Jesus still threatens self-love ‘thrones’
Last week, I was building off of a Len Sweet sermon entitled "With Christmas Eyes" and decided to promote the message via e-mail to those in my congregation who are online.
Sometimes I will e-mail the bulletin information, as well as the thematic image used in worship, to get them thinking ahead of time.
In this particular e-mail, I spoke about the various eyes with which that "first Christmas" was viewed: Mary’s eyes, Joseph’s eyes, the shepherds’ eyes, the angels’ eyes and Herod’s eyes.
That week, it was a response from one of those congregants that got me to thinking.
The Rev. James R. Green and his wife, Carol, are part of the community of faith at Green Meadow United Methodist Church in Alcoa, where I serve. Jim and I have known each other for about 10 years now, having first gotten acquainted while in Leadership Blount. It was Jim’s response that really cleared the Christmas cobwebs and opened my mind’s eye:
"The fact is, the only one who really understood Christmas was Herod," Jim wrote. "The threat to our thrones has never gone away, and so we love the baby but avoid the man. The curious thing is, we avoid the man by extolling the baby.
"All of the merchants ring out the chorus, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus.’
"What I think that we really need to do is put Christmas back into Christ."
Now, you can pick any one of those sentences to chew on and make a real meal; in fact, I chewed on all of them:
We ignore the fact that it was God who invented leisure, through the Sabbath, and turn that invention against him: We pray at our leisure, we worship at our leisure, we give at our leisure, we serve at our leisure, and we study Scripture at our leisure. Consider church attendance during the summer months (it’s down), and at Easter and Christmas (it’s up).
I know, those are tough words; in fact, I confess that there is a little self-flagellation going on here. The fact remains, though, that we avoid the God-man Jesus because he threatens our thrones.
"We love the baby, but avoid the man ... we avoid the man by extolling the baby." What struck me about that statement is this: What better way to avoid the reality of why Jesus came in the first place than to keep our eyes on the infant? Rather than answering Christ’s call to "follow me," and feast on the meat of servant discipleship, we would rather gaze at the manger and be served mother’s milk.
"All of the merchants ring out the chorus, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus.’ What I think that we really need to do is put Christmas back into Christ." Len Sweet notes that some scholars are "interpreting Christmas as a religious holiday, but not a Christian one." He quotes from a collection of essays entitled, "Christmas Unwrapped: Consumerism, Christ and Culture," wherein Christmas is viewed as "the religious expression of consumer capitalism."
If you doubt the truth in that, consider a recent Wall Street Journal story concerning what could be viewed as China’s latest imitation of Western culture. The story explains that in the largely atheist nation, an increasing number of young urban couples are celebrating Christmas. However, according to the story, the focus is certainly not on the coming of the Christ child:
"To the Chinese yuppie fascinated by exotic foreign ways, Christmas is about oneself and one’s personal relationships ..."
Who says imitation is the greatest form of flattery?
Sometimes I will e-mail the bulletin information, as well as the thematic image used in worship, to get them thinking ahead of time.
In this particular e-mail, I spoke about the various eyes with which that "first Christmas" was viewed: Mary’s eyes, Joseph’s eyes, the shepherds’ eyes, the angels’ eyes and Herod’s eyes.
That week, it was a response from one of those congregants that got me to thinking.
The Rev. James R. Green and his wife, Carol, are part of the community of faith at Green Meadow United Methodist Church in Alcoa, where I serve. Jim and I have known each other for about 10 years now, having first gotten acquainted while in Leadership Blount. It was Jim’s response that really cleared the Christmas cobwebs and opened my mind’s eye:
"The fact is, the only one who really understood Christmas was Herod," Jim wrote. "The threat to our thrones has never gone away, and so we love the baby but avoid the man. The curious thing is, we avoid the man by extolling the baby.
"All of the merchants ring out the chorus, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus.’
"What I think that we really need to do is put Christmas back into Christ."
Now, you can pick any one of those sentences to chew on and make a real meal; in fact, I chewed on all of them:
"The fact is, the only one who really understood Christmas was Herod. The threat to our thrones has never gone away ..." This is the one that really struck me.
We set up a lot of "thrones" in our lives, but they all come back to the throne of "self." And one great manifestation of that self-love is the premium we place on our so-called "leisure time."We ignore the fact that it was God who invented leisure, through the Sabbath, and turn that invention against him: We pray at our leisure, we worship at our leisure, we give at our leisure, we serve at our leisure, and we study Scripture at our leisure. Consider church attendance during the summer months (it’s down), and at Easter and Christmas (it’s up).
I know, those are tough words; in fact, I confess that there is a little self-flagellation going on here. The fact remains, though, that we avoid the God-man Jesus because he threatens our thrones.
"We love the baby, but avoid the man ... we avoid the man by extolling the baby." What struck me about that statement is this: What better way to avoid the reality of why Jesus came in the first place than to keep our eyes on the infant? Rather than answering Christ’s call to "follow me," and feast on the meat of servant discipleship, we would rather gaze at the manger and be served mother’s milk.
"All of the merchants ring out the chorus, ‘What a friend we have in Jesus.’ What I think that we really need to do is put Christmas back into Christ." Len Sweet notes that some scholars are "interpreting Christmas as a religious holiday, but not a Christian one." He quotes from a collection of essays entitled, "Christmas Unwrapped: Consumerism, Christ and Culture," wherein Christmas is viewed as "the religious expression of consumer capitalism."
If you doubt the truth in that, consider a recent Wall Street Journal story concerning what could be viewed as China’s latest imitation of Western culture. The story explains that in the largely atheist nation, an increasing number of young urban couples are celebrating Christmas. However, according to the story, the focus is certainly not on the coming of the Christ child:
"To the Chinese yuppie fascinated by exotic foreign ways, Christmas is about oneself and one’s personal relationships ..."
Who says imitation is the greatest form of flattery?
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