Dr. Dale Miller, December 10, 2006

The Ghost of Christmas Present

Second in a four-part series "The Spirits of Christmas"

Luke 3:1-6

Before my arrival last July, I spent six years of my life doing a considerable amount of commuting, some 25,000 miles of travel per year. It was always with a deep sense of relaxation that late at night I would drive down the last street that would lead me home. When I entered through the door of the house I would place all of the meetings and the problems of the day on the doorstep. It felt good to be spent in ministry, but it also felt good to find a place where I could recharge my batteries.

All of that changed one evening after Halloween. I had entered our subdivision and was driving down Brunswick Street when I spotted something new on the lawn of the house caddy-corner from our home. The family had put up a plastic manger scene with a single light bulb that shined on top of the baby Jesus. What caught my eye, however, was the additional figure added to the one side of the nativity that included the three wise men. It was Santa Claus, standing about a foot taller than the rest of the figures. He caught my eye because he also contained a light bulb inside his fat little belly that made him shine even brighter than the Christ child!

My wife, Susan, could tell you that I hit the door, sputtering out the words, "You can't believe what the neighbors just put on their lawn! They've got Santa and Jesus in a shining contest! I can't believe it! At least they could have placed Santa a few feet away. But they have him smack dab in the nativity scene!

Every night after that I could no longer look forward to driving down that last street to my house. I knew I was going to have to look at that Santa. I even tried driving down the street by looking the other way! After driving up on the curb I decided I couldn't do that again. So, every night Santa shined his unwanted attention in my direction. How dare he intrude upon the holy family!

Night after night, week after week, I struggled with the drive home and the nativity scene that was going to ambush me less than 100 feet from my door. I finally got mad at myself for over-reacting to this Santa Claus infested crèche. Then I started thinking and praying and theologizing. Christmas is nice when we encounter what we expect. Christmas isn't so nice when we encounter what we don't expect, or what we don't want.

Doesn't God operate in both the expected and the unexpected? It may seem odd, but when that family finally took the nativity set down after Christmas I kind of missed it. Santa had come to symbolize the worldly interruption of my neatly packaged faith world. What I came to realize is: it is in the worldly interruptions where my faith is fully engaged.

Our Scripture for this morning from the Gospel of Luke tells us about John the Baptizer. I usually never refer to John as the Baptist, because I think United Methodists should be able to claim him as well. People came to John the Baptizer with an expectation that he was going to be the Messiah. They didn't get what they expected. Instead, he offered them baptism, a spiritual cleansing, in preparation for the real Messiah. John proclaimed a need for a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. People were looking for deliverance and they received a challenge to look deep within themselves. They were looking for the holy family and instead they got a Santa Claus intrusion.

Last week we started exploring A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens. We talked about the Ghost of Marley and the Ghost of Christmas Past that took Ebenezer Scrooge on a journey through his past. Scrooge was sobered by the journey through his past and was more receptive when the next ghost arrived. "I am the Ghost of Christmas Present." Scrooge responded, "Spirit, conduct me where you will. Last night I was compelled to go, but I learned a lesson, which is working now. Tonight, if you have a lesson to teach me, let me profit by it."

The spirit tells Scrooge to grab hold of his robe and they go on a journey. They go out into the world and the ghost shows Scrooge what will happen that Christmas. The ghost takes Scrooge on a journey to hundreds of different places where he is able to see people celebrating Christmas. He learns the most at the family home of his poor clerk, Bob Cratchit. Scrooge and the Ghost of Christmas Present are invisible and they stand in the corner of the home and watch as the Christmas morning unfolds.

Bob Cratchit comes in with his family and there is such joy there even though they live in poverty. Their son, Tiny Tim, has a disease that needs medical attention but they can't afford it. There is almost no money to take care of the basic needs of life. In their threadbare clothing they make Christmas morning look festive. There is a wonderful scene that centers on the Christmas dinner. Mrs. Cratchit has fixed a very small goose and tries to make the meal as plentiful as possible with the addition of applesauce and mashed potatoes. Although meager, it is a sufficient dinner for the whole family.

After the last morsel of the main course had been consumed, Mrs. Cratchit left the room to retrieve the Christmas pudding. Her family exclaimed with great enthusiasm over the sounds and smells emanating from the kitchen as Mrs. Cratchit plated the pudding and prepared to bring it to the table.

In half a minute Mrs. Cratchit entered - flushed, but smiling proudly - with the pudding, like a speckled cannon-ball, so hard and firm, blazing in half of half-a-quartern of ignited brandy, with Christmas holly stuck into the top. "Oh, a wonderful pudding!" Bob Cratchit said, and calmly too, that he regarded it as the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Everybody had something to say about it, but nobody said or thought it was at all a small pudding for a large family. It would have been flat heresy to do so. Any Cratchit would have blushed to hint at such a thing.

In a grandiose gesture Bob Cratchit declares that the pudding is the greatest success achieved by Mrs. Cratchit since their marriage. Dickens compares the pudding to a cannon ball, and not so subtly suggests that its appropriate fate is to be doused with a flammable liquid and set upon fire. I think Bob Cratchit was exactly right about the pudding, or at least Mrs. Cratchit's ritual of preparing and presenting it. The ceremony of their Christmas celebration was far more important than the actual food they ate. Eating together helps establish a community of relationships and acceptance within which we understand who we are and where we belong.

