins.
I actually knew a young boy named Paul who was lucky enough to have
parents who ordered him all these items.
His team was the Dallas Cowboys and his room was a kind of surreal
wonderland. It was as if the catalog
were alive.
I can remember
going to my grandparent’s home on
Maybe I am
wrong here yet for me the Christmas list cannot be too long. One more thing is never a bad idea on a
Christmas list. This was born I believe
from the Sears Catalog with its endless possibilities, endless pages with each
one crammed with dozens of toys any self-respecting seven year old would be
happy to open on Christmas morning imagining the man in red bringing it on a
sled.
I know I sound
like part of the problem, part of the commercialization of Christmas, part of
the whole materialism that seems to have redefined the yuletide into a
blitzkrieg of spoiled children and gluttony.
And this may very well be true.
If there is a battle to be fought over the spirit of Christmas, I would
probably head to the side talking about gifts and Santa and reindeer. A solemn Christmas just doesn’t seem to make
a lot of sense to me.
The counter
argument runs: sometime in the recent past, Christmas was commercialized and
became more about the gifts than the giving; it has evolved into a rather
frantic shopping spree and not a time of prayerful reflection culminating in
the good news, unto us a savior is born.
Yet, listen to
what Harriet Beecher Stowe described in “The First New England Christmas.” “Oh dear! Christmas is coming in a fortnight, and I
have got to think up presents for everybody!
Dear me, it’s so tedious!
Everybody has got everything that can be thought of.” She describes the town with “every shop and
store glittering with all manner of splendors . . . for people that have more
than they know what to do with now; to add pictures, books, and gilding when
the centre tables are loaded with them now, and rings and jewels when they are
a perfect drug.”
Harriet Beecher
Stowe was born in 1811 and her short story was part reminiscence and part
fiction. The fiction was in the
characters, not the description of Christmas though. She wrote about the Christmas of her
childhood looking back from 1850 as a means of describing a simpler time,
before Christmas had gotten really out of control.
I found Stowe’s
account in a great book entitled, The
Battle for Christmas. Stephen Nissenbaum does a great job showing the origins of our
traditions and the nuances of our practices.
Yet throughout each part there is a constant refrain, what Christmas
means is always a battle.
The tradition
of gift giving in
They become an
easy target for claims of decadence or wasteful splendor. Yet, and here is the part that keeps nagging
at me, what if the splendor and the opulence were a kind of recognition of how
great was the mercy of God? There is not
a lot of record of boasting or sense of self-importance as part of the national
identity after the revolution. There
were plenty examples though of how in awe people were that they were free and
how they saw this as God’s gift. The
people who lived through the revolution knew all too well how precarious and
how miraculous was their victory. Christmas,
it seems, became a kind of celebration of God’s extravagant mercy.
Our passage
from Isaiah should be read from that vantage.
Isaiah is speaking with people who are rebuilding
Reading
Isaiah’s vision is like a global Christmas list unleashed, unbridled. Read it this way: "What do you want to
see, Isaiah? I want to see good news for
the oppressed and the brokenhearted bound up; I want to see liberty for
captives and release for prisoners; I want to see a jubilee for the indebted
and punishment for their oppressors; I want to see Zion restored and a place of
celebration, garland instead of ashes; I want to see the ancient cities rebuilt
and glory of old restored to its former splendor." One of these visions would be enough to
occupy the well-intended for a lifetime; Isaiah wants to see ten different
moments of transformation.
I was doing
alright until he said "And the ancient ruins and cities, those will be
rebuilt." The list of hopes and
dreams were extravagant before this and then it just got a little wild. But such is life when you see it as a gift,
when you see it as mercy and not your own, not what
you made, but what you receive.
At the time
when Harriet Beecher Stowe was a child,
I find it a strange
comfort that our battle over Christmas is the same as it ever was. One hundred and fifty years ago the challenge
was the same and has been for every generation.
In light of such an extravagant gift, how should we live, how are we to
give? We read Isaiah’s vision of the
world redeemed during Advent because it is the time when it makes sense, when
our hearts are ready to ponder the enormity of mercy- when hope becomes wild. It is true the children may not fully
understand how the celebration was shaped of sacrifice, but there may come a
day. Shame be
upon us for speeding the loss of innocence.
Is it any
surprise that we say "bah humbug" to those who cannot dream and
rejoice at Christmas? For now is the
time to read Isaiah’s dream and even add to it.
We need to believe that there is good news for the oppressed and release
for the captives and freedom for the prisoners and food for the hungry and
clothes for naked and oh, one more thing, hope for those in despair and sense
of remembrance for the forgotten and forsaken and much, much more.
The Sears
catalog wasn’t handed to me with a sense of warning or limitation. It was put into the hands of a young boy as
it should be, in the extravagance of more than can be imagined. There is nothing in the Gospels where we get
a sense that Jesus gave a little, or what he could afford, or what was
fitting. There was a wild, extravagance
of giving very his life away.
So as the
battle continues, and it will, remember: the gifting of Christmas is meant to
embody the complete giving away, the sense of thankfulness that life is better
than can be imagined. Just remember our
extravagance was born of sacrifice.
Amen.