On
several occasions I have persuaded George Lynch to tell his story about fellow
students at Union Theological Seminary in Virginia kidnapping the baby Jesus from the manger of the Christmas crèche, holding him hostage
until the food in the dining hall was improved.
As
funny as this may be, it has occurred to me during this Advent season that many
if not most of us have kidnapped Jesus for our own purposes, one who is particularly
vulnerable at this time of year—an infant, a tabula rasa, in a season
sentimentalized by memories, stories, films, fund raisers, and marketers.
This
thought came to me as I switched back and forth between the enchanting boys’
choir Libera singing Christmas songs in Saint Patrick’s Cathedral in Northern
Ireland and the pop singers belting out Christmas hits in New York’s Rockefeller
Plaza in preparation for lighting its Christmas tree. When PBS gave its long
pleas for pledges I switched to NBC; when NBC went to commercial or had a
particularly raucous performer I switched back to PBS.
My
temptation was to judge NBC’s loud celebration of Christmas, given my greater
pleasure of the quieter and gentler voices of the boys’ choir, using the
metaphor of kidnapping Jesus—but then I realized I would be equally guilty of
abducting Jesus for my own agenda. After all, NBC’s style of Christmas
observance would suit me and perhaps any of us in a different mood or context,
and it was only a little more commercial than PBS’s use of its concert as a fundraising
tool and Libera’s promotion of CDs and DVDs.
And
here I’m using all of this as content for this post—though my blog is hardly
“commercial,” given my rejection of ads on the site, and that donations for
this year have totaled just $625 as we approach a total of 100,000 visits since
this blog’s inception!
Whoops—did
I just try to “kidnap” Jesus myself?!
Earlier
that day, folding laundry, I listened to NPR. As I rolled my t-shirts, another
segment in their series about where t-shirts come from made me think about
where Jesus came from. The series has highlighted the market forces that have
clothing manufacturers moving from region to region, from country to country,
in search of the cheapest and most exploitable labor to make the very t-shirts
I was folding. “The clothing industry
follows poverty,” one expert explained.
It
stunned me.
Regardless
of the various agendas for which we have kidnapped Jesus, it’s pretty universally
believed that he came from poverty, illiteracy, and obscurity. He would have
been the perfect employee to satisfy our taste for cheap goods.
Thank
God he was given a different vocation.
Be sure to catch next week’s post on Christmas day:
Related post:
Post related to the recent Sound of Music live television
production:
Progressive Christian
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Chris, Chris,Chris---are you Christopher as in "Christ-bearer"? I think you are. What you wrote today has shaped the direction of my thinking---a lot because it is open. I am not sure what you are saying. It directs my questions. A good teacher inspires students to ask the right questions I think. There was water-boy who alone of workers building cathedral said he was "building a cathedral". T-shirt worker who says he is "loving who will wear it". The one who wears it receiving that love consciously now. yes! awareness precludes thieving. Awareness overwhelms. They say our brain maybe acting as filter eases us into awareness. Jesus can show us a way to complete the circuit. And then LIfe, Love, God, you---happen.
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