“The Gift of Greatest Price”
Rev. Greg Ward
Unitarian Universalist Metro Atlanta North
December 18th. 2005

Story for All Ages

Dear Santa,

It’s been awhile since I’ve written to you at Christmas.  Thirty-three years to be exact.  A long time, I know.  But, I hope, now that you’ve made your list and checked it twice, your records show that even though I haven’t written, I still, find a place on your ‘nice’ list. 

I appreciate the wisdom in significantly upgrading the technology in your operations at the North Pole.  Email is much easier.  And, whereas I commend you for doing such a good job at guessing, year after year, what gifts I need at Christmas, this year I consider my list too important to leave to chance.

This year I want hope.  I realize that there are no major manufacturers currently producing this, nor is it in any of the catalogues.  But still, I am sure that it is hope which I most wish for this year.  Hope that I will have more friends next year, not less.  Hope that there will be more care shown between people.  Hope that we will pay more attention to those who feel unsure.  Hope that love will lead us into the future, not fear.  Hope that things can be better, not worse, for this planet and its people.  Hope is what I want. 

Perhaps I am playing with fire, but I feel like I have to mention the incident that made it difficult for me to write to you these past thirty-one years.  That made it difficult to count on you like I once did.  Every year to that point, you managed to bring me hope.  You brought toys and candy and things, but what I most remember was hope.

Then, when I was eight, I came across something that maybe I shouldn’t have.  On Christmas eve I stumbled into the bedroom and found my Dad wearing your hat.  And your coat.  And he had a bag that was a lot like yours.  I was confused.  I didn’t know what to think.  Did you decide to stop coming?  Were we no longer worth a visit from you?  Could I still count on you to bring that hope I once knew?

I have never forgotten that moment.  And, whereas, I have carried on, I knew that, this year, more than most, I need that hope I once counted on you to bring.   So, here’s my letter.  Please do what you can.  I am still counting on you.   
Love,
Greg
1431 Princeton Court
Roswell, Georgia
PS.  We are not the Roswell with the UFOs so don’t worry. 

Dear Greg,

It may surprise you, but I have not forgotten you.  I’m glad you learned how to type.  Your handwriting was horrible.

You are right that no one has found a way, yet, to manufacture or package hope.  It’s a tricky thing to put in a box or tie a bow around.   And now, more than most times, it seems to be in short supply.  But people everywhere, in every age, have been searching for it.  And I do try to help.

I remember the year you sent your last letter to me.  You asked for a lot of toys and games.  Still, I remember reading between the lines and knowing what you really were asking for was hope, and love, and attention.  I remember because that was the year I got another letter.  It was from your father.  He apologized for not writing for thirty-one years.  He didn’t ask for any toys or games.  Just hope.  For you as well as for himself.  So I sent him one of my outfits so he could know the one thing I feel most when I go out and visit children around Christmas: which is hope. 

Your father was not me.  Only I can be the real Santa Claus.  But your father was trying to be the next best thing: a carrier of hope.  He wasn’t trying to confuse you.  He was trying to love you.  And he wasn’t wearing my outfit because he wanted you to believe in me, but because he believed in you. 

So, please find enclosed, one hat.  Just like your father asked for.  Perhaps it will still be something you can believe in.  But the important thing to discover is not believing in the hat or the coat or the bag of presents.  It is believing in each other.  That is where you find the real hope.  Please do what you can.  Remember, I’m still counting on you, too.

Love Santa

Sermon
“We are fast approaching the city.  I can see the lights.” 

The second magi put down his copy of ‘Astrology Today’ and glanced up.  “You mean that little flicker on the horizon?  The one we saw three sand dunes back?  I don’t think it’s getting any bigger.  It’s probably a lantern being carried by three other idiot astrologers who left the sultan’s party earlier so they could walk out into the desert, talk to fairies and end up going on some sort of crazy, holy journey.”

“I told you.  It wasn’t a fairy.  It was an angel.  And besides, you were there.  You heard him.  You fell on your knees like the rest of us.  I saw you trembling.”

“I was cold.  I left my shawl back at the sultan’s party.”

“Camel crumpets!  You should have seen the look on your face when that angel shone round about you.  You were sore afraid! 

“Alright, don’t get your loin cloth in such a rumple?  I was impressed.  But I’m still not sure what this is all about. 

The third magi wrenched his gaze away from the stars and turned his eye in the direction his comrades were squinting.  “Right about now we’re missing Rabbi John Stewart,” he sighed. 

“Would you guys get serious!  Didn’t you hear what the angel said?  ‘For unto you this day, in the city of David, is born a savior, a child who will change everything!”

