“What’d You Get For Christmas? A New Family!” or "Griswold Family Christmases and Yearnings for Adoption"
Sunday, January 03 2010 - ephesians, christ, adoption, family-of-god, christmas, gift, perfect
Rev. Leah Atkinson Bilinski; Jan. 2-3, 2010; Scripture Texts: Ephesians 1:3-14, Revelation 21:1-7, John 1:10-13
One of my favorite Christmas movies of all time is “National Lampoon’s Christmas Vacation.” Now, I’m not usually one for goofy humored movies, but for this oddball comedy of an overzealous Christmas fanatic and his wacky family, I’ll usually stop whatever I’m doing to enjoy a few repeated moments of laughter. My favorite part of the movie comes when Cousin Eddie pulls his honking RV into Clark Griswold’s driveway and begins to make himself at home. With his country drawl and childlike smile, he exclaims,
“You surprised to see us, Clark?”
To which Clark replies, “Surprised Eddie?...If I woke up tomorrow with my head sewn to the carpet, I wouldn't be more surprised than I am now.”
At this point in the movie, the Griswold house is already full to the brim with dysfunctional family members that include both sets of grandparents, an old uncle and an old aunt who wraps up her cat and jello mold to give as gifts. The addition of Cousin Eddie and his family just sends the whole situation over the cliff of ridiculous. Clark, who likes to think of himself as a perfect family man with a perfect immediate family in a perfectly decorated house with a perfect Christmas, doesn’t have any place in his life for a stereotype-laden country bumpkin from Kansas. He looks down on Cousin Eddie in his overly tight, white sweater, black dickey undershirt and big fist clenching a jolly mug of eggnog. Every word and gaze dripping with cynicism, Clark asks Eddie,
“Can I refill your eggnog for you? Get you something to eat? Drive you out to the middle of nowhere and leave you for dead?” //
“Naw, I’m doing just fine, Clark,” Eddie innocently replies right before he nonchalantly breaks the news that he and the fam will be staying for a whole month. To which Clark spews forth his own mouthful of eggnog. //
But despite the constant set-backs and eggnog-spewing moments of bad news, Clark continues to trudge on in his unattainable journey for a perfect, family Christmas -- to the great humor of audiences and the great anxiety of his wife, who frustrated, declares to her daughter,
"I don’t know what to say, except it’s Christmas and we’re all in misery.” //
It’s Christmas and we’re all in misery. // I think the reason that this movie is loved by so many is that there’s no way we’re going to walk away from it feeling inadequate. Our society has raised us to be creatures of comparison and contrast, and well -- even if our family’s dynamics are such that they leave us feeling miserable, we’re probably still a few catastrophes short of the Griswold’s. At least, I hope you can say that.
For my own family, I can remember one particular Christmas where a new job for my mom, grad school finals for my dad, arguments over Christmas tradition, and other added busyness all contributed to the chaos that ensued on Christmas Eve. On that night, we all piled into the car to make a desperate search for a yet, unpurchased Christmas tree. It was already dark and about negative five degrees (at least, that’s how I remember it, but it was cold enough to freeze your nose hairs and make the car heater groan in complaint). After driving by a couple of tree lots already closed, we found one still open with a big sign from heaven: “Any tree -- $10.” Wonderful. Perfect. We pulled in and began our search among all the Charlie Brown trees that remained -- at least, that is, for about five minutes until we got too cold and all dove back into the car except my dad. We then began to silently direct him to various trees we wanted him to bring within sight of the car and turn, of course, so we could inspect them from behind the glass. After several duds, we all saw it – the perfect tree – nice and plump and full of branches. My father drug it through the frozen tundra to spin it near the car and assure us that yes, it was the one remaining perfect tree on the lot. We paid for it, and waited as Dad tied it to the roof of the car. Then we waited some more when he discovered that he had tied himself out of the car. Finally, we arrived back home. We drug the beautiful, frozen tree inside, got it set up in the window, and proceeded to thaw our fingers and toes. As we thawed, so did the tree. And as the smell of homemade potpourri on the stove wafted through the air from the kitchen, another smell began wafting through the air from the living room: cat urine. And that is how we discovered why that one, seemingly perfect tree remained at a lot on Christmas Eve.
