Habakkuk 2:5  

"Wealth is treacherous; the arrogant do not endure.  They open their throats wide as Sheol; like Death they never have enough."

Reflection by Martin B. Copenhaver

Here are some of the gifts being offered in various catalogues this season:

There is "The Remote Controlled Rolling Beverage Cooler."  If someone across the room looks thirsty, you don't even need to get out of your seat to serve them.

Then there is the toaster that can emblazon the emblem of your favorite team on your morning toast.

In the "You'll Shoot Your Eye Out" category, there is the "Double Barreled Marshmallow Crossbow," which shoots 25 mini marshmallows from each barrel.  The catalogue suggests that it is "suited as an offensive weapon for assaulting a siblin'’s doll house."  That should make for a Merry Christmas.

In reading those catalogues, I went from saying, "I don't need this stuff," to saying, "Nobody needs this stuff."

But don't assume that I am a fan of practical gifts.  No, my position on that has been clear since I was a boy.  Everyone needs socks.  But not wrapped up and under the tree. 

One of my favorite Christmas gifts I ever received was from my big brother—a bright red ascot.  I was twelve years old at the time.  I loved it immediately.  What twelve year-old needs an ascot?  But that's what made it so wonderful.  An ascot is an event, that something extra, that delightful little taste of grace.  

The best gifts of love are those that show a lovely lack of common sense.  They are not practical.  Flowers (they fade, don't they?), a bracelet (of what earthly good is that?) 

There is high precedent for all this.  The first Christmas gift was highly impractical—a baby in a barn.  Who would have asked for that?  

In this season I do not celebrate the orgy of conspicuous consumption, but I do delight in the surprising taste of grace.  Grace is something we can't deserve, don't really ask for, a delightful something extra.  And sometimes it is only in receiving it that we realize it is what we wanted all along.

Prayer

God, in this season surprise us with your gifts of grace, those things we do not deserve and did not even know we wanted all along. Amen.

About the Author Martin B. Copenhaver is Senior Pastor, Wellesley Congregational Church, United Church of Christ, Wellesley, Massachusetts. He is the author, with Lillian Daniel, of This Odd and Wondrous Calling: the Public and Private Lives of Two Ministers.

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