There comes a time when you need to make a list and leave it out next to a plate of cookies… Here’s one I made, with a few suggestions for campus ministers (and others) who are looking for new books, shows, and resources for enlivening faith and community. Take a look over at the National Campus Ministry Association blog…and feel free to leave your browser open where someone jolly might see it and pick up a thing or two for your stocking.
I should start by saying we don’t know many of our neighbors. There’s the one I refer to as The Encroacher for his wild disregard for property lines, and there are the seemingly nice ones across the street who I’ve spoken two twice since they moved in, once when I delivered a welcome cake and the second time when we were all out shoveling snow last winter. There are a few I know by sight from the pool and there’s my accountant-neighbor who I actually look forward to seeing each tax season. Overall, not a great track record for someone who’s supposed to be familiar with loving neighbors.
It’s bigger and brighter than it seems from this picture I took with my phone.
I do not know the neighbors with the new Christmas lights, the ones who made a large Christmas tree out of lights and stationed it so it shines through their back woods and directly at the main road into the neighborhood. You can’t miss it. When it showed up last week I enjoyed the novelty of the giant lit tree in the midst of the real bare winter trunks, and it was a nice surprise, to be greeted through the woods like that.
After a couple nights away, I drove back into the neighborhood in the dark last night and it was suddenly apparent which neighbors had been busy putting up their lights and decorations while we were gone. I love exterior Christmas lights, so I drove slowly and took in the new splendor of the neighborhood – and I saw that the Christmas tree neighbors had added to their message. They’ve staked out more ground in the woods and you can see from the picture that they want me to keep Christ in Christmas. (I suppose it’s possible they want me to keep a cross in a tree, but I’m going with the simplest explanation being the most likely.)
The woods were brighter. There were more lights to catch my eye on the drive through the neighborhood. I don’t exactly disagree with their message. So why did I struggle to like their full message as much as I’d liked the tree on its own?
I think my trouble with it has to do with audience. If I went to worship and the sermon was about “keeping Christ in Christmas” I’d listen attentively and hopefully for what that might mean in the context of our gathered Christian community. If I met a friend for coffee and he mentioned some specific ways he was attempting to “keep Christ in Christmas,” I’d want to know where he was coming from and what I might glean for myself from his experiences of the season and his personal devotion. In my neighborhood, where most of us don’t know one another well and where we can safely assume we aren’t all Christian, is a prominent drive-by “keep Christ in Christmas” message the best, most faithful way for a Christian to greet her neighbors?
I’m thankful for this neighbor’s candy canes and reindeer.
What if Christ was never in Christmas for some of our neighbors, who might be Jewish or Muslim or Hindu – but who might still decorate their homes in lights at this dark time of year and who might even participate in some of our cultural Christmas traditions? What about the cultural Christians or former/lapsed Christians who also know this as a special time of year, who put up lights and experience holy longing, though they may be estranged from God or religious community right now? As Christians, is our best seasonal greeting an indiscriminate reminder to observe a religious tradition that not everyone is part of? Obviously, I don’t think so. I would have preferred just the lit tree. I would have even been fine with a message like “Christ’s light shines in the darkness” – biblical and a statement of faith for the person making it rather than a correction for everyone else.
Jesus is the reason for the season, but Christians don’t have a lock on celebrating all he ushers into this broken world. If my Muslim neighbor can demonstrate this with a hug or my non-religious neighbor with festive seasonal lights that don’t have much to do with John’s warnings or Mary’s song, I’m OK with that. In church, we can remind ourselves all we want to why we do all this each December. In the world, I wish we’d preach less and open ourselves more to seeing the lights in our neighbors’ yards. We have never been able to contain Christ, thank God, and we might be surprised by how Christ does indeed shine, even without his name in lights.
I met a priest once in Hazard, Kentucky, who declared himself an “Adventist.” He was annoyed with the way Christmas overshadowed its season of preparation and he wanted to make a point. I understand where he was coming from. Advent is my favorite liturgical season of the year, all purple and quiet patience, longing and increasing light in the darkest days of the year.
Now this is how to graciously invite people in while extending ourselves without judgment. (redmondumc.org)
What I don’t understand are people who get angry about it. Hostile, even. As in, This is about the baby Jesus, damn it! Really? That’s the reason for the season?
I am not prone to exuberant sentimentality but if “the season” encourages more people to extend kindness, practice generosity, go out of their way to include the lonely and the lost, soften the teeniest bit at the calcified edges, stop and enjoy the moment – lights, tree, tastes, textures, rare gatherings of friends and family – then what, exactly, is the problem?
I don’t know about you, but I can always use more generosity, kindness, and compassion in my life. I’m not so rich in these that I can fritter them away or turn my back when they’re offered.
The windup – and the problem – comes with expecting TV news or entertainment to proclaim the gospel, rather than looking to your faith and your church for that. The problem with being so uptight about how everyone else is spoiling it is that no one wants to hear the real message if it will come from those same angry lips. The problem comes with expecting purity out there in the general culture without asking the same of yourself and your actual church.
