There is a Me in We... If you flip one of the letters

Decidedly, Advent is one of my favorite times of year. It holds the mystery of "Christ is coming again" with the certainty of "Christ has come." It has a conspiratorial feel to it, as people think about living differently and the whispers of a different world. I love Advent.

It also comes with a cart-load of cultural baggage. If you read my last post, "What shall we call this spade," you know that I believe that the dominant picture of Christmastime as a consumeristic binge is idolatrous, if not blasphemous. But how to live differently? As I was lifting weights this evening, it occured to me... I need to ban the word "we" from my vocabulary until Christmas Day.

There is a part of me that loves to speak and write for its own sake. It loves to have people's attention and craves to hear the phrase "that's a great point." The word "we" includes you in on my "great point." It makes our struggle a collective one.

It also abdicates responsibility. I can say "we" and mean "you" or "them." We does not always include me. I can talk about "our struggle" and how "we" need to live differently this season, all the while making no plan or no effort to do it in my own life.

And so this season, I think I'm going to try to stop using the word "we" unless I actually mean "we." In a season all about what people should do for me (they should have one of those big-screens for ME, they should work with MY schedule), what if I instead took a stance where I will take responsibility for my actions and put my word to a different kind of Advent season?

"What do we call this spade?"

Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

I worked in retail for about 7 years, a couple of those in a shift manager-type position. I know that the Christmas season is the bread and butter of the retail industry. Managers will be wringing their hands until Christmas Eve, hoping that the numbers will propel them to exist another year.

What's also true about the commercialism of Christmastime is that it is a well-crafted lie. Whereas the hymn says, "The hopes and fears of all the years are met in thee tonight," the surrounding world says "The hopes and fears of all the years are on sale tonight." Materialistic Commercialism tells us that our hopes are made true and our fears can be satisfied by the acquisition of goods and services. It is also the hope of our economy and the hope of our nation- only by spending ourselves into debt can we keep our economy afloat and our nation in prominent standing in the world. Don't believe me? Watch the news in a week.

Let's call a spade a spade, shall we?

The celebration of Christmastime in the United States is idolatry.

Idols are gods who cannot live without our active participation. Consider 1 Samuel 5, where the priests of Dagon continue to prop up an idol that is defenseless against God's holiness. Or Isaiah 57:13 "When you cry out for help, let your collection of idols save you! The wind will carry all of them off, a mere breath will blow them away."

I recognize that, if we altered our patterns and rejected the consumerism, it would cost people their jobs. I recognize that our fragile retail economy rests on the fear of commercial apocalypse. I also recognize that we are being sold a false bill of goods which we know is false. But we are afraid to do anything different because of the very real impact.

So let's at least admit it. Let's admit that we are being sold oceanfront property in Montana (that is, we are being sold a lie). Let's admit that we are spending ourselves into oblivion and depression. Let's admit that the fear of living differently drives us. Let's call a spade a spade.

Then... let's dream of something different.

What Next?

The Church is inherently political- don't stop reading! When I say political, I don't mean partisan, nor do I mean that the Church is wedded to the values of a democratic republic. We are not a political party, nor do we seek political power. But we are political.

The Church, at her finest, takes very seriously these words from James 1:27 "Religion that God our Father accepts as pure and faultless is this: to look after orphans and widows in their distress and to keep oneself from being polluted by the world." In other words, the Church recognizes that the Gospel is an inward (free from pollution) and outward (caring for those on the margins) reality.

The Gospel is a perfect wedding of spiritual reality (Read the Beatitudes in Matthew) and social relationships (Read the Beatitudes in Luke). The Gospel proclaims that there is a new Kingdom here and coming in its fullness. Kingdoms are political entities. We care about real people living in real situations, and so we are inevitably drawn to politics.

Last night, people were disappointed and elated across the United States. Some fell quickly into the melancholy of resentment and others catapulted into the jubilation of a victory lap. Others did both. Others went to bed. Everyone woke up this morning to find that the world is still in desperate need of reconciliation (2 Corinthians 5).

So what next? These words are for those encouraged and those discouraged by the election: It's time for a new and broader imagination. Our job in the Church is not done at the election. It's never done. Our work will always be before us- Christ even told us that the poor would always be among us, even while Deuteronomy bears the bold command that there ought to be no one poor among us. That job still stands before us, and encourages us to a greater imagination than we have had.

Political partisanship has encouraged division which Christ has torn down in His crucified and risen body. It has limited our vision to "our guy winning" and generated either anger or apathy. We can do better. Let's take some time to catch our breath, to reconcile where reconciliation is needed, and be reminded of these words from Jesus: "All authority in heaven and on earth has been given to me. Go, therefore, and make disciples of all nations, baptizing them in the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, and teaching them to obey all I have commanded you. And I will be with you, even to the ends of the earth."