Room at the Manger

"Where is the one who has been born king of the Jews? We saw his star in the east and have come to worship him." (Matthew 2:2)

 

So in case you were wondering, an astrophysicist at Notre Dame University is pretty sure he can tell you what the star that Matthew says announced Jesus’ birth to the Magi really was.

     After years of consulting NASA databases to look for supernovas, novas, comets, planetary alignments, and other astronomical events that seem to have occurred between 8 and 4 BC, Grant Matthews is pretty sure that he knows what the “star” was. It wasn’t actually a star at all, he says, but an alignment of the Sun, Jupiter, Saturn, and the Moon in the constellation Aries. 

     If you accept the assumption that the wise men were Zoroastrian astrologers from what is now Iran, Matthews says, then they would have believed that the alignment of the planets in Aries was a sign that a powerful leader had been born. "In fact it would have even meant that he was destined to die at an appointed time,” Matthews explains, “which…may have been why they brought myrrh, which was an embalming fluid.” 

     Matthews can even tell you the date of the event: April 17th, 6 BC. 

     What, you were really expecting December 25th?

     Based on my extensive knowledge of astrophysics – I can spell the word without using my spell checker – Grant Matthews’ observations sound pretty valid. He’s done his research, that much is certain. I like that he seems to be operating from a perspective of faith and taking the Gospel accounts seriously as history. And I like the bit about the Zoroastrian beliefs and how they connect to the story of Jesus. I have to admit, I was interested to read about Matthews’ work. But I came away with a couple of questions.

     The first is this: If Matthews had found no record of any astronomical phenomena that had occurred within the correct time window, what would have his conclusion been? That’s the double edge of reading the Bible with a scientific eye. Sure, it’s cool when the science supports the text, as it does in this case. But what do you do when it doesn’t? Do you dismiss the text, or do you recognize the limits of human understanding?

     And the other question I have is related to the first one, though maybe even more relevant. As I said, I was interested in Matthews’ research. Still, after reading it the question came unbidden into my mind. 

     So what?

     Oh, don’t get me wrong, I have no quarrel with Dr. Matthews. He’s a man of intellect and faith who as far as I know has more of either than I ever will. So when I ask “So what?” I’m not disparaging his work. Maybe it’s just me, but when I read the Gospel of Matthew my first thought isn’t to wonder what that star really was. It’s to wonder at the power of God to set such a sign in the heavens in the first place. And it’s to wonder at the event that it signified, and at the love and grace in the gift.

     Maybe it’s because I’m not a scientist, but I’m less interested in the nature of the astronomical phenomena in the skies over Bethlehem that night, and more interested in the person to whom the star pointed. Come to think of it, though, the wise men don’t seem to have been that interested either in whether the “star” was a comet or a planetary alignment or a supernova or actually a star that wasn’t there the night before. Matthew doesn’t tell us that they holed up in a lab or observatory to debate the nature of the event. “We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” What that star was didn’t seem to matter to them nearly as much as their response to it. 

     The same, I think, is true for us. Again, I don’t think there’s anything necessarily wrong about Dr. Matthews’ work. It’s interesting and fun (for a theoretical astrophysicist, anyway) and ought to make a good paper. Surely Dr. Matthews won’t make the mistake of getting so wrapped up in data about the precise nature of the event that he forgets the meaning of it, or what his response to it should be. “We saw his star when it rose and have come to worship him.” Surely in this age of computerized databases and scientific breakthrough there’s still room at the manger for people who know when to leave their scientific instruments and come to worship.

     We can’t forget that we’re talking about a story in which a virgin gives birth to a child conceived by the Holy Spirit in order to deliver people from the power of sin and death. We can’t forget that the chief player in all this is the God who created the stars. Is it so difficult to believe that the God of creation who incarnated his very nature in a baby carried by a young virgin couldn’t have put anything he wanted – comet, supernova, or star – in an empty corner of space to direct people of faith who wanted to come and worship in the place where it was all happening? Listen to Matthew again: 

     “After they had heard the king, they went on their way, and the star they had seen when it rose went ahead of them until it stopped over the place where the child was. When they saw the star, they were overjoyed. On coming to the house, they saw the child with his mother Mary, and they bowed down and worshiped him. Then they opened their treasures and presented him with gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh.” (Matthew 2:9-11)

     In the end, at least for me, it comes down to this: Dr. Matthews’ research doesn’t fill me with joy or make me want to worship and open my treasures in tribute to Jesus. As interesting as it may be, it seems to me to be ultimately very much beside the point. Even a distraction. The wise men didn’t come to explain the star, but to worship the Lord. That should be our order of priorities as well, I think.

