“We Are A Welcoming Congregation!”
2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri 65804-3980
phone: 417-883-3922 fax: 417-883-7680
e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org
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First Unitarian
Universalist Church “We Are A Welcoming Congregation!” 2434 East Battlefield, Springfield, Missouri 65804-3980 phone: 417-883-3922 fax: 417-883-7680 e-mail: springfield@springfieldunitarians.org |
In the Holy Roman Catholic Church, March 25 is celebrated as the Annunciation. This most Holy of Days marks the occasion when the Archangel Gabriel announces to the Virgin Mary that she is to be visited by the Holy Ghost, whereupon she will conceive the Son of God.
In the venerable Church of England, January 6 is celebrated as Epiphany, or Twelfth Night. It marks the day when the Magi, or the Three Wisemen, arrived at the stable in Bethlehem to bestow their gifts of frankincense, gold and myrrh upon the Christ child laying in the manger.
In the rest of Christendom, July 25 is celebrated as the kickoff to the Christmas shopping season.
Let’s see, that makes it 154 shopping days ‘til Christmas. [Writes figure on white board next to pulpit.]
In last Sunday’s paper I saw in the ad for Martin’s Floral a notice that they were “previewing” their holiday greenery. The week before when I was getting my hair cut, the July issue of some ladies’ magazine was touting the arrival of the 2004 Hallmark collectible Christmas ornaments.
OK. So, what’s my point? It’s a little early to be thinking about Christmas! Yet our whole service so far has been about Christmas. Christmas carols, Christmas poems, Christmas readings, tear-jerker Christmas stories and I can already smell the Christmas cookies back in the kitchen, just waiting for coffee hour. What on earth could those freaks in charge of planning Sunday services have had in mind when they scheduled Christmas in July??
For those of you not in on the joke, I am the head freak in charge of planning the services. And I had something very specific in mind when I planned this service. You see, I wasn’t tipped off that this is the start of the Christmas shopping season by the Martin’s ad or the Hallmark ad. Huh-uh. I knew it was time because I have developed this little tremor in my left hand, and my right hand has begun to cramp and assume the permanent position of readiness to sign a credit card slip.
I have a confession to make. I am a recovering Christmas shop-a-holic.
There. I’ve said it. I feel so free.
Of course, most of you who have read the literature for the 12-step program know that for the true Christmas shop-a-holic, the Christmas shopping season begins on December 26 when the 50%-off day-after-Christmas sales begin at 6 a.m. That’s when you buy gift sets for the teachers your kids will have next year, get next seasons’ “new” decorations and stock up on enough wrapping paper to wrap Trump Tower three times over. But December 26 is just the beginning.
You get serious about making your lists by Easter. They are checked twice by Memorial Day and shopping begins in earnest before the dog days of summer even begin. With any luck, you can have everything bought and wrapped and hidden in the closet before Halloween. Then, by the time Thanksgiving rolls around, you will have the entire holiday season before you in all its glittery glory to sit back and enjoy with your family: drinking hot chocolate by the fire, caroling, reciting “The Night Before Christmas” from memory, baking cookies, helping the poor, ending world hunger and bringing peace to third world nations.
Seriously, that’s the way I used to see it. Back in the days. Back when Martha Stewart was still queen and I was trying to keep up with the Joneses, (Sheila Jones, she was a type-A soccer mom who attended Christ Episcopal Church and belonged to Hickory Hills Country Club.) I was trying to recreate those fabled Christmases of my childhood when the gifts not only flowed from under the tree; they overflowed the living room into the dining room. I was remembering family holiday dinners at my grandmother’s where we ate on the good china with the family silver and were served by uniformed maids.
Never mind that while I was having these delusional visions of sugar plums I was a single mom and those kind of holidays were way out of my league. In my mind I was living the life I thought I was going to have while in my WASPy childhood. I just forgot to factor in the failed first marriage to a morally- and financially-bankrupt drug addict, the miniscule salary I was earning working for a non-profit and the fact that while I was still white and Anglo-Saxon, I was neither Protestant nor Republican anymore.