“We heard, we heard.  So what?”

“So what?!?!?!!!   We’ve been living in this desert for years now waiting.  Watching the skies by night.  Watching different kings come to power toting the same selfish interests.  Watching winter upon winter come and go with nothing changing.  But this is different.  This is a sign of hope.  We’ve all talked about wanting to see more hope.  This is our chance to see it for ourselves.”

“But we can’t keep following this star, for Christ’s sake!”

“So – follow it for your own sake.” 

“Suppose we get there and it’s like the fairy said.”

“Angel!”

“Whatever.  We don’t even have any thing to offer.  It wouldn’t hurt if we brought a gift or something.”

“Yes, but all we have are these scents and spices and a few pieces of gold.  What’s a baby going to do with that?”

“I agree.  But we can’t show up without something.”

“Yea, but what?”

“Well, perhaps there’ll be someplace that’s open late on the way…”

And thus it began.  On the very first Christmas, three tired souls out doing last minute shopping.  Looking for gifts that might somehow express what their hearts could not adequately say.  Looking for a way to answer an awkward situation.  Caught off-guard, they realized they would soon stand before a sight precious in their eyes.  They knew they’d feel completely inadequate unless they could bolster their arrival with tokens of homage.  So on they ventured, looking bewildered, feeling humbled, needing to see what hope the world has to offer.

We are fast approaching Christmas ourselves.  A similar scenario unfolds before each of us.  Standing before family and friends who are precious in our sight, we try not to feel inadequate about gifts we give.  We have come a long way since the days of the magi.  Nevertheless, we still carry much of the same baggage they did. 

The announcement of hope and the march to Christmas, from Luke’s gospel, has been handed down to us over many years.  Each successive generation still identifying with the Magi and their feeling of being tired and lost and hungry as winter rushes in and holiday plans push agendas of high expectation.  We find ourselves on the same crazy, holy journey.  We yearn, like they did, for something simple:  The need for warmth.  The need to gather.  The need to see hope before us.  But with each generation, something more complicated is added.  The need to show up with lots and lots of presents. 

Now, the angel of the Lord, who appeared in Luke’s gospel, has not been heard from for several centuries.  Yet, numerous prophecies have come from the much more modern angels of our economy.  In the wake of 911, we were told by various angles (and a heavenly host of spin doctors) that it was in our national interests to go shopping.  It was our patriotic duty.  That if the nation is looking for hope we would find it on sale on aisle 12. 

I don’t think this is what the writer of Luke had in mind.  True, he was writing from a very different perspective in a different time.  Had he known a little bit about our culture he might have written something a little more recognizable to us today.  Something where it would not be nearly so hard to see ourselves in the story.  Allow me, then, to offer a slightly adapted version we may more readily recognize as our current scripture.

“And, there, in the same general neighborhood as Mega-mall, lived numerous parents, abiding in their mortgaged homes, keeping watch over their children by night.  And lo, a man on the TV appeared unto them, and the glory of his salesmanship shone round about them, and they were sore afraid.  And the man spoke unto them, “Fear not, for behold, I bring you great prices and convenient hours which shall be unto the first 100 customers, with no money down.  For unto you is born, this day, in the very spot you stand, a whole heap of trouble unless you show up with something impressive.  And this shall be a sign unto you.  Ye shall find your loved ones claiming good behavior as the holidays draw near and dropping hints at the dinner table.  And suddenly, there was with these parents a multitude of guilt praising how nice it would be to salvage some vestige of harmony come Christmas morning, and in their home, peace, good will when your birthday rolls around.    And it came to pass, as the man on the TV had gone away from them into the regularly scheduled programming, the parents said to one another, let us go now to this holy place and buy this thing that has been drastically marked down, which the vision from the TV hath made known to us.  And, thus, they went forth, into their cars and out of their minds for the next 6 shopping days.”

This rewriting may seem like a comedy but indeed it is a tragedy.  A tragedy not because it is unfaithful to the truth.  Sadly, it holds more truth than we would like to admit.  But it is a tragedy because it misses the point of the original message, the most powerful part of the gospel: that the magi did not venture forth to find the perfect gift, but to make of themselves a gift of time and attention.

It is interesting to note that the practice of offering gifts did not originate from the magi traveling to the manger.  It is a practice that first found its place in the season nearly five centuries before then.   The festival of Saturnalia was celebrated by the Romans, who were largely an agricultural people.  Seeing that the light was waning, they gathered in the fields to light bonfires encouraging the sun to return to them.  Encouraging a new birth, a renewal of warmth and a return to the growth that sustained them.  They brought greenery into their homes, lined trees with nuts, fruit and sweets, they danced, they sang.  All of this was an elaborate gift giving to the gods who reigned over the earth, controlled climate and harvest.  These gifts were, in their basic origins, a gesture of appeasement, coaxing the sun to return.

