Café - Hot Topic-have yourself a messy little Christmas by Tana Kjos

Have yourself a messy little Christmas
by Catherine Malotky

It’s that time of year again. You probably noticed that a good while ago. Maybe the first shelves of holiday merchandise started showing up right after the back-to-school sales. It was subtle at first, along the back wall maybe. But after Halloween, things really started picking up. Now, of course, it’s in full swing. Nodding wire reindeer, laughing stuffed snowmen, plastic trees with the lights already entwined, not to mention ornaments, cards, wrapping paper, bows. It’s all there. Everything you could possibly need! And more!

Tickets for the beloved holiday concerts and theater offerings have been on sale for at least as long. Your community’s traditional activities are advertised in the newspaper, if you happen to see one. Store windows are all gussied up and folks have their homes decorated for the season inside and out. And the stores are running sale after sale, offering unlimited gift possibilities for all the people on your list.

But many of us won’t have the money to participate in the consumer frenzy that comes around this time each year. Maybe you have college loan payments or your rent is due or your car is falling apart, along with those unending credit card bills.

And consider the environment. Where does all that stuff end up — the decorations and cards and unwanted gifts and leftover food? Eventually much of it ends up in dumpsters and then in landfills. Who wants to contribute to that waste?

It makes us ask ourselves: What’s this season about anyway? Buying lots of stuff? Hardly. What’s the center?

’Tis the season
In a diverse world, the consumer culture does provide something for all of us to get into. But it’s pretty shallow. Ask any barista about how tense and crabby people get during the holiday shopping season. We all want it to be special, and we don’t want the troubles that simmer during the rest of the year to mess things up. Doing the holidays up right becomes such a goal that the whole point gets missed.

But we all know that if you have family problems, or if you aren’t making any money, or if you just broke up with your true love, or if you are worried about keeping your new job in this economy, that stuff isn’t going to go away just because it’s the holidays.

And if you have friends who are Jewish or Muslim or Buddhist or nothing, how do you honor their beliefs and still do Christmas? It’s going to take some conversation to try to keep things healthy and respectful. And that might be awkward. Certainly not the wistful, starry, fluffy-snow-falling ideal we’d all like to cling to.

Maybe it’s good that you can’t give gifts to every person in your life this year. Maybe spending time together, doing things that are meaningful and contribute to the relationship are just as good as — or even better
than — haunting the malls during Advent. Think about it. Getting together to make a good meal (doesn’t have to be fancy), maybe splurge on a nice bottle of wine or a great dessert, and then spend the evening being grateful for the year and each other. An evening spent telling stories or sharing memories could be a really wonderful gift.

You can decorate your place without spending a fortune. There is the old popcorn-and-cranberry-on-string thing. And paper cut-out snowflakes. What if you did some crafts with each other? Or baked cookies together? Or learned how to do a cool ethnic tradition, like making lefse? Listen to your favorite Christmas music while you are doing it.

Away in a manger
Maybe not having much money is exactly the ticket for getting more connected to the Christian Christmas, as opposed to the commercial version that swirls so persistently around us. We have this great tradition, this great story that links up with who we understand ourselves to be and who we understand God to be. God chooses to enter time and space with us so that we might know how much we are loved. God — as an infant? Born of poor folks? That’s a stunning thing for a god to do.

Those of us who believe this story tell it again to each other at this time of year. That brings us together in this time and place. But then think about all the generations of people who have gathered around this story, all the way back to Mary and Joseph and those animals. This story connects us to our past as well.

Our Christian forebears made their way to church to celebrate this story with each other. If the weather was bad and the horses couldn’t be out, they celebrated with their neighbors or even just with each other. Before December 25 was the day, before Northern European culture gave us Christmas trees and candles and yule logs, the story was still there, even without snow or pine trees. The story still brought people together.

There is something powerful about that. There’s something about that connection to our past that invites us to slow down, to be thoughtful, and to really remember. That can be hard when the world is as bright and demanding as it is at this time of year.

Joy to the world
We can choose to gather in a different way, and calibrate our energy for the manger, in a stable. What you do can be simple, mostly unadorned, and maybe even kind of messy around the edges. That’s certainly how it was that first Christmas. Nothing spiffy about a stable. And giving birth is not for the faint of heart.

What are the gifts we want to give this year? How will our relationships receive the blessing of that manger — a baby, God with us? How will our world? And how will you help to make that blessing happen, for others, for the world, and for yourself?

Here’s the good news. It’s about Emmanuel. No matter what ends up happening, the baby came and still comes. You are freed from having to be perfect (or even close). You are freed to do your best, to love those you love, and to remember that God will always be there for you. That’s the bottom line.

Come, Lord Jesus.

The Rev. Catherine Malotky serves the ELCA Board of Pensions as retirement planning manager. She has also been an editor, teacher, parish pastor, and retreat leader. She writes this “with thanks to Cara and Abbie, who contributed their wisdom to this piece. They are the two 20-somethings I love the most.”

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Faith reflections
by Joy L. McDonald Coltvet

Week one
Giver of gifts. Giver of plants and seeds. Food as God’s gift.

