By Walter Simpson
Buffalo, NY – As a kid, I loved Christmas. I relished making my list and anticipating all the goodies. It was a wonderful time of the year. But Christmas stopped making sense to me when I reached my late teens.
I remember staring out my bedroom window one Christmas Eve in despair over the poverty and suffering in the world. I could not believe that we - who had everything - were celebrating the birth of Jesus by giving ourselves even more. I came to hate the materialism, commercialism, and hypocrisy of Christmas. Now with children of my own, I've compromised so they can have the Christmas all kids want. But I still feel an unease. I withdraw. It is a hard season for me.
Each year, my wife Nan and I try to find ways to redeem Christmas but we always come up short. This year we donated to the Buffalo News' Neediest Fund, to Katrina relief, and gave away winter jackets and other clothes. Also, in search of the real meaning of Christmas, I decided to read Fulton Oursler's classic "The Greatest Story Ever Told" about the life of Jesus.
The plain fact is that my relationship with Jesus has always been muddled.
I was brought up Presbyterian in a middle class congregation which - during my high school years -- decided to raise a hundred thousand dollars to replace a parish house which was connected to the main church building. The idea was to upgrade church facilities to attract new, richer members.
But I liked the old parish house. And I thought if we Christians really could raise a hundred thousand dollars (a large sum of money in those days), we should be giving it to the poor and hungry and not spending it on ourselves.
Not surprisingly, I was in the minority on this issue and the new parish house was built. The church got its new members but it lost me. I went away to college alienated, wanting nothing to do with organized religion.
As I contemplated the meaning of Christmas this year, I realized that I am still drawn to the example of Jesus and still put off by Christian hypocrisy. Sharing my discomfort, but embracing His message, my wife tells me not to throw baby Jesus out with the bath water. And I try not to.
Let's face it, it's difficult for members of the Christian faith not to be hypocritical because Jesus set such high standards for behavior. Who but Jesus could live a completely selfless life of love and devotion? Some people genuinely aspire to this but few can achieve it.
Others are Christian in name only. They are haters or they pretend to be following Jesus' light while accumulating material wealth and praying for their own prosperity.
Of course, if we look back in history we find much worse hypocrisies -- the Crusades and Inquisition, for example - where mass violence and oppression ruled in the name of Christianity.
Today the most egregious example of phony Christianity is that of our President and his conservative Christian supporters who have made tax cuts for the rich a priority while cutting the programs which help the poor. Jesus warned against laying up riches on earth. He served the poor. And, as for waging war, well, who . . . would Jesus bomb?
Years ago, I learned a lesson about Christian ethics from my friend and mentor, Doc Kase, a retired Christian minister who I met while canoeing in Algonquin Park. One time while discussing the nuclear arms race with activist friends of mine, he shocked us all by arguing for unilateral nuclear disarmament. Christ was clear on this, he explained. He called on us to "love our enemies" and "turn the other cheek." For Jesus, threatening violence and using force was never an answer.
Thus, our government's war on terrorism and its war in Iraq are fundamentally un-Christian. Maybe we are not prepared to adopt Jesus' radical non-violence in matters of foreign policy. Maybe we think cornering the world's oil market is good cause for war. Irrespective of how we justify killing and torturing people, let's insist that these acts no longer be called Christian acts. Who would Jesus bomb? No one, not even the bad guys.
For Christmas I sent the President a postcard which read: Matthew 5:9, "Blessed are the peacemakers, for they will be called the children of God."
As unlikely as it seems, this Christian skeptic had a "Jesus moment" on Christmas morning while reading a newspaper story about a woman with kidney disease who was going to receive a kidney from a young man who had been her foster child. Tears welled up in my eyes as I read that this woman and her husband had been foster parents for 66 other children over a thirty year period. These generous souls might be Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu or atheist for all I know, but it seemed to me that their actions epitomized Christ's love and compassion.
"Reality Check" with Walter Simpson is a monthly feature of WBFO News.
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