Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The first reading is titled \u201cJingle Coins.\u201d It\u2019s a parody of \u201cJingle Bells\u201d which Dan learned from the San Francisco Rocking Solidarity Labor Chorus:<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Dashing through the mall, I\u2019m spending all the way,
I\u2019ve got to buy more gifts, it\u2019s almost Christmas day!
And then I go online and buy more useless stuff;
I have no self-esteem which means I\u2019ll never buy enough.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jingle coins, jingle coins, credit cards from banks,
Retailers are in the black, and so we all give thanks;
Jingle coins, jingle coins, money in their tills,
Oh, what fun it is to shop, and to call it all good will!<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The junk I buy all comes from China and Hong Kong,
Where there\u2019s no overtime, workdays are twelve hours long;
They get so little pay they almost work for free,
So I can buy cheap ornaments to dangle from my tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And when I get the bill, I\u2019ll find out what I spent,
Twelve thousand seven hundred bucks and fifty-seven cents.
Who cares if I\u2019m in debt, it doesn\u2019t bother me,
As long as I\u2019ve got heaps of junk to stash under the tree.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The second reading comes from the Christian scriptures, the Gospel according to Luke, chapter 18. This translation is by Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover, and the Jesus Seminar.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Someone from the ruling class asked Jesus, \u201cGood teacher, what do I have to do to inherit eternal life?\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Jesus said to him, \u201cWhy do you call me good? No one is good except God alone. You know the commandments: \u2018You are not to commit adultery; you must not murder, or steal, and you are not to give false testimony; you are to honor your father and mother.\u2019\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And [the man] said, \u201cI have observed these since I was a child.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Jesus heard this, he said, \u201cYou are still short one thing. Sell everything you have and distribute the proceeds among the poor, and you will heave treasure in heaven. And then come, follow me.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But when [the man] heard this, he became very sad, for he was extremely rich.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When Jesus observed that he had become sad, he said, \u201cHow difficult it is for those with real money to enter God\u2019s domain! It\u2019s easier for a camel to squeeze through a needle\u2019s eye than for a wealthy person to get into God\u2019s domain.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Back in 2010, I sang for a short time with the San Francisco Labor Chorus, and in the first reading you heard the words to \u201cJingle Coins,\u201d a parody song they used to sing. I may not have remembered the words exactly right, but the opening lines went: \u201cDashing through the mall, I\u2019m spending all the way, \/ I\u2019ve got to buy more gifts, it\u2019s almost Christmas day!\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s easy to parody Christmas. It\u2019s easy to see Christmas as just an excuse for buying lots of useless stuff, an excuse for consumerism. Honestly, that interpretation is not exactly wrong. Businesses do in fact see Christmas as an opportunity for selling more stuff to all of us. And equally honestly, it\u2019s fun shopping for other people; it\u2019s fun buying Christmas trees and holiday ornaments. It\u2019s a cheerful thing to do.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Christmas shopping is so fun and cheerful that American consumers are projected to spend a total of $1.2 trillion dollars on holiday shopping (see end note). Admittedly, holiday shopping also includes Hannukah spending and Kwanzaa spending and Diwali spending; but let\u2019s be honest, in the United States nearly all of the spending is on Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
If we translate that into billions of dollars, that\u2019s 1,200 billion dollars. If we look at the other top three holidays for total spending, Mother\u2019s Day is in second place with total spending of 36 billion dollars, while Valentines Day and Easter are tied for third place with 24 billion dollars each. Total Father\u2019s Day spending reaches about 23 billion; Super Bowl spending about 15 billion; Halloween spending about $10 billion; Independence Day about 9 billion; and St. Patrick\u2019s Day is a measly 6 billion. I wasn\u2019t able to find any information on the spending habits of other holidays, so presumably those other holidays have so little spending that it’s lost in the noise.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Now, if you add together the non-Christmas holiday shopping events, the grand total comes to roughly 150 billion dollars. Compare that to 1,200 billion dollars spent for the winter holidays. We Americans spend eight times as much during the winter holiday shopping season as we do in all the other lesser holidays combined. We Americans spend an astonishing amount of money on Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every year, we\u2019ll hear from devout Christians who tell us that this is A Bad Thing. These devout Christians will tell us: Christmas is supposed to be a religious holiday, not a consumer holiday. The most sincere among them might even refer to our reading from the Christian scriptures, reminding us that wealth may prevent us from living a truly Christian life.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Every year, we\u2019ll also hear from devout atheists who also tell us that all this Christmas spending is A Bad Thing. The devout atheists have a different explanation for why Christmas spending is A Bad Thing. They will point out that ours is supposed to be a secular society, and a religious holiday should not result in the biggest consumer spending event of the year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
