Later this week, I will be hosting a lunch for those upon whose work I depend in my role as Archbishop. After a hearty sing, we shall sit down to a hearty dinner, which I would have spent the morning preparing and cooking.
Christmas celebrations are among the best, because they remind us that Christmas is in many ways an RSVP from God, inviting us to the party of our lives. At Christmas, each of us is reminded anew of that most marvellous and astounding of invitations from God and that our Maker is not only looking for us, but actually desires the pleasure of our company.
A poll this week, carried out for the think tank Theos, suggested that 86 per cent of people said spending time with family and friends was the best thing about Christmas, compared with seven per cent who said time off work, three per cent who said food and drink and only two per cent who said presents. Despite the rejection of materialism that this poll suggests, the commercialised pressure to spend, spend, spend, means that, for almost half of those questioned, it is the financial strains that are cited as the worst thing about Christmas.
The figures for our national spend in the run-up to Christmas are staggering. According to a report by Credit Action, total spending in the United Kingdom is predicted to reach £51.6 billion during this month. Festive spending on plastic is set to reach £31.8 billion (which is an 11.6 per cent increase on last December). In the 10 weeks to Christmas, some 25 million people are expected to spend £7 billion online — £4 million every hour day and night. The average adult will spend £863 on Christmas. This includes £378 on presents, £163 on food and drink. The rest is spent on wrapping paper, cards and postage (£53); Christmas tree and decorations (£64); socialising (£121) and travel (£84).
Little wonder that, according to the credit reference agency Experian, three in four Britons admit to worrying about financial pressures during the festive season. The festive season is turning into "Stressmas", because 20 per cent of people are still paying off their Christmas spend up to six months later.
As a nation, it seems we are expressing a double-mindedness about Christmas that is reflected in our wider lives. While the Theos poll suggests that eight out of 10 people think that celebrating the birth of Christ is still an important part of Christmas, British Airways spends the "season of good peace and goodwill" trying to work out how it can accommodate Nadia Eweida, whose desire is to express her faith through the wearing of a Cross barely the size of a 5p piece in the way other employees have been allowed to express their faith.
Spiritual values become subject to commercial decisions, the desire to express faith compromised by the desire to maintain a brand. Questions about the most important aspect of our existence become secondary to questions of health and safety, and potential legal challenges from druids claiming discrimination.
As leading brands invest in new forms of neurological scanning in order to see how best our brains react to brands and brand loyalty, the spiritual values that many people rightly acknowledge at the heart of Christmas are subjected to an assault of materialism.
As the actress Imogen Stubbs noted: "What will happen when, tired of accruing facts, jargon, logos, trivia, soundbites and cool material trophies, our children dare to stop and reflect and ask us: 'If life is only about getting from now until death as lucratively and divertingly as possible — what is the point? Why didn't you prepare us for the questions of life?' " The monk and writer Thomas Merton put it another way: "If you want to know who I am, don't ask me where I live and what I do, but rather ask me what I am living for and ask me in very small particulars why I am doing so little about it."
Those things that we believe to be most valuable are subjugated to those less important things that come to dominate. Our proper desire to provide for ourselves and our families spills over to the less helpful desire to spend more than we need. In discovering the joys of living simply, we can use our resources to ensure that others may simply live.
God's pattern is different to ours. The gift given to us comes struggling to escape from the tinsel and wrapping that disguises its coming and is the gift of Hope. It comes simply, in the form of a child, born into stark poverty, without a glimmer of material excess. Here is the very heart of the Christian faith: not a threat, but an invitation. God coming to us as a baby to do for us that which we could not do for ourselves. Offering us his very life of love and justice.
To appreciate fully the Christmas story, we need to rediscover the child of Hope that is within each of us. To throw away our mantles of cynicism does not require us to remove our brains and accept unquestioningly. An open mind, like an open heart, requires us to remove the hurt and bitterness born of disappointment and failure, and replace it with the child-like hope that we once possessed and are forever trying to fill with things. We are wonderfully and fearfully made. Nothing can fill the void but God alone.
The self-sacrificing love of God for his creation places an infinite value on everyone's head. There are no exceptions. Five young women, savagely slaughtered in Suffolk this month, were and are beloved of God. Soldiers, citizens and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people on all sides in the Sudan and especially Darfur, are equally valued.
As we gaze intently into the manger this Christmas, we must leave room alongside ourselves for unexpected companions. We may have to make our peace with them. We can only be sure that we ourselves are prized if we know God has no favourites. If God is in pursuit of us, then to encounter God we simply have to stop running away and turn round. Then we are likely to find the unexpected God in unexpected places.
This Christmas, people will be worshipping in Darfur and Beijing and Islamabad, as well as New York and London and Rome. Some will join together with thousands of voices to sing familiar hymns to usher in the birth of the Christ-child, others will be obliged to worship furtively in lands where singing a Christmas carol can lead to imprisonment or torture.
There will also be near-believers or those who would describe themselves as "flickering somewhere between an agnostic and a mild believer", as Jeff Randall did in these pages a week or two ago. All are welcome and all are invited to the feast.