     So no thanks. I don’t think I want to explain the star that shone in the sky over Bethlehem when Jesus was born. Instead I’d rather just follow its lead and bow before the Lord who made the stars, lying in his manger. 

     There are some things that don’t need explanation. 

Affluenza

He has performed mighty deeds with his arm;

    he has scattered those who are proud in their inmost thoughts.

He has brought down rulers from their thrones

    but has lifted up the humble.

He has filled the hungry with good things

    but has sent the rich away empty.

-Luke 1:51-53

You might have seen the story this week of the North Texas teenager who avoided jail because his family is wealthy.

     That accusation is made pretty much anytime someone of means avoids punishment for a crime. Usually, you can’t tell for sure that it’s true. In this case, you can say it unequivocally: he got off because his family is rich.

     That was part of the defense, after all.

     The teen’s defense attorney argued that his client is the victim of a psychological disturbance called “affluenza.” According to his attorney and a psychologist called to the stand as an expert witness, the young man was incapable of taking responsibility for or understanding the consequences of his actions because he grew up in a privileged, entitled environment where he got whatever he wanted and his bad behavior was cushioned by his parents’ wealth. 

     His bad behavior, in this case, being the theft of two cases of beer, driving with a blood alcohol level three times the legal limit (with seven passengers in his pickup) and, finally, slamming into and killed four pedestrians.

     “Affluenza” is not a recognized disease, disorder, or syndrome. It’s a term coined to explain the way children from affluent families sometimes act, but it’s not intended to justify their behavior (or to be used as a defense in a criminal trial). In short, it’s just a slightly nicer way of saying “spoiled brat.” But, based on his defense, the judge sentenced him to 10 years probation and a $450,000 rehab center in California. 

    I wouldn’t want to have to, well, defend that defense. I certainly don’t think that a person’s wealth should make him less responsible for a crime, any more than I think a person’s poverty should excuse him. It feels like a wrist slap, based on the fact that the poor child is, well, rich. “Since he’s wealthy, he doesn’t know any better,” is the message the disposition of the case seems to send.

     There are explanations, and then there are justifications. The teen’s wealth, in this case, seems to fit solidly in the first category. It might partially serve to explain why he acted as he did, with no regard as to how his actions affected others, but it doesn’t justify it.

     That said, I do think affluenza is a real thing. 

     When I use my relative wealth to build a nice little cocoon around me and my family that leaves no room for helping the poor, I may have affluenza.

     When I resent how immigrants move into “our” country and take “our” jobs, I may have affluenza.

     When I feel frustration over the way kids from “bad” neighborhoods in my city get some degree of preference over kids from “good” neighborhoods for seats in the best high schools, that may be a symptom of affluenza. 

     When I turn up my nose at the way someone is dressed on Sunday in my church, I may be suffering from affluenza.

     When I feel just ever-so-slightly superior to someone who has a menial job, or who’s chronically unemployed, it suggests a diagnosis of affluenza.

     When I explain away my unwillingness to help the poor, justifying myself with judgment on their motives or character, I may be dealing with a bad case of affluenza. 

     And when I preoccupy myself with increasing my holdings, upgrading my portfolio, and acquiring the latest and greatest of everything, it may be because affluenza has taken over my system.

     Ironically, at this time of year affluenza seems to peak as an epidemic. Retailers depend on the fact that their customers, and those for whom they’re buying, have galloping cases that have progressed to the point where shoppers would rather go deeply into debt than skimp on presents. This time of year brings the acquisitiveness and materialism that are the symptoms of affluenza into stark relief with what we know Christmas should be about, the one it should be about. 

     The Magi, the Wise Men, came to Bethlehem with gifts. Reminds us of us, doesn’t it, stuffing the SUV full of kids and presents and heading to Grandma’s? But, before the Magi, the shepherds, before the angels singing and the manger and no room in the house for the tired young, expectant mother and her husband, that girl sang a song. Better to call it a prophecy. She talked about the meaning of the baby growing in her womb in terms of power and weakness, privilege and humility, wealth and poverty. “(God) has brought down rulers from their thrones but has lifted up the humble,” she said. “He has filled the hungry with good things but has sent the rich away empty.”

