The Night Before Christmas Eve in the Inn

'Twas the night before Christmas Eve, and all through the activity center, hardly a creature was stirring—just an occasional homeless man shuffling to the bathroom or slipping outside for a midnight smoke. I would settle down for a long nap, but I'm a very light sleeper. Unfamiliar noises will disturb my shallow sleep. And well before dawn there will arise such a clatter in the kitchen when Santa arrives (everyone in our church knows Santa), that I'll be wide awake in spite of myself.

So this seems a good time to sit quietly and reflect on the evening just past, and the evening to come, and the evening that inspired these evenings.

Tonight was the annual Christmas party for the guests in our Room In The Inn ministry. Each Tuesday evening through the winter, 24 homeless men come to spend the night in our church's gym. They receive a hot meal, a hot shower, clean clothing, and a safe and friendly place to spend the night before returning downtown. It's part of an interdenominational effort in our city to provide shelter from the winter nights.

A fried chicken dinner was served by a busy team of friendly elves (well, friendly church members). In addition to the usual clothing distributed in our benevolence center, Santa brought each man a brand new winter coat and a small gift bag with gloves and socks and the like (he wasn't wearing his outfit, but I could imagine him doing what he did in a red suit).

At dinner I chatted with L.W. and James, mostly about where they grew up and how they came to our city (but inside, I was mostly curious about the causes of the limps and scars which were painfully obvious). In the background was a television showing a Christmas special. One of the guys asked who the singer was (it was Faith Hill) and said he really liked the song (it was "A Baby Changes Everything"). I wondered why he liked it. Was it the beautiful singing? Or had the baby changed something in his life? Or was he drawn to the hope that it might?

After supper, I swapped jokes with Howard and Willie. I learned that some 25 years ago Willie used to be the custodian at our church. Now he has no job, no home, and no family except for an 88-year-old aunt. Everyone here has a story, but I think Willie's will bother me for awhile. Twenty-five years ago he was cleaning our church . . . now he's sleeping in it.

Patrick came to me privately with a 5 dollar bill in his hand and said he wanted to pay his tithes. I told him to keep it, but he insisted that God had given it to him and he was going to pay his tithes. If I didn't take it, he would find a church that would. So I thanked him and passed his offering on to those who will use it for other guests in the inn. And it occurred to me that he gave more than any of us had given last Sunday, who "contributed out of our abundance."

Later Cole and Joe taught me how to play a game of dominoes (or more accurately, "taught me how to lose a game of dominoes"). We laughed a lot. They got a kick out of trash talking with the pastor.

I found myself wondering where they would play tomorrow night.

Tomorrow night I will spend Christmas Eve with my family—with my wife, with my daughter and her new husband, with my son who just flew in yesterday from Texas, with my parents, with my mother-in-law, with my brother and his family who will arrive tomorrow from Texas, and with my other brother and his family who are driving in from Illinois where they narrowly escaped a blizzard (he is gladly leaving behind a white Christmas for a tender Tennessee Christmas!). We will eat too much in anticipation of eating even more on Christmas Day. We will open a few gifts in anticipation of opening even more on Christmas Day. We will attend a Christmas Eve service with many other faithful who have come to adore him. And like them all, we will leave the warm glow of the candlelight to nestle snug in our beds for the silent night.

That's where I'll be tomorrow night.

I don't know where L.W. and James and Howard and Willie and Patrick and Cole and Joe will spend Christmas Eve.

On the holy night, when the children fall asleep to visions of sugar plums, I think I may find I'm still wondering about Willie.

Is Christmas Fatal?

“It’s the most wonderful time of the year—with the kids jingle-belling and everyone telling you, ‘Be of good cheer!’ It’s the most wonderful time of the year!”

I love Christmas . . . I really do. Despite anything you are about to read, I do love Christmas. I love the songs. The lights. Our Christmas tree with the angel on top. The turkey and dressing. The colorful packages under the tree. Attending a Christmas Eve service. My mom’s cinnamon rolls on Christmas morning. The turkey and dressing. The holiday movies. The decorations my wife puts out all through the house. Family gatherings. The turkey and dressing . . . pretty much all of it.

But over the years some of my feelings about Christmas have certainly been changing. Part of that change had to do with my family rediscovering a religious meaning to the holiday that had been missing during my early childhood. That rediscovery led to new family traditions such as the annual setting out of the nativity scene. Attending Christmas Eve services at various churches in the cities where we have lived. Adding more religious ornaments to the mix of ornaments on the tree. More giving to the poor and less shopping for each other. And in my ministry it has led to sermons in December which shift our focus from the holiday shopping season to the season of Advent.

That shift has also led to an increasing concern over the commercialization and materialism of Christmas. “Concern” is no longer an adequate word. I moved a few years ago from “concern” to “displeasure” at the continuing expansion of the shopping season till Christmas displays seemed to show up in stores on Labor Day. And then to “disgust” as year after year news reports spread of fights breaking out among frenzied parents trying to get the latest hot item for their already spoiled children.

But now the Christmas avarice has descended to a new low.

In the mad rush of shoppers on the morning after Thanksgiving, a Walmart employee was trampled to death by a stampede frantic to get their hands on whatever was on sale. Trampled to death! Like a cowboy who fell off his horse before a crazed herd of cattle. Trampled to death!

He gave his life in service to . . . to what? To his country, in an act of selfless bravery defending life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness? To his family, working in a dangerous occupation to put food on the table? To citizens in danger, braving calamity or crime to protect precious innocent lives?

No, he gave his life in service to a horde of bargain hunters so desperate to save a few bucks, to secure some highly prized piece of merchandise, to be the first one on the block to have whatever it is that everyone on the block wants to have, that they abandoned all sense of order, propriety, courtesy, decency, even humanity.

His was not the only death that day. Something died in that mob. Call it “the Christmas Spirit” (but I suspect that may have died in them some time ago). Call it “love for one’s fellow man.” Call it “human decency.” Whatever you call it, in that moment at least, they killed not only another human being, they killed something in themselves.

Or maybe, it was already dead. Maybe the frenzy of what Christmas has become had already choked it to death . . . slowly . . . year by frenzied year. And maybe it is choking us, too.

Jesus once said, “Be on your guard against all kinds of greed.” I wonder if he even imagined that some day the celebration of his own birth would become known for its own kind of greed. This Christmas let’s all be on our guard against Christmas greed—it seems to be a fatal condition.



If you’d like to consider some alternatives to a materialistic Christmas, here are a couple of websites that you may find helpful:

http://www.adventconspiracy.org/

http://www.redefine-christmas.org/