Merry Christmas?

by

Special to United Methodist Insight | Dec. 5, 2024

How should we greet one another in December? Perhaps, like me, you grew up someplace where you wished everybody a Merry Christmas, including my grade school best friend, who was Jewish. Perhaps you grew up in a community where you could safely assume others celebrated this holiday, whether they were Christian.

Times have changed, and so have our neighborhoods. In my suburban California hometown and four cities in the Lone Star State you will find Cao Dai congregations blending Christianity, Confucianism, and Daoism and venerating Shakespeare, Victor Hugo, and Sun Yat-Sen as saints. Sugar Land, Texas, has a 72-foot statue of a female Buddha and a 90-foot-tall statue of Hanuman, the monkey-headed Hindu superhero. There are Mandeans, adherents of an ancient, monotheistic, Gnostic faith, in Amarillo and Yazidis, an even older Kurdish group, in Houston. When asked their religious affiliation, many Americans now tell pollsters “none of the above.” There now are as many Nones as Catholics or evangelical Protestants, 28% of the population.

We’re all trying to navigate this new social landscape. Some of us are pondering why the church is alienating so many people. Others are pining angrily for the good old days. Many are just confused.

Personally, I am pleased when others wish me a Happy Hanukkah, Ramadan Mubarak, Good Yule, or Blessed Kwanza, and I don’t mind Happy Holidays. I extend greetings to others on their special celebrations whenever I can, and I feel free to wish atheists a Merry Christmas.

The “War on Christmas” has been largely manufactured by Fox News, the channel that was forced to admit in court that it was not really a news organization but rather an entertainment outlet that made up the story about Dominion voting machines being rigged. The only time Christmas has been banned in America is when the Puritans—my ancestors in Massachusetts—did so during the 17th century, concerned that it was being celebrated in too raucous a manner with too many borrowed pagan customs. The only people who have waged war against this holiday were Christians.

The First Amendment to the U. S. Constitution protects us from this sort of zealotry. Telling Christians not to offer Christmas greetings would be like telling Hindus they could not wish others a Happy Diwali—a violation of your right to exercise your faith freely.

Still, in these divided times where someone takes offense at nearly everything, you may be unsure what to say. And Faux News is happy to milk your anxiety about this—and any resentment you may have that the world has changed. We should expect to hear more about the War on Christmas this year.

Jesus, I am pretty sure, does not care all that much how the guy in front of Walmart greets us. Sure, he warned his followers about being ashamed of acknowledging him, but he was clear about his priorities.

He seems to have enjoyed holiday parties. Perhaps Jesus might feel honored to be remembered by people exchanging elegantly-wrapped gifts. I suspect that he likes the loud, joyous parade of police and firefighters through our neighborhood in Harlem as much as I do. But according to Matthew 25, he cares far more whether we feed the hungry, clothe those who shiver “in the deep midwinter,” tend to the sick, build homes for children born into a world there where is “no room in the inn,” and welcome the imprisoned, the orphan, the widow, and the sojourners among us as our brothers and sisters.  As Howard Thurman put it in The Mood of Christmas:

“When the song of the angels is still, when the star in the sky is gone, when the kings and princes are home, when the shepherds are back with their flock, the work of Christmas begins: to find the lost; to heal the broken; to feed the hungry; to release the prisoner; to rebuild the nations; to bring peace . . . to make music in the heart.”

This Christmas, we might remember “the least of these” brothers and sisters of Jesus in your prayers. And donate food and warm clothing to the poor and homeless. And demand decent housing for all. Then wish them well for Christmas, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and the New Year.

The Rev. Thomas W. Goodhue is a United Methodist clergyman who has served as pastor in churches in Hawaii and New York and led the Long Island Council of Churches for 17 years. He is the author, most recently, of Queen Ka‘ahumanu of Hawaii (McFarland Books).