     From the beginning, almost from the moment the angel told Mary what part she would play in God’s great work of redemption, she knew that it was about reversal. From the beginning, Christmas has been about God upsetting the social order, lifting up the marginalized and bringing down the movers and shakers of the world. He didn’t call it Christmas, of course; that was our idea, centuries later. The trees, the decorations, Santa Claus, the feasts and the gifts - that was all us. Mary knew what it was: it was reversal. Redemption. It was God forgiving the sins of his people and then raising them from their humble condition to take the places of wealth and power held by those who oppressed them and failed to obey him.

     The problem, of course, is for those of us afflicted with affluenza. Mary figured out what the disease is. It’s about power. Security. Who’s in charge. And when you’re in charge for any length of time, even if you’re a Christian in name, you have to watch out for the signs of affluenza: the lack of compassion for the poor, the anxiety that someone might take away what I’ve earned, and the erosion of trust in God’s goodness and mercy that trust in wealth and power - at least buying power - brings. 

     The good news is that there’s a treatment path, a way to beat affluenza.

     One word: Give.

     Give sacrificially. Give radically. Give indiscriminately. Give to your friends and family, but also give to those you don’t know and even those you don’t like. Give without a thought as to what you’ll get in return. Give of your money, your time, your prayer, your store of emotional energy. 

     The only way to stop affluenza, once and for all, is to take part with those for whom God cares in particular: the humble, the poor, the marginalized. To align ourselves with those whom his Son came to serve. And no better way to align ourselves with them than to take their burdens as our own and to see our wealth as ordained by God to help them.

     So watch out for the signs of affluenza this holiday season. And remember to inoculate yourself by giving.

Extra Gifts

    “Ask and it will be given to you; seek and you will find; knock and the door will be opened to you. For everyone who asks receives; the one who seeks finds; and to the one who knocks, the door will be opened.

    “Which of you, if your son asks for bread, will give him a stone? Or if he asks for a fish, will give him a snake? If you, then, though you are evil, know how to give good gifts to your children, how much more will your Father in heaven give good gifts to those who ask him!

-Matthew 7:7-11 (NIV)

My grandfather remarried after my grandmother died, so I had the rather unusual experience of having a step-grandmother. (How many people can actually say they were a groomsman at their grandfather’s wedding?) Though it took some adjustment, we were happy that he remarried; he would have been lonely had he not. And had he not, I wouldn’t have one of my favorite memories of my him.

    On birthdays and at Christmas, my grandfather and his wife, Mary, usually gave my sister and me money. Not knowing what to get two hard-to-please teenagers, they would write out checks and tuck them into cards so we could buy what we really wanted. Mom coached us, of course; we were to read the cards and comment on them before going right to the checks, and most of the time I think we managed to do that. But, sooner or later, we’d put the checks in a pocket or whatever and go on to the next gift. Then we’d wait for the rest of the gift.

    I don’t know about my sister, but I really did come to expect it. It usually happened in the garage. Granddaddy would motion for me to walk him out through the garage. (Come to think of it, it seems like it was usually just me. I imagine he handled the rest of my sister’s gift some other way.) Anyway, de’d hang back a little, on some pretense, and let Mary get a little farther ahead. As soon as she’d get out the door, while my grandfather and I were still in the garage, he’d stop and put a hand on my shoulder. The other hand would go to his pocket.

    “Here,” he’d say as he handed me the folded cash. “You don’t have to say anything to Mary about this.”

    I always liked that line, “You don’t have to say anything to Mary about this.” Made it seem more conspiratorial, more cloak-and-dagger. But, see, Mary had grandchildren of her own. To her, they were dividing their gift-giving between four kids. I appreciate the fact that she considered us her grandchildren, too, in some way, though I imagine she did a little extra for her biological grandkids, too. Certainly, to Granddaddy Hoyt, there weren’t four grandchildren. There were only two. Hence the extra cash when Mary wasn’t looking. (I wonder if she ever found out.)

    Granddaddy’s been gone for sixteen years now. It’s been twenty-five years, I guess, since we played a scene like that. Yet the memory’s still vivid, almost like it happened yesterday. It’s one of my favorite memories, because it tells me how much he loved me. It wasn’t the money; the original checks were always generous. It’s the fact that one gift couldn’t express how he felt about my sister and me.

    There no doubt have been times in your life when God seemed silent and the doors to Heaven barred. You’ve probably had the experience of praying and hearing only your own voice. You will probably have the same experience again. If you’ve lived this life for any length of time at all, you have likely felt that God was very far away. Maybe you’ve even doubted that he’s there at all.

