BIBLE ADVOCATES MATERIAL ELEMENTS OF CHRISTMAS
When he first said it the world was startled. And when we hear it said again, we are startled still that a world Christian leader would make such an assertion. I speak of the 1940’s Anglican Archbishop William Temple, who said “Christianity is the most materialistic religion in the world.”
The statement is especially startling at Christmas time, when in church and religious programs it is customary to bemoan the compulsive greed and obsessive materialism that seem so rampant. Ministers and church leaders are expected to chastise their flock for preoccupation with money and gifts.
And while most Christians never would want to part company at Christmas with any significant measure of their possessions, they have come to expect to feel alternately guilty and thankful for having so much while so many have so little.
But I want to part company with those devoted to inflicting guilt at Christmas. Instead of condemning money, I recommend it. Instead of berating possessions, I extol them. In place of denouncing materialism, I praise it.
Of course I am not speaking of the materialism of the rich who find it necessary to flaunt symbols of their success, or the greed of children ripping open Christmas presents in a flurry of spoiled avarice, with no thankfulness in their over-indulged hearts.
The materialistic Christmas I advocate is the one suggested by one of the earliest poems of the Christmas story. It is the materialism of Mary’s “Magnificat”, the poem of hope for the downtrodden and dispossessed, the lyric prayer for the poor and homeless.
In her prayer-poem, Mary prophesied a day when all would share in the world’s fabulous wealth. She said: “He (God) has filled the hungry with good things, and the rich he has sent empty away.” (Luke 1:53)
In that sense, Mary might well be in praise of a materialistic Christmas and economic revolution.
If Mary was of the poorer people of Palestine, so were Jesus’ early followers. While some of his closest disciples apparently had fishing businesses, others came from Galilee, which was comprised of poor people working on estates with absentee landlords. Early Christianity appealed to the poor partly because it promised relief from poverty. Jesus regularly spoke out on their behalf.
Would Mary bless the gross and blatant materialism of recent fraudulent corporate executives? I think not. The materialistic Christmas she advocates is one where more and more people share the wealth and good things of the earth. Would she not be on the side of a healthy economy that gave full employment and fair reward for good labor?
Would she not advocate regular earned food for the starving rather than perpetual handouts? Would she not want to take all the poor and homeless living off garbage dumps and in tarpaper shacks and place them in a political, economic system where they could live and work and earn with dignity?
The materialism that Mary would bless is one where the poor, the needy, the homeless, the disenfranchised, the tyrannized, the exploited and the oppressed would share in the world’s fabulous wealth. They would have warm homes, good clothes and transportation, adequate food, fine schools, representative government and a share in the spiritual-cultural life of the land.
No deceitful promise of spiritual bread while denying daily, physical bread will fulfill Mary’s dream. Our love must be more than talk. It must be actual bread and food, money and clothing, jobs and housing.
None of us this Christmas, myself included, would want to be without our good cars, our pleasant homes, our well-stocked freezer and pantries and our many presents under the tree. We give thanks to God for our many blessings of a materialistic Christmas.
It will not help the world situation if we become poor or lose everything or give everything away. What will help is for Christians and other religious leaders to work toward economic and political systems that help share the wealth and reduce the gap between haves and have-nots – a primary cause of war.
With Mary in her “Magnificat”, we hope for the day when all the peoples of the world share more equitably in the world’s power and wealth, as well as in the gifts of God’s grace and truth and love.
