“Good works is giving to the
poor and the helpless, but divine works is showing them their worth to the One
who matters.”
― Criss Jami
― Criss Jami
Another hard subject for me these days…the sanctuary of
GIVING. I can’t avoid it though,
Christmas is a primary time in the course of our year that most embraces the
sanctuary of Giving. Why is it hard for
me right now? I’m not sure, except that
I feel like I’m in a season of such introspection that it easily borders on, and
slips and slides into self-centeredness.
That’s my fear, anyway.
To help me, I googled quotes on giving. There’s a lot of good stuff that we all know
about fullness of life, the value of giving over receiving, the joy of selflessness and relinquishing
things we tend to want to hold tight to.
But, I particularly liked this one by post-modern poet and philosopher Criss
Jami. It reminded me of the Wise Men in our Christmas story. They are the ones after all that remind us of
the sanctuary of giving.
We don’t know much about them except they came from
somewhere East, they liked to interpret the stars, they evidently were quite comfortable looking up a local king in the phone book and
asking directions – which probably placed them in the upper tier of the rich
and famous. Somehow, in their cosmological studies, they figured out a great
king was soon to be born. So, they
loaded up the caravan with some interesting and quite expensive gifts and headed
out, pointing the camel noses west. When they finally reached their destination,
we see that their gift-giving was primarily a way to give honor to a life they
deemed to be of great value and significance.
This is a little different than the way we usually plan our
Christmas giving, isn’t it? What if we were to make our Christmas lists…checking
them twice…but to figure out what gift would best honor the great value and significance the lives of our
friends and family represent to us? The
Magi’s gifts weren’t about what they personally liked…and they weren’t about
what Baby Jesus would like, or need, or was age-appropriate to him, or even
about Mary and Joseph (although the gold probably came in handy!). Their gifts were to mark what they believed
the future significance was of this newborn life to the world and to the “One
who matters.” No one quite understood
the gifts at the time, I’m sure. Yet, to
this day, I would guess that most people with some passing acquaintance to
Christianity can still name the three gifts.
Gold: the substance
of greatest human value; Frankincense: the good-smelling incense that mingled
the aroma that signified spiritual world and worship with our mortal senses; and Myrrh:
the perfume for anointing the dead – an ominous symbol of sacrifice and death. So, not exactly toys you’d likely find in a
baby’s crib! But, gifts that demonstrate
this baby’s worth to the One who matters,
and to the whole world. What would it be
like to consider our Christmas gifts with that criteria? Hmm. Dashing into Target or Walmart and hitting
the gift card display doesn’t quite make it, does it?
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