    If so, then Jesus has a word or two for you. “Keep asking,” he says. “Keep looking. If you ask, you’ll receive, and if you look, you’ll find. If you pound on the gates of Heaven, soon enough someone will hear and come to see what all the commotion’s about.”

    And that can be encouraging in itself. But what about the times when you can’t ask, seek, and knock indefinitely? What about the times when you only have enough strength for one hoarse plea, or one feeble tap? What about the times when your faith won’t survive a prolonged search?

    For those times, Jesus turns to his favorite image for God - Father. Fathers (and grandfathers) know how to give to their children. A father doesn’t hand his daughter a live rattlesnake when what she wants is a frozen fish stick. He doesn’t give his son a lump of limestone when he needs a couple of slices of Wonder bread and some peanut butter. Even human parents know how to give to their children.

    “How much more will your heavenly Father give good gifts to those who ask him.”

    The God we call Father through Jesus is a God who loves to bless his children. You don’t have to convince him. You don’t have to prove anything to him. If you ask for something that’s good for you, your Father in heaven will happily give it. If you ask for something that’s bad for you, he will give you what’s better. I know, it doesn’t always seem that way, but what parent gives a child everything they want, right when they want it? Look back over your life when you get to the end. You won’t find a time when God wasn’t aching to be generous to you.

    He’s given us all so many blessings. And just when it seems that he’s finished giving, he reaches into a pocket and pulls out something more. He could have stopped with life, but he’s given you family and friends. He could have stopped with a meal for today, but he’s given you choices and quantities most of the world never sees. He could have stopped with shelter, but he’s given you luxury. He could have stopped with a job, but he’s given you a career.

    He could have stopped with his word, but he sent the Word made flesh.

    He could have stopped with a law, but he gave you a cross. He could have stopped with a cross, but he gave you an empty tomb. He could have stopped with salvation, but he gave you the church. He could have left you with his promise, but he sealed it with his Spirit.

    That is the God you serve. That is how much he loves you. Will you remember that? Will you be reassured today of his love for you and of his desire to bless you, in spite of what life’s random ugliness might tell you? And will you live your life in gratitude, always looking for the gift he’s holding out to you and always thankful for the ones you’ve already stashed away?

    The gifts tell you he loves you. His generosity reminds you how much.

"I Have a Disease..."

 “Do you see this woman? I came into your house. You did not give me any water for my feet,but she wet my feet with her tears and wiped them with her hair. You did not give me a kiss, but this woman, from the time I entered, has not stopped kissing my feet. You did not put oil on my head, but she has poured perfume on my feet. Therefore, I tell you, her many sins have been forgiven—as her great love has shown. But whoever has been forgiven little loves little.”

-Luke 7:44-47 (NIV)

Katarina Lucardie just wanted to be herself. She wanted her friends to know who she was without artifice, without qualification. She was tired of pretending, and so the 11-year-old Colorado Springs middle-schooler decided to tell her secret.

     She started by sharing it in a letter to her school counselor. “I have a disease and it makes me lose my hair,” she wrote.

     Katarina was born with a disease called alopecia areata. At the age of 8, she started to notice clumps of hair in the shower or on her pillow. By the next year, she was completely bald. She started wearing a straight black wig to school, but after she graduated from elementary school she went to her mom and told her she didn’t want to wear the wig in middle school. 

     She just wanted to be herself around her friends and classmates.

     Katarina’s counselor, Jennica Mabe, and her teachers worked with her to create a documentary about Katarina’s illness, hoping to head off any possible misunderstanding, fear, or ridicule. After they screened the documentary for her classmates, Katarina stood in front of them and answered questions about her disease. She also explained that, starting the following week, she wouldn’t be wearing her wig any longer. 

     “She was just determined to do it,” her mom, Carmen Aranda, says. “She wanted to be herself and not cover up and mask who she was. She was very courageous.”

     “I want people to like me for me and not what I look like,” Katarina explains, “because that's how I can find my true friends.”

     There’s a lot of wisdom in those words, isn’t there? Don’t they describe what most of us want - to not feel the need to hide or mask our true selves with someone? When we meet someone who likes us for who we really are, we befriend them. We marry them. We trust them and entrust ourselves to them and open our hearts to them. 

      Having someone, just one person in our lives, to whom we can entrust our true selves is priceless.

