Focus Text: Matthew 1:18-23
This morning marks the second week of advent. In the traditional church calendar, and the one our wreath lighting comes from this Sunday is a day of righteousness. As our wreath lighters read, “We light the second candle, reminding us that we are to dispel the darkness of sickness, poverty, injustice, and suffering all around us.” We are called to a life or righteousness and this candle that burns brightly today reminds us that the darkness that cover the land can and will be dispelled. As we try to celebrate a Christmas that runs counter to the predominant culture through our “Advent Conspiracy” Bible study, we can dispel the darkness that clouds our vision of advent and Christmas. Speaking o the Advent Conspiracy Bible Study, if you did not participate this week you are always welcome to join in. You have not missed anything that would prevent you from being able to join in the conversation.
This morning, I have decided to combine the topic of the next two weeks in the study into one sermon this morning. I wanted to finish preaching from the study before the Sunday of the children’s program so that you may be aware of this advent celebration during advent.
Now let’s begin by opening our bibles and turning to Matthew Chapter 1 verses 18 to 23 on page 955 in your pew bibles.
Now the birth of Jesus Christ was on this wise: When as his mother Mary was espoused to Joseph, before they came together, she was found with child of the Holy Ghost. Then Joseph her husband, being a just man, and not willing to make her a public example, was minded to put her away privately. But while he thought on these things, behold, the angel of the Lord appeared unto him in a dream, saying, Joseph, thou son of David, fear not to take unto thee Mary thy wife: for that which is conceived in her is of the Holy Ghost. And she shall bring forth a son, and thou shalt call his name JESUS: for he shall save his people from their sins. Now all this was done, that it might be fulfilled which was spoken of the Lord by the prophet, saying, Behold, a virgin shall be with child, and shall bring forth a son, and they shall call his name Emmanuel, which being interpreted is, God with us.
May God add a blessing to the reading of God’s word.
If you remember last week, I talked about the importance of worshipping fully. I talked about how easy it is for us to replace the worship of the one true God with the worship of something else, usually money or things. I lifted up Mary as an example of how worship begins. Worship begins at hearing the sound of God’s voice, and I reminded you that God’s voice is more often than not found in the silent moments and it is our duty to silence ourselves and wait for that silent voice to speak. Now as we move to the topic of the second and third weeks of our advent study please do not forget that what we do at Christmas is first and foremost worship. Worship is not only what we do, but it is who we are. Worship is more than just coming to church on Sunday mornings or singing hymns or praise songs. Worship is something that should encompass our whole being it should touch every aspect of our life and it should direct us in all things.
Remember this as we move on to today’s topics.
Over the next two weeks the small groups that meet on Wednesday mornings and Thursday Evenings will be talking about two seemingly divergent ideas. This week we will talk about the importance of spending less, and next week we will talk about the importance of giving more. Our study and our desire to celebrate a more Christ filled advent and Christmas asks us to both spend less and give more. How is this possible, how do we do both, and what does it have to do with worshiping fully? These are the questions that I pray God will bring answers to this morning.
Now I know what some of you may be thinking. “Here he goes with another sermon on money. This makes at least 3 maybe 4 sermons that focused mainly on money, and who knows how many mention it.” Some of you may be thinking that I am out to kill Christmas or that I am somehow against those of you who enjoy the hubbub of the Christmas season. And I know that you didn’t come to worship this morning to hear a sermon delivered by Ebeneezer Scrooge Saying Bah Humbug to Christmas. I assure you that I am not, I love Christmas. I don’t like going to the malls all that much, but I like to find that perfect gift for someone. I love watching them open their presents and seeing the joy that they have on their face. But I also know, sometimes painfully so, that we have gone astray. To celebrate Christmas more fully we do not have to shrink our hearts down two sizes too small like the Grinch. In fact, I am saying the opposite. Because we are celebrating the birth of Jesus Christ our Lord we can give extravagantly and we can love and worship fully in every aspect of our lives. Its not just about spending less, but it more about changing our hearts.