You will notice that we do not hear these kinds of arguments for any other holiday. Nobody thinks Mother\u2019s Day or Valentine\u2019s Day are religious holidays. A few devout Christians believe Halloween has religious implications, but they simply find their own ways to celebrate. Everyone acknowledges that Easter is a religious holiday, but it\u2019s easy to ignore Easter if you want to.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
But you can\u2019t escape Christmas. We see Christmas decorations in almost every store. We find Christmas logos on almost every online shopping site. Social media gets clogged with Christmas-themed memes. People start wearing red and green clothing and put reindeer antlers on their vehicles. The Town of Cohasset puts up lights around the Common, which no doubt are officially called \u201choliday lights,\u201d but most people are going to think of them as Christmas lights. Christmas is everywhere. It has become an inescapable part of American popular culture.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Thus, the question of whether Christmas is religion or not is actually quite important. What if the devout Christians and the devout atheists are correct, and Christmas is in fact religious? If that\u2019s correct, then America is in fact a Christian nation — or at least we\u2019re a Christian nation from Thanksgiving to Christmas. And if America is a Christian nation, that may make the devout Christians and the Christian nationalists very happy, but it will make the rest of us very uncomfortable.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
On the other hand, what if Christmas is not religious? What if Christmas actually has little or nothing to do with religion? That will make the devout Christians very unhappy, but it will also leave the rest of us felling a bit strange. If Christmas is not religious, if it\u2019s actually a secular holiday, then why do we have these references to Jesus Christ, who is clearly a religious personage? Why do we talk about St. Nick, who is a saint, and who is therefore clearly a religious personage?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Here in America, we have arrived at a majority agreement that Christmas is both religious, and it is not religious. While this is a majority agreement, it is not an absolute consensus that everyone agrees with. Most obviously, the devout Christians say Christmas is not religious enough, while the devout atheists say that Christmas is far too religious. Less obviously, but more importantly, a small but increasing number of Americans follow a non-Christian religion; from the point of view of a Muslim, or a Jew, or a Hindu, Christmas does indeed look religious. For people who belong to non-Christian religions, it might even seem dishonest to try and claim that Christmas is somehow not religious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Nevertheless, we still think of Christmas as both religious, and not religious. To be more precise, Christmas is based on a major Christian holiday. We cannot escape the fact that Christmas celebrates the birth of someone named Jesus, a religious prophet whom Christians consider the founder of their religion, and more, whom most Christians consider to be one of the personages of the triune God. At the same time, Christmas is 1.2 trillion dollars of consumer spending and parties and gift-giving and concerts and too many calories and too much drinking and classic movies and decorations and visiting family members and many other things that have nothing to do with Jesus or religion. Like it or not, Christmas both is, and is not, religious.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The fact that Christmas is both religious and non-religious can lead to cultural conflict. Andrew Torba, a Christian Nationalist and ultraconservative, recently devoted an episode of his \u201cParallel Christian Society Podcast\u201d to his anti-Semitic conspiracy theories about how people are trying to remove Christianity form Christmas. Torba is all bent out of shape because he found out that many of our favorite Christmas songs were — get ready to gasp in horror — written by Jews. I didn\u2019t have the stomach to listen to listen to his podcast myself, but according to Religion News Service, a generally reliable source, Torba claims that this is all part of a conspiracy to turn Christmas into a winter holiday that Jews could also celebrate. Torba then said to his listeners, \u201cKnowing this, how could you allow your household to be filled with this music?\u201d (For the record, I know this, and I\u2019m happy to fill my household with this music.)<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s distrubing that Torba is looking in all the wrong places for a conspiracy that\u2019s trying to take Christianity out of Christmas. There is such a conspiracy, and it\u2019s not a secret conspiracy to take Christianity out of Christmas, it\u2019s an open conspiracy to turn Christmas into profits. The guilty party is consumerism. Businesses that produce consumer goods actually do want us to go dashing through the mall, spending all the way, and then to pretend what we\u2019re doing is in the name of holiday good will. These businesses really would like it best if they could take the religion out of Christmas, because that would allow them to expand their markets even more, and maximize their sales. Jeff Bezos, the former CEO of Amazon, knows he can get more consumers to spend more money if he can convince them that Christmas is really a winter holiday that non-Christians should also celebrate — and they should celebrate by spending money on the Amazon website. How could Torba miss the fact that the real threat to a religious Christmas is actually consumerism?<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As it happens, Andrew Torba is the CEO of an alt-right social media site called Gab. He is, in other words, the owner of a consumer-oriented business. Torba is targeting the small market niche of alt-right ultraconservative Christian comsumers. This is how he makes his money. When you realize this, you also realize that his podcast might actually be a pretty good marketing strategy for promoting more people to use his company\u2019s services. So of course he\u2019s not going to point out how consumerism is a far bigger threat to Christmas than is singing \u201cWhite Christmas\u201d or \u201cLet It Snow.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It\u2019s not entirely fair of me to pick on Andrew Torba. His tiny little social media company is not in the same league as Amazon. Yet Andrew Torba and Jeff Bezos and all the other CEOs of consumer businesses all make money by manipulating the religiosity of Christmas in order to serve their own ends. Andrew Torba and Jeff Bezos and all the other CEOs of consumer businesses seem more motivated by profits than anything else.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
