"What to Buy for Christmas"
It's not so much about what you give, it's about how you give it.
Sermon Preached by
The Rev. Dr. Andrew Stirling
Sunday, November 24, 2002
Text: Matthew 2:1-12
Very recently I began my Christmas shopping. I went into a large department store and purchased a gift for someone who is dear to my heart. After I had paid the bill, the clerk turned around and said to me: "And what are you getting for Christmas?"
Well, feeling like a little child on Santa's knee for a moment, I gave this blank, almost Basil Fawlty-like stare of incredulity and wanted to say: "How the heck should I know what I'm getting for Christmas?" Who of us really knows what we're getting for Christmas? No, I didn't have an answer - but it was very nice of her to think of me at that moment.
One of the things, though, that we can think about ahead of time is not what we get for Christmas, but what we give for Christmas. I don't know about you, but as I was pondering my Christmas gifts it seemed to me the older I get the more difficult it is to find gifts for people, to find something new and refreshing after years and years of giving different gifts. After a while you start to run out of ideas. I have no idea now what I can buy for the people who are dear to my heart.
A relative of mine (not my wife I might add, but a relative of hers,) has a list on which she records all the gifts she has given to every family member for the last 25 years. Now, I think that's a little obsessive and I hope she's listening this morning - that is going way over the top. But it does help, because I haven't got the foggiest idea what I gave people I love last year, let alone what I am going to give them this year. It gets harder and harder to know what to give.
As I was leaving the department store with gift in hand I met, in the revolving door, a vagrant, a man whom I recognized and had seen begging on the streets for some time. Seeing him put a whole new perspective on this idea of giving and receiving gifts at Christmas. I couldn't help but think: "I wonder what he is getting for Christmas?"
I thought long and hard about how important it is to decide what you are going to give at Christmas and to whom and how, because it says so much about who we are and what our values are and what we believe.
This was exacerbated when I came home that day and switched on my computer and opened my e-mail. I found the first of what turned out to be five identical messages from members of this congregation. Me-thinks God is sending me a message with all of this. It goes as follows: "Andrew, the thought du jour: What would have happened if three wise women had come and presented gifts to Jesus? They would have: a) asked directions; b) arrived on time; c) helped deliver the baby; d) cleaned the stable; e) made a casserole; f) brought practical gifts; g) there would be peace on earth and, nota bene, the gifts would have come with a receipt so you could take them back." All five e-mails came from women. I've got the message: "Women are better than men." I've got it, right? No need to send me this again.
But it got me thinking that there is a relationship between the way in which we give our gifts and the arrival of the Magi, the arrival of the three, supposed wise men at the stable of Bethlehem. Rather than do what we often do and look at it chronologically after the birth of Jesus, I see no reason why we can't look at this story before our Christmas celebrations and the beginning of Advent. After all, 2,000 years of history have passed since that day and there is nothing to be lost by looking at the arrival of the Magi before we celebrate the birth; to look at the arrival of the Magi before we celebrate Christmas and, most especially, before we buy our gifts.
One of the leading members of our congregation, came up to me when he saw this title in the Order of Service last week, and he said facetiously: "Okay then, Andrew, what are you buying me for Christmas, this year?"
Well, we do not always think selfishly about such things. We should think about what it matters in terms of our giving. Our giving is not only very specifically related to God and to the Church, it is also a matter of our whole being. It is a matter of our whole faith. Now, I know that there is some cynicism and very often what happens is that God gets what I call the leftovers.
I read a lovely story of something that happened in 1995 on Paul Harvey News. Someone telephoned in to give an account of what she had experienced working for the Butterball Turkey Company. The Butterball Turkey Company had a phone number where you could call in for advice on how to cook your turkey. She told the story of this woman who phoned up and said: "Hello, Butterball Expert? I'm wondering if you can help me. I have had a turkey in my freezer for 23 years. Do you think it will be harmful to eat?"
The clerk thought about this and said: "Well, no, as long as you have kept your freezer below 0° over the 23 years. But then," she added, "it might not taste very good when you cook it."
The woman said: "Well, in that case it doesn't matter - I'll give it to the church."