2500 years later, this is still the practice that has survived.  Of all the rituals within the midwinter tradition, it is interesting, and perhaps, sad, that this is the one we have remained faithful to: giving gifts as a gesture of appeasement. 

We are fast approaching another Christmas, another opportunity, another chance to take that crazy, holy journey.  Though our efforts differ significantly from those of the Magi, we still have something in common:  We both wish to see hope – to revere the holy in our midst – to believe that something lost will be regained. 

I remember as a child the excitement that mounted as Christmas approached.  I knew that if ever there was a day where I would receive something of immeasurable importance, this was the day.  The gift of greatest price.  But as I grew up, it became all too common that I would find myself sitting amidst a heap of paper and overturned boxes, having unwrapped the last of many presents bearing my name not having found what I was really looking for.  And into the last box I would peer silently crying out those that traditional Christmas refrain, “is that all?” 

What was missing?  What was I hoping for?  It has taken me a long time to realize that the problem was not that I had failed to receive enough, or that I didn’t get what was on my list.  The problem was that the anticipation provided more hope than the arrival.  I could look at the presents under the tree and know that someone thought of me, that I was cared for.  Loved.  That I mattered.  It was the kind of feeling I would have crossed deserts for.  As long as the presence were in a box, wrapped neatly, under a tree, it was all true.  But as soon as Christmas was over and I heard the familiar words, “it’s time to get your toys off the floor,” the presents seemed to lose the symbolic significance they once had.

The best gifts I’ve received, the ones that still line the shelves of my home and claim the hallowed places in my heart are not the ones where money mattered, or size, or material or quality.  It wasn’t our national interests that mattered or our patriotic duty.  The bests gifts were the ones that clearly said that I mattered, in someone’s life, and that this wouldn’t change even after the wrapping was off.  The greatest gifts are merely symbols of love and care. 

Minister,Albert Perry, tells a story about buying some frankincense in a store one year before Christmas.  He thought, since it was one of the gifts that the magi offered, it must be something special.  But when he offered it to his family, they were unimpressed.  It wasn’t a particularly impressive fragrance – at least not by today’s standards. 

That’s when he realized.  It wasn’t the Frankincense that was so impressive.  It was the journey that brought it where it needed to be.  To a place where people needed to feel thought of, valued, holy. 

“[Frankinscence],” Perry says, “was never more than a resin exuded by an injured tree.  People gave it value and used it to express feelings of sanctity.  [But like] any gift, it is the feelings which are important.  No gift has value in and of itself, however expensive it might be.  Anything can be precious, if it expresses love [and care]… trust [and time that carried it where it needed to be].”

“Love and care, trust and time.”  Time.  That’s it, isn’t it.  Time is what we want.  After all, time is the most valuable thing any of us really has to offer.  To know that people want to ‘spend’ time with us, that they won’t ‘discount’ us because of our shortcomings.  That we – by ourselves, just as we are – are worth the whole long, crazy, holy journey. 

But to give that to someone is harder than throwing an item on the check out counter.  To give that we have to give ourselves.  To focus on the people that matter to us, set aside our agendas, sometimes to even humble our own sense of self importance.  To give this true spirit of Christmas is not easy.  The true spirit of Christmas always costs us something.  That is why they call it ‘paying attention.’  

What I really have always wanted from this season – the one thing that will retrieve me from my feeling of holiday exile, is to be surrounded, not by Christmas presents, but by human presence.  That is the heavenly host.  That is the gift of greatest price. 

Unitarian minister Clark Wells lists the greatest gifts he’s ever known as follows:

“…When the bell ringer at Rockefeller Chapel let me strike one of the largest tuned bells in the world during his playing of Ein Feste Burg; coach Al Terry saying, “Little Wells, grab your bonnet” and sending me into my first varsity football game when I was a freshman; a beautiful lady on a ship, when I was still an acned teenager, who kissed my face all over and told me she thought I was handsome; Dr. Henry Nelson Weiman telling me he had thought for a long time about a question I raised and responded with a written answer the next day in front of the whole class; my father playing catch with me, night after night, in the back yard until it got too dark to see the ball; a Unitarian minister in Kalamazoo who put his arm around me the day my father died - and kept it there for a long time; a friend who flew several hundred miles to visit me when I was sick; a buddy who knew I was down and went to see three movies with me on the same day.”