I think that we as a people have lost the meaning of what a gift is. We have turned gifting into an exchange of commodities. A commodity is something that has a set and agreed upon value and when it changes hands then there is an equal exchange. When you go to the hardware store and purchase a hammer. You and the retailer generally agree on the value of that hammer. And since you as the customer would like to purchase that hammer you offer something that is of equal value the one placed on the hammer. In our society that is money. Our giving has taken on this sort of dynamic. We look at an object we determine its worth, we look at the potential recipient and look at their worth. When the two line up we give the gift. If the two don’t line up we will either withhold the gift or decide to give something else. Some of you are out there thinking, “well that is a sad way of looking at it.” I agree it is sad, but it is true. To prove it, how many of you have gone out shopping and when you find that perfect gift, you look at the price and think, well that’s too expensive and put it back. Or what about the opposite. You find that perfect item, the one you know that person will like, you look at the price and think well I need to spend more than that and you put it back get it and start looking for something else to go with it. In terms of giving, our society has replaced money with love. We exchange a certain amount of love for a gift and it is ours.
Now these are extreme examples, but here is one I am sure you are aware of because it permeates our culture. How many of you have ever thought that the value of your loved one is expressed through how much you spend on them. The more you love them the more you spend. If you don’t like them as much you won’t spend as much. Or to put it a little differently, for those of you who are parents, “Because I love my kids so much I am going to buy everything I can for them.” Within that statement is the truth that I am trying to get at. We have somehow lost the meaning of gift and replaced gifting with some sort of monetary transaction. Unfortunately, this is having disastrous consequences on our planet and our culture. Did you know that right at this moment there are more Barbie doll in the United States than there are people. Our earth cannot sustain too many more of these Christmases. It carries through in our culture when on average parents in the United States spend 6 hrs shopping and only 40 minutes playing with their kid. 6hrs shopping verses 40 minutes in play. That is just bazaar and it is tearing us apart piece by piece. I think the problem begins with monetizing gifting, but it is exacerbated by the fact that we we don’t know how to place a monetary value on something like play time so we don’t know how to enter it into the gifting equation. We like the things we can place a value on so that we can prove our love by spending X amount of Dollars.
The admonition that our bible study offers and I offer to you today too spend less this Christmas season is not meant to ruin your Christmas. It is not meant to make you spend no money on Christmas gifts for friends and loved ones. It is more a direct challenge to this system of monetizing gifts and comodifying love. By asking ourselves to spend less, we are telling ourselves that this way of valuing people and relationships through gifting is not quite right. When we ask each other to spend less we are not saying tone down your Christmas celebration, instead we are collectively saying that their has got to be a better understanding of giving that expresses our love and our worship. The answer, at least in terms of this Advent’s study, is to give more.
There I go again. I finish a paragraph about spending less, with the statement to give more. How is that possible, how is it possible to spend less and give more? For that, we need to turn to a new way of looking at gifting. We need to claim a model of giving that isn’t monetized and isn’t expressed exclusively through gift buying. To find this model we turn nowhere else but the reason God became flesh come to save the world expressed in John 3:16. You know the words, say them with me, “For God so loved the world that he GAVE his only begotten son so that all who believe in him will not perish but have everlasting life.”
This gift of God we celebrate all year and especially at this time of year can show us what gifting looks like. There are three characteristics we can gather from God’s So what are these characteristics of true gifting then? First, a gift is always moving, second, a gift creates obligation, and finally, a gift creates relationship.
The gift that our Lord has given us on Christmas morning is not one that we receive and own. It is not ours to keep as if we only have rights to it. It is given and it is passed on so that all may be uplifted. This gift, and therefore any gift, is always moving, or changing hands. This is different than the usual model of giving and receiving that we have. Much like how we purchase a hammer in an exchange for money that hammer becomes ours and ours alone. When we receive a gift, a transaction has taken place and that gift is ours and ours alone. In early American history, white settlers experienced this type of gifting when they exchanged gifts with the native americans. They ended up coming up with a derogatory term “Indian Giver.” They couldn’t fathom that a gift would change hands so many times. Perhaps the more accurate term is “White man gift keeper.” The native americans couldn’t understand a gift that didn’t benefit the whole group that didn’t pass from one person to the next for all to receive enjoyment. What if on Christmas morning when we exchange those gifts for loved ones we didn’t hear, this is yours and this is yours, but this is for all of us. Different families do this in different ways, some donate to charity, some give their time to a food kitchen, and many who do not have very man means find those gifts to give that fulfill a common need that the family has. It, may not look as nice under the tree, but a family that has food, shelter, and warmth when there was doubt that they would has experienced this type of giving more than the rest of us may have.
