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Christmas Is NOT For The Family
by Tom Stark
One Christmas a couple involved in campus ministry at a Midwestern university got to thinking about a Christian student from Arizona. She was from a broken home, and they discovered she had no plans to leave campus over Christmas vacation. So they decided to approach the wife’s parents, who lived nearby, with whom they were planning to spend Christmas. When they brought up the possibility of an extra guest, her mother hedged, looked embarrassed, and finally said, “Ann, I just don’t think that would work. It’s a nice idea, but really, I think that Christmas is for the family.”
I used that illustration in an Advent sermon several years later. Two weeks later, just before Christmas, the mother of one of the students in our congregation was seriously injured in an auto accident. Jack’s girlfriend came from another part of the state to help with meals and cleaning for him, his younger sister, who is handicapped, and his father, who is not well. The woman was taken off the critical list after a few days but the girl decided that she would stay through Christmas to help the family and fix the Christmas dinner. I found out later that her mother vetoed the idea, insisting that she come home for Christmas. I asked Jack why she had refused to let her daughter stay. With the hurt still showing in his voice, he said, “Well, Tom, you know what they say, ‘Christmas is for the family.’ They thought it was wrong for her not to be at home.”
There is always the subtle danger that our traditions may block out the rule of Christ in our lives. I am convinced that a false equating of Christmas and the family has blocked out the expression of genuine Christian hospitality in the lives of many believers. It is striking how the Bible repeatedly commands hospitality, with special reference to strangers. From the words of Leviticus 19 (“The stranger who sojourns with you shall be to you as the native among you, and you shall love him as yourself”) in the Old Testament to Jesus Christ in Matthew 25 (“I was a stranger, and you welcomed me”) to the Epistle to the Hebrews (13:2), commanding us not to neglect to show hospitality to strangers, and in many other places as well, we have a plain teaching that warm hospitality will be a mark of those who are true believers. (And a man is unqualified to be a minister or elder unless both he and his wife are hospitable – I Tim. 3:2.)
Martin Luther’s Indignation
Since the Bible so clearly teaches joyful hospitality, at no time would that seem more appropriate than at Christmas. The day commemorates the experience of a nervous husband, forced by law to travel to a strange city with his pregnant wife. He searches desperately for a public inn where they may stay, but in despair must take his wife to a stable and there her labor pains become more rapid and the child Jesus is born. Is it any wonder that their difficulties would produce the sort of fierce indignation we would expect from the warm heart of Martin Luther:
“How unobtrusively and simply do those events take place on earth that are so heralded in heaven. On earth it happened in this wise: There was a poor young wife, Mary of Nazareth, among the humblest dwellers of the town, so little esteemed that none noticed the great wonder that she carried. She was silent, did not vaunt herself, but served her husband, who had no man or maid. They simply left the house. Perhaps they had a donkey for Mary to ride upon, though the Gospels say nothing about it, and we may well believe that she went on foot.
The journey was certainly more than a day from Nazareth in Galilee to Bethlehem, which lies on the farther side of Jerusalem. Joseph had thought, “When we get to Bethlehem, we shall be among relatives and can borrow everything.” A fine idea that was!
Bad enough that a young bride married only a year could not have had her baby at Nazareth in her own house instead of making all that journey of three days when heavy with child! How much worse that when she arrived there was no room for her!
The inn was full. No one would release a room to this pregnant woman. She had to go to a cow stall and there bring forth the Maker of all creatures because nobody would give way. Shame on you, wretched Bethlehem! The inn ought to have been burned with brimstone, for even though Mary had been a beggar maid or unwed, anybody at such a time should have been glad to give her a hand.
There are many of you in this congregation who think to yourselves: ‘If only I had been there! How quick I would have been to help the baby! I would have washed his linen. How happy I would have been to go with the shepherds to see the Lord lying in the manger!’
Yes, you would! You say that because you know how great Christ is, but if you had been there at that time you would have done no better than the people of Bethlehem. Childish and silly thoughts are these! Why don’t you do it now? You have Christ in your neighbor. You ought to serve him, for what you do to your neighbor in need you do to the Lord Christ himself.
The birth was still more pitiable. No one regarded this young wife bringing forth her first-born. No one took her condition to heart. No one noticed that in a strange place she had not the very least thing needful in childbirth. There she was without preparation: no light, no fire, in the dead of night, in thick darkness. No one came to give the customary assistance. The guests swarming in the inn were carousing and no one attended to this woman….
Think, women, there was no one there to bathe the baby. No warm water, not even cold. No fire, no light. The mother was herself the midwife and the maid. The cold manger was the bed and the bathtub. Who showed the poor girl what to do? She had never had a baby before. I am amazed that the little one did not freeze. Do not make of Mary a stone. For the higher people are in the favor of God, the more tender are they.”
