Here We Go Again...

I wrote my last post on the first of November about one holiday. Now it's the end of November, and I write this evening about another holiday. I know - I do it every year. I don't mean to beat a dead horse here, except that it's far from a dead one. My kids are confronted with this horse repeatedly this time of year, year after year.

Anyway, Scarlett and I were at Kroger Saturday, and there was a man dressed in a Santa costume near the check-out lines. Interesting random note - Scarlett was delighted to see him, just as she was excited by the person in a turkey costume last week. It's just funny, as she seems to be a reserved little person in general, but greets these characters with great gusto, rather than any kind of reservation, and in fact chased the turkey around the very busy store last week. Likewise, she hailed the Santa person loudly, and was going to go after him, but he made his way over to her. And of course, he opened with the typical question, before doling out a candy cane - "Have you been good?' 

I've never launched into a tirade against well-meaning people who ask that question around Christmas (or before - since for heaven's sake, I'm just looking forward to Thanksgiving at this point), but I did say, as I always do, "Of course she's been good," because yes, on one level, she's been quite good. Her existence is good thing. I give her good gifts because she's mine, and I love her, not because she behaves in convenient ways. So I wanted to say, "Do you intend to give her a candy cane or not? Let's just don't do the 'have you been good' dance." But, as I mentioned, I didn't. I did, however, start thinking about the "good" concept as we drove home a few minutes later. I was reminded of the passages in Romans that the kids are studying this year, particularly the memory verses on which Ryan worked very hard (and got a question on in the quiz meet last week!). "As it is written, none is righteous, no not one. No one understands; no one seeks for God." (Romans 3:10-11).

Here we are in the holiday in which many kids are led along by the "have you been good enough?" notion, and my kids are reading, hearing, learning, memorizing passage after passage that tells them in no uncertain terms, "It doesn't matter who you are, or what you do, you are, in fact, NOT good enough." And that's what I love about Bible quizzing. I know I've said it before, but it's one of my favorite things - quizzing gives kids God's Word straight up, no frills, no niceties. And at this particular time of year, it puts in bold terms what is the real and true wonder of Christmas. Because Paul doesn't leave it at that, of course, but spells out over and over again, that we aren't good enough - or too bad - for the the free gift. There's no "magic" here, people, because magic is unreliable. And there's no dancing around all year to see if you can land on the spirit of Christmas. Did you get it right? Gifts. Did you throw a tantrum in the store in October? You skirted on the edge of losing it all - whew. Well, actually, maybe you did! How could you possibly know? Well, there were gifts, so it must have been okay - do the dance again next year and hope it turns out again!

No, here, the gift is completely free and completely available - it comes through one man, Jesus, and it makes all completely set right. Completely. It's done. No questions, no doubts,, no manipulation, no guilt, no condemnation, That's what makes the difference between Jesus and Santa Claus so sharp, and that's why those of us who choose to steer clear of the Santa routine do what we do. Can you enjoy some aspects of the Santa thing and still keep the message of this free gift in Jesus pure? Fine! Have fun! (And you know what? We watch movies like Elf, and sometimes sing Rudolph the Red nosed Reindeer.) But when Santa (or any other Christmas tradition) starts overshadowing the truth that Christmas is all about NOT being good enough - and about the free gift that was offered at great cost for no other reason that that God loves us - then I don't have a problem saying that it's not a good thing.

Also, when you're threatening your child in Target to stop throwing a fit or "Santa won't come!"...well, that gets a bit of a rise out of me, too.

A Note from the Fringe Minority

We didn't do any trick or treating last night. In fact, no one in our neighborhood did, as it was postponed until tonight because of the weather.  But we won't be trick-or-treating tonight, either, and while I wasn't going to post about Halloween this year, as I have in years past, I've read a couple of blogs and articles this year that have raised a rather irksome issue concerning Christians and Halloween. They share a theme that takes the issue from merely discussing the question of whether Christians can or can't participate in Halloween activities to insinuating - and in one case, more overtly declaring - that it's actually unChristian to abstain completely from such activities. And that, to me, is  both disturbing and incredibly frustrating.

Now, if you are a friend of mine who has shared an article or blog that you think probably broached this topic, please know that I never for a second thought that you were judging me. I assumed that what you shared was something that touched on an aspect of how your Christian family approaches Halloween, and I didn't assume that you embraced everything in the article, or that, if you did, you were making a pointed attack at my family. Goodness, I've shared plenty of "controversial" articles as food for thought, and I've had to respond to people who were offended by one isolated point the author made, or who were offended by the whole thing and wanted to know why I ascribed to such ideas - and I never intended for anyone to think I took the author's word as gospel. So I wouldn't and didn't assume the same of you, I promise.

That said, I did find this theme disturbing, as I've mentioned. Our family doesn't celebrate Halloween at all. Some people know this about us, and other don't, because we don't make a big deal about it (I don't think). Each year, we have to explain our reasons to the kids, and emphasize that we have good friends who do celebrate, to varying degrees, and that's not our business. If they can do so in faith, then it's perfectly fine. But we can't, and so we won't. We respect the rights of others to do what they are permitted to do within their faith (we're talking about issues not directly addressed in Scripture, of course), and others surely respect our right simply to abstain from something we can't do with a clear conscience, right?

Wrong.

Many of our close friends and family do respect our choices, of course, but a good number of people, including fellow believers, have expressed everything from incredulity to contempt over those choices. We're accustomed to the usual objections that we're robbing the kids of a fun childhood experience. One would hope that at least other believers, given enough time to think through it, would acknowledge that the "fun" factor of any activity is far from a good enough reason to do it. That we're putting the kids in a very small minority of Western children, by keeping them from participating in a popular holiday, is also not even worth defending. And we've heard that Christians don't have to participate in the scary stuff, but that there's no harm in dressing up and collecting candy. Fine. If there's "no harm" in it, then there's no harm in us not participating. It shouldn't really be an issue. But now apparently there's a new argument - although perhaps it isn't new, and I'm only just hearing it. Now, we're hiding our light if we don't trick-or-treat, or at least hand out candy.

What? We don't say a word about the involvement of anyone else, Christian or not. We don't shun our neighbors or friends during the month of October, go door-to-door decrying the evils of the holiday, or even respond at all when people decorate or talk about it. We go out of our way not to make an issue of it. If we did talk about our position, with gentleness and respect, it would just be to explain what we believe, not to condemn anyone else. But we don't do that unless asked. That doesn't seem to be enough, however. It's really too much for us to be "weird" about things and just not do them, and in fact, we're missing an opportunity to be missional.

Dear friends, I don't know if any of you actually believe this, but if you do, I implore you to reconsider. This is a matter of personal conscience, of a desire not to quench the Holy Spirit in our own hearts, about one particular day in the year. It isn't about YOU. If you feel threatened or defensive, then that's something you need to take up with the Lord personally. If you feel Halloween is an opportunity for YOU to "shine your light" in ways you can't at any other time, then great. But condemning (oh, the irony!) those of us in the teeny tiny minority of people who simply stay home and keep their lights off - who simply don't participate in something - is unnecessary and - dare I say it? - wrong. You are insisting that we sin by doing something that we can't do in faith. It might be harmless to you, but unless we can say that we are doing it from a place of faith, from a place of believing that it is truly a good thing that would please God, then it would be sin for us to do it.

We'll remain in that teeny tiny minority, as usual. That's fine. We're in it in almost every other area in life, too, so we're used to it by now! It's usually fine. But this rubbed me just a bit the wrong way.