God said, “See, I have given you every plant yielding seed that is upon the face of all the earth, and every tree with seed in its fruit; you shall have them for food.” Genesis 1:29

I heard a story this week of a workplace conversation about office treats for the holidays. “Should we have only healthy treats this December?” one well-meaning employee asked her colleagues. “Definitely not” was the clear response — and one person even emphasized her vote with a big
bag of chocolates placed on the desk of the staff wellness leader. We don’t want to — and no one can make us — give up our sweets this Advent!

But there is something to sharing the gift of real food — to remem-bering the giver of the seeds, of the land, of the grower, of the fruit. There is something about eating food that leaves you feeling gifted and grateful. When I peel back the skin of a pomegranate and see those bright red, juicy seeds, I not only think about how delicious they will be in my mouth but of the whole life of that plant. Back through its history, forward into the future, I am grateful for the gift of this beautiful food. When I bake a pumpkin pie from scratch (which I recently learned how to do) I save and roast the abundance of seeds. It helps me to focus on the future: a garden in my urban backyard full of twisting vines and leaves and a pumpkin. All, gifts from God.

Week two
Restorer of life. Nourisher of love. Created families as God’s gift.

Then the women said to Naomi, “Blessed be the LORD, who has not left you this day without next-of-kin; and may his name be renowned in Israel! He shall be to you a restorer of life and a nourisher of your old age; for your daughter-in-law who loves you, who is more to you than seven sons, has borne him.”
Ruth 4:14

Perhaps the most difficult thing about this season is expectations. On one hand, Advent is all about expecting — waiting for the One who is coming, the reign of God bursting in among us. But there are also all those other expectations created by a culture that tells us not only what things we should want but what they mean. If he really loves you, he will get you this jewelry. If she really loves you, she will cook you this fabulous dinner. If they really love you, they will come home for Christmas. And so we have a picture of the family we are supposed to be, the children we are supposed to have, the happy holiday we are supposed to have, with all our griefs brushed away.

Enter Naomi — who lost everyone and everything in such a dramatic way that she renamed herself, “Bitter.” She lost her husband, her sons, her hopes for the future —everything except her daughter-in-law, Ruth. Ruth was a foreigner but had an unwavering love and loyalty that crossed all the usual boundaries and borders. In time, she proved
to be a daughter-in-law who
restored her mother-in-law’s hope, her future — really, her whole life. Because of Ruth’s choice to be family across lines of race, faith, even common sense, both women experienced firsthand God’s promise and presence.

Week 3
A home. A way to live. Justice as God’s gift.

God gives the desolate a home to live in; God leads out the prisoners to prosperity, but the rebellious live in a parched land. Psalm 68:6

In my first trip to El Salvador, I remember looking at the homes that the church was helping the community build and initially feeling sick. We were calling these “homes”? I thought I knew what it meant to be poor in the world, but I didn’t know. I was pretty sure going into the experience that I wasn’t rich, but then I thought about how the place I live would look to these people who were so much closer to desolate. And I had to redefine all my ideas about wealth and poverty, prisoners and prosperity, and what makes a home.

This psalm also reminds me how our prisons are filled with those who are poor: those who were too poor to hire a good lawyer, those who because of systemic racism did not have a fair trial, those who were too poor to have other educational or employment options. Is it the psalmist’s vision that God “leads out the prisoners to prosperity,” because that’s the only way to build a new life?

And who are the rebellious? It seems in this context that the rebellious are those who cannot envision and cannot bring about God’s transforming new world order where all have the gift of a home and the means to live. Even those who have dreams of changing the world get tired, are broken, and can be defeated. We gaze out at the tinsel-town aspects of this season and it feels like a dry and weary land. There are many who are desolate, many who are imprisoned, and we thirst to partake in God’s gift of justice.

Week 4
Life. Service. God’s self as God’s gift.

For the Son of Man came not to be served but to serve, and to give his life a ransom for many. Mark 10:45

We give to show our love or to make up for something we feel is lacking. We serve to show our love or to appease feelings of guilt. We work to find a meaningful gift or something that will do. We are wrapped up in whether we’re doing enough or too much. Are we giving too much? Too little? Have we received too much? Too little?

In this season of giving for all kinds of reasons, we say that Jesus came among us to serve. Jesus came among us to give his life. This is like a deep breath, a moment for rev-erence, in hectic days and frenzied holidays. We say that God became flesh and walked among us — that through Jesus, God saves our lives and all of creation. It is a gift that is hard to grasp, so we say it — hoping for the gift of faith in the practice of our God who speaks into existence things that do not exist, who makes a way out of no way, whose great gift may still settle into us and we become gift for others.

The Rev. Joy L. McDonald Coltvet is director of vocation and recruitment at the Lutheran School of Theology of Chicago. Her blog, "Blessed to be a Witness," is available on-line through www.lstc.edu.

Discussion questions:

1. What are the foods that help you taste and see that God is good? What is it about those foods that makes them special?

2. Who are the people who are "family" to you because they've chosen you — taking the bitter with the sweet? What are some of the relationships in your life that cross borders?

3. In what ways are you tired, weary, and longing for justice? In what ways are you rebellious? What do you love about God's vision?

4. What are God's gifts to you this Advent? What do you long for? What have you already received?

The Rev. Joy L. McDonald Coltvet is director of vocation and recruitment at the Lutheran School of Theology at Chicago. Her blog, "Blessed to be a Witness," is available on-line through www.lstc.edu.