The next characteristic of a gift involves a word that our society has tried to forget. Obligation. A gift creates obligation. Aside from the credit card companies, we don’t like to be obligated to anyone. We try to do as even exchange as possible so that we can avoid this, but a true gift creates obligation. A true gift is unmerited and not based on any calculation of worth or value of either the gift or the recipient. Praise God for that, because God’s gift to us on that first Christmas is not one that we are entitled to or one that we have earned or one that is measured against our value or our love for God. God’s gift of His Son is one of unmerited grace given out of love, and we feel obligated toward God for that gift. Obligation has picked up negative connotations in our culture where everyone tries to be self-sufficient and self-reliant, it is not a negative thing, it is a sign of community. Obligation towards Christ’s mercy and grace shown in his Birth, life, death, and resurrection is what moves us to be the body of Christ. We feel a calling to answer that gift of love with a response of love of our own. How would it look if our Christmas celebrations matched this type of giving? What would a true gift look like that is given out of so much love that the other person feels obligated to do the same, not necessarily to you but to someone. Here again, I am not talking about going out and buying everyone a lexus and putting a bow on it, though if out of love you wanted to put one in my driveway, well never mind... The monetary value of a lexus may create obligation, but it is probably not an expression of love toward that person. I can’t give you the answers as to what this gifting looks like. It will take a lot of creativity on your part, but that is part of the worship experience. When you think of a loved one or friend what do you think will be an expression of the great love between you and what expression will cause that person to show love in a similar way to someone else.
Finally, this type of gifting that which is not based on monetary value and doesn’t try to express their love in monetary formulations creates relationship. A gift given based on monetary assumptions and even exchange does not build relationships. Parents who shop for six hours and play for 40 minutes each week are not getting closer together. Now I know that those parents are shopping out of love for their children and want to make their children have a great Christmas, but is it worth the cost? Is it worth the cost? In my opinion, I would have to say no. And I have to hold our current understanding of gifting accountable for this terrible mismanagement of relationships. What if, instead of expressing our love with our friends and family through shopping and gifts we expressed it by spending time with those we love and create relationships?
You see, God’s ultimate gift to us was one of relationship. God did not send his son for us on Christmas morning so that we might move on in our lives, only saved instead of damned. I tell you, this is not a gift of salvation alone, but a gift of relationship. God so loved the world that He wanted to be in relationship with it. God so loved each and every one of you so God became human in the form of an infant and dwelt among us so that He could remain with us forever. It is an amazing thought and a tremendous source of joy that the creator of all things desires to be in relationship with us. We can be like Christ when we give relationally. Instead of buying that gift find an activity that they like to do and spend time doing it together. Instead of buying yet another gift, find a skill that you know how to do and show them how to do it. If you know how to sew and you think a family member or friend would like to learn how to do it, offer to teach them. If you love to cook or bake and you know someone who shows an interest in that, not only give them recipe but offer to come to their home and teach them. The relationships that will come from these gifts will grow and they will be fruitful.
Today, I have offered you a new way of thinking about gift preparation and giving. It is one that involves more than just going to the mall and wrapping presents. Instead it takes patience, time, and a prayerful attitude about the person who is receiving the gift. In other words, our gifting becomes an act of worship. Not of the God of money but of our true God that who knows the hearts and minds of all. Our gifts do not have to be calculated exchanges but instead be acts of worship expressed through the love of another. This worshipful giving is so great that the recipient cannot hold it on to the gift, and it moves from person to person and benefits the larger group. Worshipful giving creates obligation because it comes from the heart. It does not have to be a lot of money, but if you give from the heart it will be great and it will cause a chain reaction. Finally, worshipful giving creates relationship. It creates a relationship with God and it creates a relationship with the person you give the gift to. A parent cannot spend 6 hrs shopping and 40 minutes playing and then make up for it with a gift. Give the gift of your time and presence and that gift will be remembered even more.
As we move forward in our service, think about this new understanding of giving. Experience communion as a gift from God that is not based on money but on love. Receive communion as a gift that will require you to give in the future; as a gift that obligates you to love, and as a gift that builds relationships.
Amen.
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