Taking Christmas Out of Church

Today's Old Testament reading is from the prophet Amos, and it is a full blown oracle of judgment against God's people. The problem is not a failure to be religious. The folks in Jerusalem were apparently quite good at that, but as God says a few chapters earlier, "I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies... Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps." I'm reasonably certain this had nothing to do with the musical quality of the performance, and today's passage makes clear where the problem lies.

     Hear this, you that trample on the needy,
     and bring to ruin the poor of the land,

     saying, "When will the new moon be over
     so that we may sell grain;
     and the sabbath,
     so that we may offer wheat for sale?
     We will make the ephah small and the shekel great,
     and practice deceit with false balances,
     buying the poor for silver
     and the needy for a pair of sandals,
     and selling the sweepings of the wheat."

Amos' and other prophets' disgust for those who faithfully go to church while participating in social systems that oppress the poor and weak is well known, if frequently ignored. But as I read today's passage, I was struck by people's longing for new moon and sabbath to be over so they could get back to commerce. What a different world from ours. I have no desire to go back to the trivialized sabbath keeping of my southern childhood, and it clearly didn't help the people Amos condemns, but the notion that there are things more important than commerce might be a refreshing one.

I think of this especially in this season of Advent which has been taken over by a frenzy of Christmas commerce. Don't worry, I'm not going to launch into a rant about the commercialization of Christmas. The very phrase, "commercialization of Christmas" sounds as though commerce invaded and occupied something sacred, but I don't think that happened at all. This is one of those classic cases of meeting the enemy, and it is us.

In a society preoccupied with possessions and consumer goods, the joy of Christmas has become about getting stuff. For some reason, the church felt it couldn't afford to miss out on all the frenetic energy surrounding this economic extravaganza, and so it welcomed a consumer Christmas into its observance of Advent. Christmas trees got put in sanctuaries at the beginning of December, often with wrapped presents beneath them. (That some insist these are "Chrismon" rather than Christmas trees reveals a certain suspicion of our own practice here.)

Once our consumerist Christmas sufficiently replaced Advent, it became increasingly difficult to discriminate between what belongs to the faith and what to the secular celebration. In a few congregations, there seems to be an only slightly more classy version of the Christmas decorations in front yards where inflatable Frosty, Santa, elves, candy canes, and reindeer share space with a plastic nativity.

In the midst of such confusion, I suppose it is to be expected that "Happy Holidays" and "Merry Christmas" would mark some sort of religious fault line. The consumer driven Christmas has become so interwoven with Advent that if the commercial side of the operation drops its Christian moniker, it does indeed threaten the cultural buzz and energy with which we have replaced Advent waiting and reflection. I wonder what the prophet Amos would think of it all.

If at this point you were to surmise that I don't like Christmas trees, lighted houses, or Christmas music a the mall, you would be wrong. I also enjoy the nostalgia that is so connected to Christmas in our culture, right down to watching Jimmy Stewart in It's a Wonderful Life. But I do think the church needs to rethink its association with it. (I like the Fourth of July but think the church does well when it doesn't make that a big part of our worship.) If that makes me a curmudgeon, so be it. 

Have a blessed Advent and a Happy Holidays. I'll wish you a Merry Christmas in a couple of weeks.

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