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I dropped my kids off at school this morning and as I was walking back to my car, I overheard a mother sharing with another her worries about Christmas. With lay-offs and pay cuts abounding many families are growing anxious as the holidays approach. Rather than the sense of excitement and anticipation, the change of decor in storefront windows only reminds many of us of how little there is to go around this year.
The idea of gift-giving doesn't seem to be central to Christmas any longer. Instead, it's all about buying stuff and getting stuff. But during a time when so many of us are biting our nails with anxiety over the economic recession, buying and getting adds even more stress than usual. This is problematic for the Christian. We are called to be hospitable, generous people. Yet, these ideals don't stem from economic security. They come from our story as God's people. In the book of Exodus we read the story of manna falling from heaven, providing the sustenance that everyone needed to survive in the wilderness. There was one problem: no preservatives. It didn't keep. You couldn't save it for tomorrow or the next day. God provided just enough for everyone, every day. In the New Testament, when Jesus teaches his friends to pray he draws upon this story when he tells them to ask God to give them their daily bread. The concept is that God provides enough for everyone. Not enough for some to hoard, or have more than others, but enough for all of us to have what we need... not necessarily what we want, but what we need. This concept runs all the way through Scripture.
But here in our twenty first century Western culture, this is not a concept we are familiar with. We are taught to take all we can; to satiate all of our desires, never concerning ourselves with whether or not everyone else has their basic needs met. But maybe as many of us concern ourselves with how we will pay the bills this Christmas season, it's a perfect time to step back and ask God if we can take this "enough for all" idea seriously.
I'm hopelessly practical. When I began to see this as a thread throughout Scripture, my wife and I decided to test it. We began to really watch and see if there was enough when so many don't have their basic needs met. One evening, we walked out of the grocery store to see two store employees dumping boxes full of fruits and vegetables into the dumpster. "What's wrong with that stuff?" I asked. They looked at me, a little perturbed–I was interrupting their chance to get a smoke before going back into the store. "Uh," one of them grunted, "It's not pretty anymore?"
Surprised, I responded, "Really, that's it? You're tossing it just 'cause it's bruised fruit?" In his best Beavis and Butt-head impersonation, the other chuckled and said, "Yeah, dude. Pretty much." "Well, can I have it then," I asked as patiently as I could. With a devious grin and a quick wink he replied, "Not while we're looking." At which point they both turned their heads, taking long drags off their cigarettes. I couldn't take it all. I could only fit about a third of what they had on their cart in my trunk, which ended up amounting to about 50 pounds of apples. The next day, we cleaned all of the apples and along with our friends made countless jars of apple sauce and apple butter. One big box of apples that would've been hauled off to the city dump became gifts for friends of ours all over the country–and for folks we don't know as we supplied our friends with jars to give away.
The day after Thanksgiving, thousands of Americans head for the shopping malls for a ritual known as Black Friday, called such as it’s a day when many retailers move from the red (losses) into the black (gains).Who knows if this year will be like most others for retailers. But I'd challenge you to take this year off from Black Friday. Instead, celebrate Make Something Day. Inspired by Buy Nothing Day–which was pioneered by the creators of Adbusters magazine, more and more of us celebrate Make Something Day the day after Thanksgiving attempting re-use and recycle what we can to make our gifts rather than purchase them.
It's not an earth-shattering idea. It won't feed the world's hungry. But maybe you'll learn, like we did, that we are more than consumers. Rather, we are the creation of God, and we carry the same creative spirit within each of us. Maybe you'll discover, like we did, that if we get creative there is more to go around than we thought.
I invite you to de-commodify your soul and join us on November 27 to buy nothing and make something.
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