Joseph and Mary were strangers and no one took them in. Is our emphasis on family narrowing the direction in which our arms reach out in love to others? Does not the preoccupation with family reduce Christmas to a cultural folk celebration, which is essentially non-religious in purpose? For we must remember that pagans, atheists, crooks, almost anyone enjoys being with his family at Christmas and likes the tradition of giving each other presents. Christians who only do that, then, ought not to be misled into thinking that the tradition has anything to do with Jesus Christ.
Stumbling Blocks
For those who are willing to let Jesus Christ open their eyes to a broader vision for the observance of his birth, there may still be some strong emotional stumbling blocks.
- “It’s the only time the family gets together.” That’s probably not quite true, and surely it is not justifiable to twist Christmas into the only time we feel a responsibility for relatives and for being with them. There usually are or could be other times when family members get together. But the Christian faith offers no sympathy for a concept of family exclusiveness. Christian love reaches out; it does not grasp narrowly. If we have a problem with including others at our table and in our festivities, it may spring from our own selfishness.
- “It wouldn’t be Christmas if we did it differently.” But maybe it isn’t really Christmas now. After all, some of our Jewish neighbors have turned Hanukkah into a time for exchanging presents and putting up a tree. If what we are doing now is not reflecting the Spirit of Jesus Christ, then we should welcome changes.
- “What will we do about gifts?” The concern is whether our guests would expect gifts. One woman in our congregation came from overseas and found Christ while an undergraduate in the U.S. In talking about hospitality to foreign students, she said how much it means to be able to be in a home, and not to have to stay in a dormitory. It made little difference that the Christian family who welcomed her and another foreign student gave them small gifts which they opened as the family opened theirs. The real beauty of the occasion was to be welcomed in a family, and to be able to participate in the experiences which were so much more joyous in a home setting.
- “It would be so much more work.” But some people already work too hard on holidays. They may have to cut back to more simple, relaxed plans. You can never entertain much or enjoy it if you are compulsive about cleanliness, elaborate in all your arrangements, and lavish in your spending. Such hospitality reflects not so much love for others as pride and a grim determination to meet certain arbitrary standards.
Great Opportunities
Those who are excited about inviting Christ into their homes for Christmas will have several other questions. For instance, “Whom could I invite?” There are many possibilities: widows or widowers or single parents who have children at home, single people in your church or community; older couples who are unable to travel and who will not be having friends or family joining them; shut-ins and people in nursing homes (deacons should be especially sensitive that such people are included); servicemen; people tied down because of their jobs and unable to leave town; such as nurses, policemen, and others; young couples who aren’t going elsewhere for the holidays; foreign students.
When should I ask? First, you could make a list of all the prospects you want to find out about. Then discreetly sound them out. Casual questions will reveal whether individuals have plans. But a word of caution: You must start soon enough to find out what others are planning to do. I found in seminary that by a week and a half before Christmas some men who could not go home for the holidays would give you a cheerful, “I’m going to stay here and get a lot of work done.” Actually, they didn’t want to expose the fact that they had nowhere to go, and as the vacation drew nearer they began to hide the fact that no one had invited them.
Once you know that someone else has no plans you should ask concretely. Don’t beat around the bush with, “Do you think you’d be interested in stopping by our place?” or, “If you don’t have any plans, maybe you could have dinner with us.” Make a real invitation, and make it specific: “We’d like to have you come over on Christmas Eve and stay through Christmas Day with us.”
If you have new people with you for Christmas, what will be different? That will depend on your willingness to enjoy others and to help them enjoy themselves. Some guests would love to help in the kitchen. Other guests would enjoy staying overnight. Shut-ins may enjoy a drive around town. Servicemen may like to shoot a few baskets in the back yard. Children may welcome an adult who is willing to sprawl on the floor and play their games with them.
Try to imagine a boy in Bethlehem, hanging around the Bethlehem Inn and running home to tell his parents, “I was talking to the clerk at the inn and a couple came in from Nazareth looking for a room. But Mr. Isaac turned them away, since they’re all full up for the census. But, Mother, the woman’s expecting a baby! I heard her husband say she was due any time. I know we’re having a big supper for all the relatives who are back in town, but I thought maybe you would want to put them up here. They don’t seem to have any relatives and every place is filled. If you’ll let me, I’ll go catch up with the man and bring him back here.”
“Well, Joel, that’s very nice, but we have a special family dinner tomorrow, and we haven’t seen some of these people in a long time. I think tomorrow should just be for family.” How much more beautiful the promise of Scripture, concerning even those we do not know: “Do not neglect to show hospitality to strangers, for thereby some have entertained angels unawares” (Heb. 13:2). We could have no greater honor than to know that we can serve Jesus Christ: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me.”
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The Rev. Tom Stark is the pastor of the University Reformed Church of East Lansing, Michigan.
Reprinted from The Church Herald, December, 1970. c. 1970 The Church Herald, Inc. Used with Permission