What is it about these gifts of time that restores hope?  That offers the possibility of a better way to know Christmas than what we find in a mall?  The gifts of greatest price have the power to illuminate worth and dignity.  Nothing under a tree can do that.  It is true that our worth and dignity are inherent.  We all possess it.  Yet many of us can dread the holiday season where we are left waiting in a cold, barren manger of our own making hoping someone will make the long journey to notice.  To remind us of something we already have.  We long for human presence, not Christmas presence.

Many of us have, over time, have grown cynical of Christmas trappings.  We’ve seen past the commercialism.  We’ve seen beyond the miracles.  We’ve let go of the need to go on that long, crazy journey for Christ’s sake.  But we have not let go of the need for hope – for our own sake.  Nor have we let go of the understanding that just as the child lay waiting for us, we also wait in hopes of seeing something of the child in winter; the sign of birth in the season of death – the hope that burns bright in our souls and coaxes the promise of sunshine to return to a darkened world. 

That is why my father faithfully dressed up like Santa every year – and continued to do so until I was twenty years old; first for us, then cousins, then grandchildren.  Then for the neighbor children.  He wanted to answer his own need for hope by being part of mine – by being part of theirs - of ours.  And that is why I helped him dress up every year after.  I wanted to be part of that long, crazy journey.

We all want hope.  To know we will have more friends next year, not less.  That there will be more care shown between people.  That we will pay more attention to those who feel unsure.  That love will lead us into the future, not fear.  That things can be better, not worse, for this planet and its people. 

We are in the time of Advent in the Christian calendar.  Advent is a time that asks us to prepare ourselves for the coming of something powerful, something redeeming, something glorious.  It asks us to remember that the greatest gift we have to offer, especially at this time, is the gift of giving ourselves.  To pay attention to working on our human presence instead of the token homage of Christmas presents.  To offer gifts of time and attention rather than gifts of appeasement.

In this time of advent we would do well to remember these words by Unitarian Minister, Gordon McKeeman:

“We are fast approaching the season during which we celebrate the birth of one who never had any money, nor owned any property except perhaps the robe that he wore.  And it will be marked as usual with great commercial orgy, given added impetus by the tycoons of advertising, who will extol the virtues of this or that product as an expression of the spirit of goodwill and peace.  The children will be regaled with “tommy” guns and tanks and toy soldiers, admirable examples of the spirit of peace and good will and love.  Over the heads of the harassed shoppers will float the strains of “Hark, the Herald Angels Sing” scarcely heard above the honking of automobile horns, the hurrying feet of shoppers and the dim mutterings of “I don’t know what I’ll get for Cousin Lulu.”

“It does seem a little strange that this is the prelude for a season celebrating one so poor, and above all, so indifferent to the physical tokens, so much more interested in human minds and hearts.  It seems that the commercialism of Christmas is like the tail that wags the dog, not realizing that it is only a part, and at that, a non-essential part of the whole.

“Perhaps it would not be amiss to suggest that in celebrating Christmas, we spend some time in exhibiting the virtues which Christmas suggests: peace, goodwill, love, and friendliness.  Your friends will think more of you for your friendly spirit and your goodwill, than if you wind up on Christmas day a tired, drawn, crotchety victim of the battle of the bargain counter.  It might not be remiss, either, to read the story of the nativity, to remember that you need not believe the story to believe what it is about, to [show up with] the warmth and glow of [of the spirit of] Christmas [within you].” 

May we, this year, take the time to be true to the gospel of our hearts and give the best of ourselves knowing that others are in need.  .  May we find that in so doing we can supply what has been missing in the frenzied rush of so many gifts and so little presence.  May we, this day, this moment, rise from the hollowed habits that have kept us in exile and offer the hallowed sense of worth to one another.  May we do better than the magi and recognize that every destination we find ourselves on this season is a crazy, holy journey.  And our part is to come within as hope to dwell. 

O Come, O Come Emmanuel
And with your captive children dwell
Give comfort to all exiles here
And to the aching heart bid cheer.
Rejoice, rejoice, Emmanuel
And come within as Hope to dwell.

To the Glory of Life.

Benediction
If, as Herod, we fill our lives with things and again things;
If we consider ourselves so important that we must fill every moment of our lives with action;
When will we have the time to make the long, slow journey across the desert as did the Magi?
Or sit and watch the stars as did the shepherds; or to brood the coming of a child as did Mary?
For each one of us there is a desert to travel, a star to discover and a being within to bring to life.
                                                -           Edward Erikson

Copyright Wardswords, 2005