But I’m feeling much better now. I’ve come to my senses. Some of it had to do with marrying Earl, a man who had no kids and a fresh perspective on the whole idea of Christmas gifts as being something kids “need.” You see, he skipped the whole phase where parents get sucked into the idea that you need a certain toy for your child’s development. I mean if Earl had known that when my son Andy was a baby, his favorite bath toy was a Missouri Tigers plastic beer cup with holes drilled in the bottom instead of the slightly more expensive Discovery Toys “Tuggy the Tugboat Float n’ Dock” I bought him…well, I think we could have skipped forward a few pages in the sermon.
So where are we now and why is it a better place to be? Let me explain it to you using an analogy from another holiday. When my kids were little, I, ahem, I mean the Easter Bunny, used to hide real, hand-colored hard-boiled eggs for Andy and Ellie. That went over like…like a rotten egg. (That’s what happens when all the eggs don’t get found.) When they were a little older, the Easter Bunny used to put chocolate and dollar bills in plastic Easter eggs. Until the Easter we spent with Grandma and Grandpa in Arizona. Where it was 95 degrees. Get the picture? After that, the Easter Bunny just brought stuffed and chocolate bunnies. Until the kids’ beds could hold no more stuffed animals and the freezer could hold no more baggies full of chocolate bunnies with their heads nibbled off.
So for the last two years the Easter Bunny has stuffed the plastic eggs with loose change and slips of paper that say things like: “Let’s go to the Nature Center!” “You get to shoot hoops with Mom” and “Get out of jail free.” They really like that last one. I’m going to have the kids pass out a few slips of my own to give you an idea of what it feels like. [slip says: You get a BIG HUG from someone at church this morning] You can keep them, trade them and use them again and again, as often as you like. These coupons don’t expire, like my kids’ “get out of jail free” card does.
How has this gone over at my house? Let’s say that these slips are hoarded and traded like rare baseball (or Pokémon) cards. My daughter Ellie actually admitted to me that each slip was better than 10 DVDs. She didn’t say whether they were Lindsey Lohan DVDs, but you get the idea.
It turns out that kids don’t so much want the stuff we can give them as they want the time we can give them. They want the us we can give them. And I bet that goes double for adults and quadruple for seniors.
Give them good times. Give them memories. Take your friends out to a nice dinner. Go away for the weekend with that special someone you love. Take in a show with your parents. Rent a boat for an afternoon like the kids have been begging you do to. Make a pact today with the ones you love that you are not going to trade meaningless gifts. You know the ones I’m talking about. The family gift exchanges where everyone trades names on Thanksgiving and you set a $20 limit. Then everyone, except the new, clueless schmuck, trades gift certificates while the schmuck slaves away on a handmade, personalized door wreath where the materials cost more than $20, not to mention the labor…but I’m over that now.
Of course this doesn’t mean you stop having the people you love make Christmas lists. Go ahead, eavesdrop when the kids are on Santa’s lap. If someone drops a hint about what he or she would really like for Christmas, then by all means pick it up. If your child slips an ad for a ‘Red Ryder B-B Gun’ into the pages of your Look Magazine then tell him, “For God’s sake, NO! You’ll shoot your eye out!”
Right now is the time to make a change. By November or December it will be too late. You will have been sucked into the commercial machine. Madison Avenue will have your undivided attention. Glenstone Avenue will have you trapped in its evil clutches. If you are to resist the madness you have to go into it with your eyes wide open. You have to make a pledge that you will never again buy fruitcake for another living soul. You have to solemnly vow to never again buy your child’s teacher fudge or cologne or an apple motif knick-knack. And you have to finally admit that no one over the age of sixty-five will ever have use for a tub o’ dusting powder.
