The Sunday before Christmas is my second favorite Sunday of the year. The first is of course Easter Sunday. I always cry on Easter Sunday and I don't feel bad about it. I like that.
But I like today too.
My family used to do Christmas secretly, at least a little bit secret. For a while we didn't have a tree either. We were really good pretenders. Christmas? Oh, we celebrate Jesus' birth. Sure, we exchange gifts, just little things. For us, it's all about Him. And then our faces lit up like the lights we forgot to mention graced the roofing of home. If you'd seen us, my word if you'd seen us back then with our mistletoe and garlands and brown wrapping paper and piles of perfect things hidden throughout the house till the day came, you would have called us deceivers. Lies of omission are lies nonetheless.
I can't remember how old I was when we decided it was safe enough and that it would be okay to have a tree again. I remember what it was like without one. I know what it's like with one. But that first Christmas, that day we brought one home again after years of not, I don't remember that day.
I've spent so many years of my life wrapped up in being outwardly perfect and trying to be so good that I have missed the point of many things and suffered grace to be a figment of some preacher's imagination.
I got dressed this morning, my loose white blouse and a new gold statement necklace that hung heavy about my throat. As I looked in the mirror, I saw how different I was than I had been five years ago on this day, and not just because fashions have changed and my age has added up. I'm different inside, and it is illustrated in my appearance. My mind has been changed about so many things. What is okay and what is not. I have shrugged off so much condemnation, but especially this year. My gaze is broader now too.
Today I just want to tell you, tree or no tree, secret or not, lots of little presents or a small exchange, this is about Jesus. But it's also a holiday for some people. How you celebrate is your choice. Don't belittle other people's traditions. Don't rob them of grace. Don't impose upon them.
And don't steal from yourself.
The crown you think you're making is really awfully heavy by now, and I think it might just be a weight around your neck.
I'm tired of everyone arguing about whether this is okay or if you're going to be less in heaven because of something. If we put half as much effort into discussing solutions for the plight of orphans and the failing state of the Church in America or how we can be more transparent and authentic or the way we do missions and what we could do better as we do into arguing about petty things that probably hold little to no weight once we get to heaven, the world would be a much better, more beautiful place. We would be livelier christians, with vicarious relationships in which we share our ideas and actually do things that matter. Maybe for once we could try a little harder to sit at long tables and talk about what we can do about poverty rather than whether or not you may go to hell because the Christmas tree is a pagan symbol.
I am about to speak something I really believe is the truth here.
While I don't want to belittle the importance of theological and moral discussions that even I admit are sometimes necessary for the Church to have, I need to point out that our priorities are more than a little bit skewed. I oftentimes feel as if I'm part of a revolution that is so wrapped in discussing the politics of how we operate, that we can't even do the things—let alone talk about them—that we were designed with divine intention to do. We are the biggest failures, shrugging off our greater calling to demand graceless living of one another and to harp on the constant mistakes of others so that we can feel better about ourselves.
Look to Jesus friends.
And then please, I beg of you, talk about something that holds gravity. Talk about things that need to change. Share ideas that are absurd and ridiculous and just might work. Become a game-changer, a ground-shifter. Meet with like-minded people and then go do things. Make a difference, with not so like-minded people too. Stop being petty. Accept grace. Live abundantly and love with abandon. Just go do something. Jump in and pray every morning that Christ will give you the patience to endure alongside people who look at the world a different way than you do. Count the cost. And for heavens' sake stop wasting precious hours disputing your own standards and the positions we'll have during eternity if we follow all the "rules."
Christ is not looking for perfection in His creatures here on earth.
He is looking for us to get our hands dirty.
You'll find me in the fields from now on, determined to change things.
Life is too short to do anything else.
It's all about Him. It's time we started living like we actually believe that.