May God grant us all a restful, joyful and peace-filled Christmas.
by Dr John Sentamu - Archbishop of York
Christmas celebrations are among the best, because they remind us that Christmas is in many ways an RSVP from God, inviting us to the party of our lives. At Christmas, each of us is reminded anew of that most marvellous and astounding of invitations from God and that our Maker is not only looking for us, but actually desires the pleasure of our company.
A poll this week, carried out for the think tank Theos, suggested that 86 per cent of people said spending time with family and friends was the best thing about Christmas, compared with seven per cent who said time off work, three per cent who said food and drink and only two per cent who said presents. Despite the rejection of materialism that this poll suggests, the commercialised pressure to spend, spend, spend, means that, for almost half of those questioned, it is the financial strains that are cited as the worst thing about Christmas.
The figures for our national spend in the run-up to Christmas are staggering. According to a report by Credit Action, total spending in the United Kingdom is predicted to reach £51.6 billion during this month. Festive spending on plastic is set to reach £31.8 billion (which is an 11.6 per cent increase on last December). In the 10 weeks to Christmas, some 25 million people are expected to spend £7 billion online — £4 million every hour day and night. The average adult will spend £863 on Christmas. This includes £378 on presents, £163 on food and drink. The rest is spent on wrapping paper, cards and postage (£53); Christmas tree and decorations (£64); socialising (£121) and travel (£84).
Little wonder that, according to the credit reference agency Experian, three in four Britons admit to worrying about financial pressures during the festive season. The festive season is turning into "Stressmas", because 20 per cent of people are still paying off their Christmas spend up to six months later.
As a nation, it seems we are expressing a double-mindedness about Christmas that is reflected in our wider lives. While the Theos poll suggests that eight out of 10 people think that celebrating the birth of Christ is still an important part of Christmas, British Airways spends the "season of good peace and goodwill" trying to work out how it can accommodate Nadia Eweida, whose desire is to express her faith through the wearing of a Cross barely the size of a 5p piece in the way other employees have been allowed to express their faith.
Spiritual values become subject to commercial decisions, the desire to express faith compromised by the desire to maintain a brand. Questions about the most important aspect of our existence become secondary to questions of health and safety, and potential legal challenges from druids claiming discrimination.
As leading brands invest in new forms of neurological scanning in order to see how best our brains react to brands and brand loyalty, the spiritual values that many people rightly acknowledge at the heart of Christmas are subjected to an assault of materialism.
As the actress Imogen Stubbs noted: "What will happen when, tired of accruing facts, jargon, logos, trivia, soundbites and cool material trophies, our children dare to stop and reflect and ask us: 'If life is only about getting from now until death as lucratively and divertingly as possible — what is the point? Why didn't you prepare us for the questions of life?' " The monk and writer Thomas Merton put it another way: "If you want to know who I am, don't ask me where I live and what I do, but rather ask me what I am living for and ask me in very small particulars why I am doing so little about it."
Those things that we believe to be most valuable are subjugated to those less important things that come to dominate. Our proper desire to provide for ourselves and our families spills over to the less helpful desire to spend more than we need. In discovering the joys of living simply, we can use our resources to ensure that others may simply live.
God's pattern is different to ours. The gift given to us comes struggling to escape from the tinsel and wrapping that disguises its coming and is the gift of Hope. It comes simply, in the form of a child, born into stark poverty, without a glimmer of material excess. Here is the very heart of the Christian faith: not a threat, but an invitation. God coming to us as a baby to do for us that which we could not do for ourselves. Offering us his very life of love and justice.
To appreciate fully the Christmas story, we need to rediscover the child of Hope that is within each of us. To throw away our mantles of cynicism does not require us to remove our brains and accept unquestioningly. An open mind, like an open heart, requires us to remove the hurt and bitterness born of disappointment and failure, and replace it with the child-like hope that we once possessed and are forever trying to fill with things. We are wonderfully and fearfully made. Nothing can fill the void but God alone.
The self-sacrificing love of God for his creation places an infinite value on everyone's head. There are no exceptions. Five young women, savagely slaughtered in Suffolk this month, were and are beloved of God. Soldiers, citizens and insurgents in Iraq and Afghanistan, and people on all sides in the Sudan and especially Darfur, are equally valued.
As we gaze intently into the manger this Christmas, we must leave room alongside ourselves for unexpected companions. We may have to make our peace with them. We can only be sure that we ourselves are prized if we know God has no favourites. If God is in pursuit of us, then to encounter God we simply have to stop running away and turn round. Then we are likely to find the unexpected God in unexpected places.
This Christmas, people will be worshipping in Darfur and Beijing and Islamabad, as well as New York and London and Rome. Some will join together with thousands of voices to sing familiar hymns to usher in the birth of the Christ-child, others will be obliged to worship furtively in lands where singing a Christmas carol can lead to imprisonment or torture.
There will also be near-believers or those who would describe themselves as "flickering somewhere between an agnostic and a mild believer", as Jeff Randall did in these pages a week or two ago. All are welcome and all are invited to the feast.
May God grant us all a restful, joyful and peace-filled Christmas.
by Dr John Sentamu - Archbishop of York
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