Don’t give gifts because you feel you have to. Give gifts because you feel you want to. Make every gift count. I asked my brother-in-law, a fifth-grade teacher, what his least favorite presents from kids and their parents were: coffee mugs, homemade cookies and candy (teachers don’t like being pudgy, they’re that way because they are just too nice to say no thank you.) His favorite presents are: gift certificates to restaurants, Wal-Mart and IPA Educational Supply. If you can’t think of anything else, give the gift that says, “I am making a donation to “X” charity in your name because you mean so much to me.” That’s the gift that says, as Jocelyn’s story did, “God bless you ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas gift.”
If July 25 is going to be a date you associate with Christmas, make it a date you vow to reassess your giving habits and make giving a mindful action instead of a mindless reaction. Make it the date you do what Ellie recently did (totally unprompted by this sermon or by any hint from her mother). Just last week Ellie put the green ceramic cat bank she bought in Mexico on our kitchen table. Next to it she posted a sign reading: “Charity Donation. The lowest donation is 25¢. Remember, this is for charity, so put in a high donation. You have to put in a donation every time you come to the table. Thank you.” This is her “box” for the “Guest at Your Table” fundraiser that the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee does each Christmas. That’s the gift that says, as the carol “Good King Wenceslas” did, “Ye, who now will bless the poor, shall yourselves find blessing.”
God bless us, everyone.
Merry Christmas, 154 days early.
©2004 Nancy McShane
OPENING WORDS
“One Small Face” by Margaret Starkey
With mounds of greenery, the brightest ornaments, we bring high summer to our rooms, as if to spite the somberness of winter come.
In time of want, when life is boarding up against the next uncertain spring, we celebrate and give of what we have away.
All creatures bend to rules, even the stars constrained.
There is a blessed madness in the human need to go against the grain of cold and scarcity.
We make a holiday, the rituals varied as the hopes of humanity,
The reasons as obscure as ancient solar festivals, as clear as joy on one small face.
CHALICE LIGHTING
“Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and to give back.” – Dag Hammarskjöld
OFFERTORY
Our gifts are freely given, and gratefully received, to further the work of this church. The offering will now be taken.
MEDITATION, REFLECTION or PRAYER
“The Work of Christmas” by Howard Thurman
When the song of angels is
stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.
We will now take a moment for silent meditation, reflection, or prayer.
CLOSING WORDS
It is both blessed to give and to receive.
READING
“A Gift” by Nancy L. Dahlberg
It was Sunday. Christmas. Our family had spent the holidays in San Francisco with my husband’s parents. But in order for us to be back at work on Monday, we found ourselves driving the 400 miles home to Los Angeles on Christmas Day.
It is normally an 8-hour drive, but with kids it can be a 14-hour endurance test. When we could stand it no longer, we stopped for lunch in King City. This little metropolis is made up of six gas stations and three sleazy diners, and it was into one of these diners that the four of us trooped--road weary and saddle sore.
As I sat Erik, our 1-year-old, in a high chair, I looked around the room and wondered, “What am I doing in this place?”
The restaurant was nearly empty. We were the only family and ours were the only children. Everyone else was busy eating, talking quietly, aware perhaps that we were all somehow out of place on this special day, when even the cynical pause to reflect on peace and brotherhood.
My reverie was interrupted when I heard Erik squeal with glee, “Hithere.” (Two words he thought were one.) “Hithere’ he pounded his fat baby hands—whack, whack—on the metal high chair tray. His face was alive with excitement, eyes wide, gums bared in a toothless grin. He wriggled, and chirped, and giggled, and then I saw the source of the merriment...and my eyes could not take it all in at once.
A tattered rag of a coat—obviously bought by someone else eons ago—dirty, greasy, and worn...baggy pants—both they and the zipper at half-mast over a spindly body—toes that poked out of would-be shoes...a shirt that had ring-around-the-collar all over and a face like none other...gums as bare as Erik’s...hair uncombed, unwashed, and unbearable...whiskers too short to be called a beard, but way, way beyond a shadow, and a nose so varicose that it looked like the map of New York.