So the real question we are faced with is not whether Christmas is religious or not. If Christmas were just a simple religious holiday, instead of a holiday season worth 1.2 trillion dollars of spending, I would not be preaching this sermon. Think about it this way. There are three main holidays in the Christian calendar: Christmas, Easter, and Pentecost. There is no consumer spending associated with Pentecost. Therefore, there is no cultural conflict associated with Pentecost. As for Easter, even though there\u2019s significant consumer spending on that Christian holiday, it\u2019s an order of magnitude less than consumer spending at Christmas. As a result, there\u2019s not much cultural conflict associated with Easter.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It should be obvious that I\u2019m not telling anyone that you should spend no money at Christmas. Go ahead and spend money on Christmas if you wish (as long as you\u2019re responsible and keep your spending within your financial means); or don\u2019t spend money on Christmas; that\u2019s entirely up to you. I\u2019m not trying to tell you what to do. Rather, I\u2019m trying to make an observation about Christmas as a whole.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The only reason that we\u2019re even talking about whether Christmas is religious or not is that there\u2019s so much riding on the question. Businesses that depend on Christmas for much of their profit want to have it both ways. When their customers celebrate Christmas as a Christian religious holiday, these businesses are only too happy to call it religion. If their customers celebrate Christmas as a cultural holiday, then these businesses are quite willing to go along with that interpretation. With the non-Christian population in the United States is rising, which is to say with an increasing number of people for whom Christmas holds no interest as either a religious holiday or a cultural holiday, these businesses are also quite willing to call the period from Thanksgiving to Christmas the \u201choliday shopping season.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Consumerism has put us into this odd situation where Christmas is both a secular cultural phenomenon, and a religious phenomenon, and an economic phenomenon. As a result, Christmas can make atheists and Jews and other non-Christians can sometimes feel as though Christians are forcing their religion on everyone else. Yet at the same time, some religious Christians (not Andrew Torba, but genuinely devout Christians) can sometimes feel as though the business of Christmas is forcing the religious aspects of Christmas to the sidelines. No wonder the culture wars have spilled over into Christmas.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As for the rest of us, all this can make Christmas feel a bit overwhelming at times. It is not pleasant to watch the culture wars play out in Christmas. Couple that with the subtle pressure businesses put on us to spend more money at Christmas, it is no wonder that Christmas can sometimes feel overwhelming.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
I don\u2019t have a solution to all this, but I do have a suggestion. In the weeks leading up the Christmas, let\u2019s remember to be gentle with one other. When we talk with non-Christians who feel that someone else\u2019s religion is being forced on them, of course we\u2019ll have the sensitivity to not talk about Christmas. When we talk with devout Christians who feel that Christmas is being turned into something they do no like, of course we\u2019ll try to be equally gentle with them. And when we talk with the people who feel overwhelmed by Christmas but who can\u2019t escape it because it\u2019s everywhere — in the supermarket, on Cohasset Common, on TV and all over social media — we can be equally gentle with them.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
And we should remember to be gentle with ourselves, too. As Unitarian Universalists, we might fit into any one of these categories — non-Christians, devout Christians, people overwhelmed by Christmas — and, being flexible Unitarian Universalists, we could even fit into all three of these categories at once. So let\u2019s be gentle with ourselves. If you celebrate Christmas, take it at a pace that feels comfortable to you. If you don\u2019t celebrate Christmas, find ways to escape from the pressure. If you ever feel overwhelmed, take care of yourself and find some way to relax. To paraphrase a famous Christmas song written by a Jewish songwriter, may you find some way to be happy tonight, perhaps with some beautiful sights, or just dreaming by the fire.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
As pointed out by several who heard this sermon, the figure of 1.2 trillion in Christmas spending is a projection. Others have projected lesser amounts will be spent in the 2023 Christmas season. But all the estimates I’ve seen hover around one trillion dollars.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Sermon copyright (c) 2023 Dan Harper. As delivered to First Parish in Cohasset. As usual, the sermon as delivered contained substantial improvisation. Readings The first reading is titled \u201cJingle Coins.\u201d It\u2019s a parody of \u201cJingle Bells\u201d which Dan learned from the San Francisco Rocking Solidarity Labor Chorus: Dashing through the mall, I\u2019m spending all the […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[114,7],"tags":[102],"class_list":["post-1490","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-religion-in-society","category-western-religious-traditions","tag-christmas"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=1490"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1491,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1490\/revisions\/1491"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=1490"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=1490"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.danielharper.org\/archive\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=1490"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}