Sometimes when we think of gifts, and we think of gift-giving we do put first things last. Well, this morning, I want to look at the arrival of the Magi because the arrival of the Magi in this wonderful story in Matthew's Gospel tells us a couple of things about giving as we prepare for Christmas.
The first of these is that we give to the source of giving; that we give first to the source of giving. We live in a very self-centred age. We live in an age that to a large extent promotes the cause of the self first. It's almost described as the highest moral good, the greatest good, to think of your own needs first and the needs of others after. The story of the arrival of the Magi shows us a whole new and different way of dealing with that self-centredness. For the most important aspect of the story is what the Magi did before they went and gave their gifts. We read in Matthew's Gospel that before they ever presented their gifts, they went to Jesus and they worshipped him; they got on their knees first. Before they ever gave anything, they gave themselves, because they recognized that in that manger was the Lord of Life, the King of Kings, and the Lord of Lords.
It is no coincidence that Matthew quotes the Old Testament to back up this story of the arrival of the Magi. He does so by quoting first from Isaiah 60:6, where there is a vision that all the Gentile nations will come to Israel; that they will arrive in Jerusalem from all the corners of the earth and worship God:
A multitude of camels will cover you,
the young camels of Midian and Ephah.
All those from Sheba will come
and they will bring gold and frankincense
And will bear the good news of the praises of God.
There is a similar reference in 72:10 where the psalmist again has a vision of the Righteous King, of the Messiah, being praised and worshipped by others:
Let the Kings of Tarshish and of the islands bring presents.
The Kings of Sheba and Seba offer gifts.
And let all the kings bow down before him and all the nations serve him.
You see, Matthew understood that the arrival of the Magi was the arrival of people who put first things first. Before they ever gave a gift, they got on their knees, and if there is one thing that the Church of Jesus Christ offers the world, it is the opportunity to bow down and to worship and to praise God. Oh, we can support all manner of good and wonderful things, but the first thing is to do what the Magi did: They worshipped.
C.S. Lewis has the most magnificent phrase: "I believe in Christianity as I believe that the sun has risen, not only because I see it, but because I see everything by it." First things first. Then, you look at the rest of the world. You look at the needs of the world. You look at the pain and the hunger of the world, but you do it from the first state, from worship.
John Calvin, in his commentary on Matthew's Gospel, makes it abundantly clear: "First," he says, "consecrate yourself and then everything else that you have to the Glory of God."
First consecrate yourself. This Christmas, the most important thing that you need to give is yourself in worship to God. But there is more.
I heard Jesse Jackson speak some years ago. (I am not always the greatest fan of Jesse Jackson but I admire him in some ways.) He was talking about fund-raising for an organization that he supported and he said in his opening line: "Bring your cheques; bring your credit cards; bring the straps of your Gucci bags; bring whatever you have; but most of all, give as you live." Give as you live. This is the second thing that we learn from the arrival of the Magi.
You see, over the years there has been much speculation about the gifts that the Magi brought. We assume there were three Magi because there were three gifts, but that is the only hint we have. There have been stories written about the different gifts and what they mean: the gold celebrating the Kingdom of God, the frankincense celebrating the priesthood of Jesus and the myrrh celebrating the burial and the death of Jesus; all of which is excellent material to preach on. The only problem is there is nothing in the Bible to substantiate any of those points whatsoever. They simply brought gold, and frankincense and myrrh. No symbols. But what they did bring was what they had, from where they lived. That was the important thing: that they came from Arabia, from Persia, from Babylonia, from Sheba; that they came from the East; that they came from the Gentile world; that they brought valuable things from their countries and they brought them to Jesus Christ and laid them before the Messiah of the Jews. And so the important thing wasn't so much what they brought, as where they brought them from - who they were. They brought what they had to offer.
Now unfortunately around Christmas there are a lot of people who are cynical about the season and cynical about the fact that the gift-giving and the good will and the emotional high seem so temporary, and that temporary high is the most important thing about Christmas.
The satirist, Tom Lehrer once wrote these words (and I copied them down years ago because I thought this is the ultimate cynicism of the world):
Even though the prospect sickens,
Brother here we go again.
On Christmas Day you can't get sore;
Your fellow man you must adore.
There's time to cheat him all the more
The other three hundred and sixty-four.