There are lessons for learning for Scrooge and for us. First, happiness cannot be bought. Happiness begins in the heart and is found in relationship with other people and in relationship with God. Scrooge was wealthy but there was no happiness in his life. Bob Cratchit was poor, but his life was filled with joy. His joy came from his relationships with others and understanding the meaning of Christmas. Even in the face of abject poverty, there is hope in Jesus Christ. God has sent Emmanuel to be with us in the face of those circumstances. We have happiness and joy, not because of what is under the tree, but because of what is in our hearts.

Second, the value of a person is based on simply being a child of God. At work, Scrooge would look at Bob Cratchit and see him as a nearly worthless person. Scrooge looked at people and evaluated them on the basis of their productivity. People tend to do that. We size up people in about sixty seconds and decide where they fall in our hierarchy of value. When we meet someone new most of the time we ask, "What do you do?" We often think that if we know what a person does we will somehow gain insight into that person's life.

That is what we do, that is what Scrooge did, but as he stood in the home of Bob Cratchit he no longer saw a worthless man. As Scrooge watched this father hold his son's hand, as he looked at the love that was shared in that family, he realized that Bob Cratchit had more wealth than he could possibly imagine.

Playwright Henry Miller once wrote, "One's destination is never a place, but rather a new way of looking at things." Scrooge found a new way of looking at people. What if we prayed, "God, help me to see people the way you see them. Help me to love people the way you love them." Perhaps such a prayer would lead us to a new way of looking at people.

Third, poverty cannot be ignored. Toward the end of his visit with the Ghost of Christmas Present, Scrooge sees that spirit age right before his eyes. Scrooge says, "Ghost, will you go so soon? Is this the end?" The Ghost says, "Yes, my life is very short-lived here with you. But there is one last thing I must show you." And he opens up his robe and there at the feet of the Ghost are two small children. The children are so thin and gaunt, their eyes are hollow, and their skin is gray. Scrooge is shocked as he looks at the children. He is now face to face with poverty. He asks, "Spirit are these your children?" The Spirit says, "No, they are humanity's children. This boy is Ignorance and this girl is Want. Beware them both, and all of their degree, but most of all beware this boy, for on his brow I see that written which is Doom, unless the writing be erased." In the days of Charles Dickens child labor was an enormous problem. Laws were passed to curb the abuse of children, but they didn't help much. One law stated: an 11 year old child could not work more than 72 hours per week and a child who was 9 years old could not work more than 48 hours a week in the mines and textile mills. Only twenty percent of the children went to school. Eighty percent could not read or write. Dickens was saying, "You ignore these children to your own peril because on their foreheads is written 'Doom.'"

Somehow the meaning of Christmas has something to do with children and the poor. "Doom" is written across the foreheads of those who live in poverty. Poverty is the breeding ground for hatred and violence. If we brush the poor of the world aside and say, "Not my problem" we will not like the consequences. If we look at people in poverty and say to ourselves, "They are not worthy," then we find ourselves in the role of Ebenezer Scrooge.

John the Baptizer was the one sent to prepare the way for the coming of Christ. In the Gospel of Luke, John is quite specific about what kinds of changes in our lives are appropriate for the coming of the Messiah. To the gathered crowds who asked him what they should do, he said that they should share their coats and food with those who had none. To the business people in the crowd, he said that they should charge only fair prices. To the soldiers in the crowd, he said not to abuse their power.

When we celebrate Christmas with our eyes and hearts open to the world (Yes, even plastic Santa Clauses with a lighted belly!) we will celebrate generously. Our spirits become generous to people all around us because we see them as Christ sees them. We look at what is happening in the world around us and we are willing to get involved and to make a difference, one person at a time if need be.

If we want to be authentic Christians and to follow the Jesus we meet in the scriptures, somewhere along the way we have to be with people. Jesus deeply cares about people - people who have something less, people who often feel less. God seeks to find our hearts filled with compassion and empathy. God seeks to give us the fullness of the present, the fullness of our faith, and the fullness of our lives.

Hear these words from the 5th chapter of 2 Corinthians. Paul writes: "You won't see us drooping our heads or dragging our feet! Do you suppose a few ruts in the road or rocks in the path are going to stop us?...Cheerfully pleasing God is the main thing, and that's what we aim to do, regardless of our conditions...Christ's love has moved me to such extremes. His love has the first and last word in everything we do. We don't evaluate people by what they have or how they look. We looked at the Messiah that way once and got it all wrong, as you know. We certainly don't look at him that way anymore. Now we look inside, and what we see is that anyone united with the Messiah gets a fresh start, is created new. The old life is gone; a new life burgeons! We're Christ's representatives. God uses us to persuade men and woman to drop their differences and enter into God's work of making things right between them...Become friends with God; God's already a friend with you." (The Message, Eugene Peterson)

What better message to proclaim this Christmas season than the love that God has for every person, the gift that God is willing to give us in Jesus Christ. We should behold it each and every day never allowing the gift to lose its place in our hearts. There is nothing like Christmas Present! In the spirit of the present let us close with the Prayer of Saint Francis of Assisi: Lord, make me an instrument of thy peace; where there is hatred, let me sow love; where there is injury, pardon; where there is doubt, faith; where there is despair, hope; where there is darkness, light; and where there is sadness, joy. O Divine Master; grant that I may not so much seek to be consoled as to console; to be understood as to understand; to be loved, as to love; for it is in giving that we receive, it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life. We pray this in the name of Christ. Amen.