But the biggest problem I see and the biggest disconnect with the story of Jesus is how un-Christlike these You’re not in the clubhouse and you’re getting it wrong messages are. And how much we still resemble those clueless disciples who also had trouble hearing what Jesus was saying. Remember when the disciples stumbled upon someone casting out demons in the name of Christ (Mark 9: 38-41; Luke 9: 49-50)? The tattle-tales went straight to Jesus and reported on this distressing news, including the fact that they tried to stop him “because he was not following us.” Jesus rebukes them and says, “Whoever is not against us is for us.”
I’m not saying buying a Christmas stocking and hanging lights makes you a Christian. I’m saying – because I hear Jesus saying it – it doesn’t make those of us in the church any less Christian when someone outside does this, and it’s not cause for anger and ostracizing. Jesus, those people are giving Christmas presents and they don’t even understand what Christmas is! The reply: Whoever is not against us is for us.
So, swing wide the gates and rejoice! Enjoy the lights and the fudge and the holiday parties and accept the extra kindness whenever and wherever it’s offered. The gift of the incarnation is so huge it overflows our limited comprehension, established practices, and boundary lines. Anyone who is encouraged to be more kind, just, loving, or generous because of “the season” does, indeed, get it. It’s not up to the church or any God police to proclaim how much. It’s up to those of us called Christian to recognize it when God shows up – especially in the unlikely and least expected places (manger) or people (Saul).
None of us can completely understand – no matter our reverence or years of Sunday school – the totality of God incarnate in Jesus Christ. That’s why we keep reading and telling the story and trying to live more faithfully into it. This much is clear: We are sharing in a gift we all receive, not a treasure just a few of us jealously guard. Why would we want to fence it in?
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graphic credit: © 2013 Patrick Scriven & Karyn Kuan, Redmond UMC
I come from Southern pie folk. Pecan, chocolate meringue, lemon meringue, coconut. Pumpkin. Chess. Apple. Cherry. When I see my family this week I will be making a chocolate meringue pie. That was a specialty of my paternal grandmother, who always had one waiting when my dad visited – or she’d whip one up on the spot once he arrived. I’m in charge of keeping my dad in chocolate meringue now. 
But he requests other things, too. He likes the way I do mashed potatoes. Skins on, lumps of butter, plenty of salt and pepper. He’ll even have a generous helping of my vegetable-nut roast, my go-to vegetarian feast day main course.
And he asks for cranberries. These cranberries were a late addition to our family feasts but they are as anticipated and expected now as the longstanding pies.
The cranberries came by way of South Dakota. My maternal grandfather married a woman many years after my grandmother’s death, when I was a young teenager. She came from Scandinavian Midwestern stock and she brought with her to our family’s Virginia tables Norwegian Krumkaka and the cranberries. Before this, I thought canned gelatinous, ridges-still-imprinted cranberry “sauce” was normal. I always loved cranberries, the tartness and the pucker. I was entertained by the comic wiggle from the can onto the serving dish. But I didn’t know what else cranberries could be.
The first time I had Sylvia’s cranberries, the world became wider. When everyone else went back late in the day for an extra piece of pie, I would choose a bowl of her cranberries instead. She used real cranberries, oranges, and walnuts, chopped but still recognizable and formed into a decorative mold. For many years, I eagerly anticipated this new staple of our Thanksgiving and Christmas meals. I’m sure I complimented the cranberries each and every time – probably each and every serving.
One year in early January following a Christmas visit, I received a note in the mail from Sylvia, offering me her cranberry recipe. I don’t know why she decided to give it to me that year. I don’t remember if I ever asked for it. Our relationship with her always bore the markers of a tense politeness, as it seemed to us that though she loved my grandfather, she wasn’t ever really sure about the rest of us.
So it was a little surprising to receive the recipe. And strange to think something so universally beloved and expected on our feast tables came from my step-grandmother. But it’s our recipe now, too, given and received with her blessing, made (mostly) according to her instructions, which I still read in her handwriting on a worn and yellowed piece of stationary.
Virginia pecan pie meets Dakotan cranberries. Strangers become family. The table is wide enough for us all. Happy Thanksgiving!
Sylvia’s Cranberries
Sylvia called this “cranberry salad.” One taste has convinced former cranberry-haters that they do, indeed, like them. We make this at Thanksgiving and Christmas and look forward to it the rest of the year. Enjoy!
2, 12 oz. packages of fresh cranberries, ground
2 oranges, ground
2 cups sugar (I sometimes use less – adjust to your desired sweetness or tartness.)
1 cup boiling water
1 cup walnuts, ground
Optional: 2 packages plain gelatin mixed with ¼ cup boiling water. I used to substitute agar (a vegetarian alternative to gelatin) but realized a couple of years ago it doesn’t really need the gelling agent. I usually pour this into a serving bowl to chill. If you are using a decorative mold and will be flipping it out later onto a plate, you may want the gelling agent.
Rinse cranberries and discard any that are mushy or bad. Chop them into a small-medium dice in the food processor. Dump them into a pot.
Remove orange rind, seeds, and thick pith then pulverize the oranges in the food processor. Add them to the pot with the cranberries.
Add the sugar and the water and mix well. Boil for 2 minutes then remove from heat. When cool, add the ground walnuts. Pour into either a greased mold or a serving bowl and refrigerate overnight or for at least 3-4 hours.
This is a breeze with a food processor but I have also made it several times, chopping it all by hand. It’s worth it either way.