I was too far away to smell him—but I knew he smelled—and his hands were waving in the air, flapping about on loose wrists.
“Hi there baby; hi there, big boy. I see ya, buster.”
My husband and I exchanged a look that was a cross between “What do we do?” and “Poor devil.”
Erik continued to laugh and answer, “Hi, Hithere.” Every call was echoed.
I noticed waitresses eyebrows shoot to their foreheads, and several people sitting near us “ahemed” out loud.
This old geezer was creating a nuisance with my beautiful baby.
I shoved a cracker at Erik, and he pulverized it on the tray. I whispered “Why me?” under my breath.
Our meal came, and the cacophony continued. Now the old bum was shouting from across the room: “Do ya know patty cake?...Atta boy... Do ya know peek-a-boo?...Hey, look, he knows peek-a-boo!”
Nobody thought it was cute. The guy was a drunk and a disturbance, I was embarrassed. My husband, Dennis, was humiliated. Even our six-year-old said, “Why is that old man talking so loud?”
We ate in silence—all except Erik, who was running through his repertoire for the admiring applause of a skid-row bum.
Finally, I had enough. I turned the high chair. Erik screamed and clamored around to face his old buddy. Now I was mad.
Dennis went to pay the check, imploring me to “get Erik and meet me in the parking lot.”
I trundled Erik out of the high chair and looked toward the exit. The old man sat poised and waiting, his chair directly between me and the door.
“Lord, just let me out of here before he speaks to me or Erik.” I bolted for the door.
I soon became obvious that both the Lord and Erik had other plans.
As I drew closer to the man, I turned my back, walking to sidestep him—and any air he might be breathing. As I did so, Erik, all the while with his eyes riveted to his best friend, leaned far over my arm, reaching with both arms in a baby’s “pick me up” position.
In a split second of balancing my baby and turning to counter his weight I came eye-to-eye with the old man. Erik was lunging for him, arms spread wide.
The bum’s eyes both asked and implored, “Would you let me hold your baby?”
There was no need for me to answer since Erik propelled himself from my arms to the man’s.
Suddenly a very old man and a very young baby consummated their love relationship. Erik laid his tiny head upon the man’s ragged shoulder. The man’s eyes closed, and I saw tears hover beneath his lashes. His aged hands full of grime, and pain, and hard labor—gently, so gently, cradled my baby’s bottom and stroked his back.
I stood awestruck. The old man rocked and cradled Erik in his arms for a moment, and then his eyes opened and set squarely on mine. He said in a firm and commanding voice, “You take care of this baby.”
Somehow I managed, “I will”, from a throat that contained a stone.
He pried Erik from his chest—unwillingly, longingly—as though he was in pain.
“God bless you ma’am. You’ve given me my Christmas gift.”
I said nothing more than a muttered thanks.
With Erik back in my arms, I ran for the car. Dennis wondered why I was crying and holding Erik so tightly and why I was saying, “My God, oh God, forgive me.”
READING
“If What You’re Waiting For Is
Christmas,” by David Devine, from The Light of the Morning: Light Rhymes for
Hard Times.
If what you’re waiting for is Christmas
You don’t need me to tell you so
If you’ve been looking for somebody
You might not have that far to go
See how the candle dances
With all the shadows on the wall
If what you’re waiting for is Christmas
It might be coming after all
Sometimes I feel so tired
Sometimes I feel so blue
I’m just going thru the motions
Of almost anything I do
But guess I’m getting better
Even I’m a bit surprised
When I see my own reflection
In a dark haired angel’s eyes
Maybe all that really matters
Try to feel the mystery
Found in people left abandoned
Burning, blooming poetry
If for miracles you hunger
You might see a few come true
If what you’re waiting for is Christmas
It might be waiting there for you.
Last update:
05 May 2005
© First Unitarian Universalist Church of Springfield, MO
www.springfieldunitarians.org/sermons/simplegift.htm
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