Possibly true. If the giving at Christmas is only an emotion that we build up for a moment, it will sustain us for only a short period of time. The Magi remind us, when you come to the manger, you come to the Lord of Life and therefore you give as you live - It doesn't matter what the gift is. It doesn't have to be some grand gesture.
After all, ask any young family (and we had a lot of them here at 9:30 this morning). Ask the parents what gift they remember most and cherish most from their child: Often the one that was prepared by their own small hands rather than the one that was just bought. It is the thought; it is the emotion; it is the commitment: These are the things that matter, not the size or the cost. That is why that man in the revolving door probably wants more than anything else at Christmas not just a meal, but a meal prepared in love: That would be more than all the great and glitzy things we could ever buy him.
When we think of the state of the world and the needs that so many people have, it seems to me that we have a profound calling to give as we live and to think not only of ourselves but also of others.
Recently, a friend of mine who is with African Enterprise and who has been living in Mozambique for 15 years wrote a letter about the drought in that country and about how, with global warming, the devastating effects of years and years and years of sustained and continuous rising temperatures has meant the people are starving and they cannot grow the crops they grew 20 years ago. He said: "You know, something has to be done about this. We are living in a world that is burning up."
Just recently I read an article about global warming in a Harvard magazine by a very famous scientist called Jonathan Shaw. He said that while the average temperature increase might not be that great, in parts of the world it is far higher than the average and there are devastating consequences, consequences that will be hard to reverse 10, 20, 30, even 50 years down the road, and we are sitting in blissful ignorance. Now, I don't know the science behind this. I am not a scientist, God forbid. Don't ever ask me to calculate a simple logarithm or fraction. But it seems to me that anecdotally and evidentially, this world is heating up and we've got a problem on our hands.
I don't know if the Kyoto accord is the solution. Some say it is; some say it isn't. Some say, "meet these targets and the world will be better off;" others say "we should have me these targets back to 1990 and it's irrelevant now because the real growth over the next few years will be in places like China and India, and their growth is going to continue regardless of Kyoto." You create an imbalance within the world. Who knows? I don't know. But this I do know: This is God's world; we have to think about giving to our next generation and the generations thereafter. We have to give prayerful thought, and we might even have to sacrifice. God forbid, what a foreign concept to our society. We might actually have to sacrifice a little for the sake of those who aren't even in the womb yet.
If we are going to think about what we give to this world, why not think about what the United Church of Canada has just done: Agree to raise a million dollars for our partners in AIDS care in Africa, because people are dying and when they are asked what they want for Christmas, they say, "I want some hope; I want to live for another year; I want my children to live. Never mind all the gifts that you might give me. I want hope and that is the greatest gift that I can be given."
There are people all over the world who live like that. If we are going to present our gifts to the manger, if we are going to present what we have, then we have to think of giving as we live and for the rest of our days.
One of the most moving of all movies I have seen was Schindler's List. For those of you who don't know the story, it's of Oskar Schindler, a German industrialist during the Second World War who saw the destruction of Jews in Auschwitz. He started the war as a wealthy man and ended it as a poor man, because throughout the war he bought Jews to work in his factory and saved them from the gas chambers. Then he undermined the military effort of building armaments in that factory. To him many, many Jews owe their lives.
But there's a very touching moment at the end of the movie. The Nazi régime has finally capitulated and it is midnight. All those that were working for him can now go free. He takes to one side the manager, a Jew, who has helped him finance all this and arrange for the purchase and the salvation of these Jews and, with tears in his eyes Oskar Schindler looks at him and says: "If only I could have done more."
He looks at his car and says: "If I had sold that I could have saved 10 more Jews" and he picks up another item says: "If only I had sold this I could have saved more Jews." On and on he went as tears streamed down his face: "If only I could have done more." This man who had given nearly everything still wanted to give more. He wanted to give as he lived, so others might live.
This Christmas, I want you to think long and hard. I want you to think about first things: that the first gift that you give is yourself and you do so in worship and in awe before the manger; that when you have given yourself, then you give as you live. Whatever it is, give that it might bring life. Give that it might sustain. Give that it might encourage others to give themselves, because whatever gift you give, remember this: You give it at the manger and before the One in the manger, your gift receives its value. Amen.
This is a verbatim transcription of the original sermon.