Before I was ordained, I spent about 25 years in retail, and Christmas is the hardest time of year to be in retail. Christmas budgets, especially for major retailers, are huge.
Business owners expect big things from their staff at Christmas, and yet, those same staff are the ones criticised for trying to capture what would seem like an elusive dollar.
My question is this: would Jesus criticise people for honestly trying to earn a living in what is a very difficult environment? I do not think he would.
When he sent his disciples out ahead of him, Jesus reminded his workers to accept that which was offered by way of food or drink (Lk 10:7), saying “a worker is worthy of their wages.”
Of course, the context may be different, but the underlying worthiness is not.
All people are worthy in the eyes of God, and retailers are simply working so that they can provide for their families and their lives. But there is something more.
Christmas decorations, as tacky as some of them are, can serve to focus our attention.
True, they focus our attention on decorations and gifts and family, but they should also serve to focus our attention on the greatest gift that humanity has ever been given … Jesus Christ.
And the focus should not just be on the person of Jesus, but the whole story that surrounds him.
God the Son, born in a way that humanity would never suggest could happen, in a manger, a food trough.
God the Son, who taught and healed so that God might be fully revealed.
God the Son, who gladly suffered death on a cross to destroy the sin of humanity.
God the Son who showed the full nature of God in his resurrection and by joining humanity to God, and never rejecting or despising them, despite being despised himself.
You may not have ever considered that looking at Christmas decorations in a shop in September, or October, or November, could focus our attention in that way, but it can.
My hope is this, from an old retailer who arrived exhausted every year at a Christmas Eve Service in the local church, this year look at the Christmas decorations and the gift ideas with awe and wonder and remember that Christmas is a time of joy and gladness.
It is a time of stress for shopkeepers and retailers, so please say a prayer for them, but it is also a time when God truly comes and dwells among us.
I hope the things we see in shops draw us to God and not give us reason to grumble! May God’s blessing rest on you this Christmas.
~ Contributed by Fr Tim Fogo from St Paul’s Anglican Church, on behalf of the Combined Churches of Deniliquin.