     For a lot of people, though, the church isn’t a place to find those with whom we can take off our disguises and be ourselves. Sometimes even for regular church attenders, even church leaders, church isn’t a place to be honest about weakness, vulnerability, or fragility. In some churches, that kind of thing is rewarded with judgment - the kind of scorn and dismissal that writes a person off as hopeless, irredeemable, an object of God’s wrath. That’s not true in all churches, thankfully. In some, it’s less judgment than discomfort - “I was more comfortable when I didn’t know so much about you.” It’s less that someone says or does the wrong thing, more that no one knows just what to say or do.  

     This idea that the church isn’t a safe place for people to reveal their secrets comes, I think, from a couple of places. For one thing, churches rightly want to take seriously the mandate of Scripture that believers live ethical, moral lives that reflect the character of God and the nature of the gospel. We preach about it, pray about it, sing about it. And so it’s probably no wonder that folks feel like it might not be a good idea to strip away whatever hides the sin and struggle in their lives in front of the church. And it’s probably no wonder that a good percentage of those folks fade away, often with promises to be back once they have their lives in order so that they’ll fit in better.

     You know, doctors talk a lot about what a healthy life looks like. A good doctor will talk to her patients about eating well, about getting exercise, about managing stress. A good doctor isn’t shy about describing what she wants her patients’ lives to look like. This is because she wants what’s best for her patients’ health. But she also welcomes those who come to her sick.

     We might remember in the church that Jesus came for the sick, not for the healthy. While we’re right to describe what a spiritually healthy life looks like and encourage one another to live that kind of life, we must never do so in a way that gives the impression that we only want healthy people among us. If Jesus came for the sick, then we’re not really living a life like his if there aren’t some struggling people around us and among us. 

     That woman at Simon’s house didn’t interrupt that dinner party and break all kinds of social taboos because Jesus made her afraid to reveal who she really was. She came in and poured out her love to him because he knew exactly who she was, and loved her in spite of it. “Her many sins have been forgiven - as her great love has shown.”  

     Maybe some of us in the church need to re-learn that. Nothing motivates love like someone who knows you best, with all your unlovable features, looking at you with love in their eyes. Speaking to you with love in their words. Doing for you with love in their actions. And if we want people to trust us and be a part of us, we need to learn how to act when their lives don’t match up to the Lord’s expectations. 

     Here’s a thought: let’s act like he did.

     Beyond that, though, a lot of polite church people need to be personally convinced that it’s OK to show our weaknesses. We need to believe that when God looks at us, he loves us as we are. That nothing we can do will make him love us more or less. We need to believe that Jesus gave his life because he loves us as we are, and not the idea of how we might be. The corollary of the woman’s experience is also true: “whoever has been forgiven little loves little.” For some of us, it’s been too long since we’ve stood before God honest about who we are, and received his forgiveness and love in the name of Jesus.

     Perhaps that’s the most important thing that the church can do for one another, then: reassure each other of God’s forgiveness, in Jesus’ name.

     So may our sermons about living good Christian lives never fail to speak words of hope and love and grace to those who are struggling. May we brave enough to share our own failings, and our own gratitude for the Lord’s forgiveness. May we trust that the Lord loves us for who we are, and that his people will too. And may we find among them our true friends.    

Consecrated

     One person considers one day more sacred than another;a another considers every day alike. Each of them should be fully convinced in their own mind. Whoever regards one day as special does so to the Lord. Whoever eats meat does so to the Lord, for they give thanks to God; and whoever abstains does so to the Lord and gives thanks to God. 

-Romans 14:5-6 (NIV)

Black Friday approaches.

     We’re probably used to that part of Thanksgiving by now. (It’s interesting that I just called it a “part of Thanksgiving,” isn’t it?) We’re accustomed to retailers opening early on the Friday after Thanksgiving and having huge sales to kickstart the Holiday shopping season. Some shoppers line up before dawn to get the really great deals. Some stores have opened as early as midnight on Black Friday. And some of us who are, well, less shopping-inclined, wonder when they’ll just start opening on Thanksgiving.

     This year. That’s when.

     While it’s probably happened before, it seems that this year a large number of retailers have decided to kick off the Black Friday feeding frenzy on Thanksgiving. And, no doubt, when the doors open the shoppers will come. 

     For some people, though, shopping on Thanksgiving just feels wrong. Thanksgiving’s for being with family. Overeating. Sitting on the couch and watching football, and other high-minded pursuits like that. It’s not for shopping, is it? Should it be?

     Maybe not, but some of the backlash seems a bit overblown as well. Over at Huffington Post, for instance, Jason Linkins refers to retailers open on Thanksgiving as “History’s Greatest Monsters.” Really? To (even implicitly) equate Thanksgiving shopping with the Holocaust, or Stalin’s purges, or the Killing Fields? Might that be overstating the case just a tad? I won’t be shopping on Thanksgiving - though, to be honest, it’s not due to a more highly-developed sense of morality. (It’s due more to the fact that I don’t like shopping anytime.) I think retail workers who do have to work on Thanksgiving should be very well compensated. But I don’t think the retailers who open their doors on Thanksgiving, nor the shoppers who walk through them, are monsters simply for doing so. 

     Human motives are complicated and messy. You might wonder how a person who considers Thanksgiving shopping monstrous spends the day. In prayer, giving thanks? Affirming and strengthening family relationships? Helping the poor?  Or drinking too much, fighting with family, and yelling at football players on a TV screen? You might wonder about a person who shops on Thanksgiving. Have they lost the true meaning of the holiday? Are they too caught up in consumerism to be truly grateful for what they have? Or are they using the opportunity to be better stewards of their resources by trying to save some money? Are they enjoying the company of family and friends at the mall? Will they come home and thank God for blessing them with the means to buy gifts for the people they love? 

     Is it monstrous, or even just a little wrong, to shop on Thanksgiving? It might be a matter of gratitude, mightn’t it?

     Long before there was a Thanksgiving holiday, or a debate over whether the open-air market should be open on it, a diverse bunch of Christians in Rome had a similar set of questions. The particulars were different: should all Christians observe Jewish food laws and holy days? Or did worrying over those observances betray a lack of faith and freedom in Jesus? Not surprisingly, the answer to that question might rest heavily on your heritage and background. Jewish Christians might say the food laws and holy days came from God, and look down on Christians who didn’t observe them as pagans. Gentile Christians might claim food laws and holy days had been superseded by faith in Jesus, and that Christians who insisted on observing them were weak in their faith and in bondage to a law that Jesus had annulled.

     In his letter to the church at Rome, however, Paul doesn’t give a quick and easy answer. He suggests, instead, that they’ve missed the point. “Observe the law, or don’t,” Paul writes to them. “Whichever side of the fence you come down on, as long as you’re giving thanks to God you’re on the right side.”

       If we asked Paul about going to the mall on Thanksgiving, I think he’d say, “What’s a mall?” And if we explained the concept of a mall to him, then I think he’d say, “What’s Thanksgiving?” But then, after we explained all that, I think he’d say much the same thing he said to those Christians in Rome way back then. “Do what seems right to you, and give thanks to God while you do it. And you might find you aren’t on opposite sides after all.”

     That doesn’t work with every issue, all the time. That’s never how the Bible resolves doctrinal or ethical issues that cut to the heart of the gospel, for example. But for questions like food and holy days, it works pretty well. Or, maybe, for questions like whether or not to go shopping on Thanksgiving. Do what your conscience tells you is right, and give thanks to God while you do it. Oh, and try not to call someone who comes to a different conclusion a monster. 

     Hopefully, we’ll remember that when the issue isn’t whether or not to hit the mall on Turkey Day. Maybe we’ll remember it even when there’s no argument to be won, no idealogical ground to defend, when it’s just God and us. Maybe we’ll remember that sometimes the best way to decide what to do in life is to do what our consciences say is right, and give thanks to God while we do it. 

     For believers, Thanksgiving shouldn’t be just a holiday. It should be the attitude with which we approach everything in life. Thanksgiving “consecrates” what we do, Paul writes elsewhere. Our lives become holy ground when we develop the habit of giving thanks to God.

      So go to work on Monday, and consecrate your workplace to God by giving thanks. Give thanks for your colleagues, for the work you have to do, for the benefits you get from it. Go to school, and give thanks for your classmates, your opportunities to grow, your teachers who give of themselves to help you learn. Give thanks for your spouse, your kids, your parents, and consecrate your home and family to the Lord. Give thanks for your friendships, for your church…set them apart as holy ground, fit for God’s presence.

     And, yes, go to the mall on Thanksgiving, if you choose. Give thanks for the prosperity you enjoy, for the people who help you, for the people for whom you’re buying. Give thanks, and consecrate that mall for God.

     I’ll be home, consecrating my TV screen.

     Happy Thanksgiving.