Yes, Christ might be the “Christ” in “Merry Christmas” (as all the signs around town shouted this season), but often -- there’s a few, not-so-Christ-like words silently inserted in the middle of that greeting -- especially when family efforts don’t match up to the pictures on the Hallmark cards and Scrooge gets the better of us in our revelation of that fact.
The perfect family with the perfect Christmas – well, isn’t that the gift that we all really wanted? Some of us, like Clark Griswold, might have even convinced ourselves (in a few delusional moments) that we got what we wished for. But I’m betting that most all of us, no matter how Pollyanna we try to be about it, all go through moments of Christmas misery. Moments where we think to ourselves, “If only…we could all get along.” “If only…Uncle Harry wasn’t such a lush.” “If only…Aunt Liza and Uncle Leo didn’t have to make it all about the money.” “If only my in-laws could take a break from their potshots and advice on how to raise the kids.” “If only…he could have been faithful.” “If only…the kids didn’t have to split the day between their mom and dad’s.” “If only…my wife were still here.” “If only…my mom were still around to say or do that one thing that always made me feel in the Christmas spirit.” “If only…I hadn’t lost my job and we could afford a real Christmas.”
Or let’s extend it beyond our cultural front door: “If only…we had something other than bug-filled rice to eat.” “If only…I weren’t dying of AIDS or knew of a possible future for the children I will leave behind.” “If only…I didn’t have to give my children water that I know will make them sick.” “If only…I could send the kids to the playground without worrying that a suicide bomber is going to attack my political views through my children.” “If only...”
To all of these “ifs,” God has provided an answer and a way. God has gifted us this Christmas…with a new family.
Now, depending on your social location, the idea of such a gift can bring up different kinds of feelings – feelings of humor, maybe regret, sadness, joy or relief. You might look back on the trials of Christmas family get-togethers and say, “Well…while there were moments this season where mention of that gift would have guiltily felt somewhat enticing, I’ve already survived Christmas and made it safely to the other side of New Year’s.” But to a person living in the time and culture of Jesus (or any modern-day, third-world culture where family means not only the people to whom you are related, but family means power, predetermined social status, respect, access to resources, assurance of survival) – to a person living in a culture where one’s family is THE most important aspect of one’s identity, the promise of a new family is a gift that would turn heads.
Well, there was an awful lot of head-turning going on in the years of Jesus’ ministry and the apostles who followed him. To a world in which one’s placement of birth usually determined the course of one’s entire life, one of the dominant messages thick in Jesus’ teachings and those of his followers was of a new, chosen kinship, open to any and all persons…in the family of God. We hear it in our scriptures for today: “He has destined us for adoption as his children through Jesus Christ” the letter to the church at Ephesus states. And John follows suit: “to all who received him, who believed, in his name, he gave power to become children of God, who were born, not of blood or of the will of the flesh or of the will of man, but of God.” The prophet-writer of Revelation also doesn’t disappoint: “Those who conquer will inherit these things, and I will be their God, and they will be my children.”
Children of God. The only ones of our culture who can, I think, truly identify with the head-turning weight of such a gift are those who have been adopted. One seventeen year-old reflecting on her adoption has put it this way, “Being adopted is having an abundant life, and more importantly, knowing you are wanted.” Knowing you are wanted. Knowing you are chosen. Stepping into a whole new life, a better life, an abundant life. That’s powerful for all of us, but especially when you come from a position in which you don’t have or feel those things and can’t attain them on your own. And while none of us truly have abundant lives without God, in Jesus’ day and the days of early Christianity, the voids of the common life went way beyond the spiritual. And that’s a fact not to be ignored when we seriously engage the scriptures because it’s an existence that the majority of the world knows a whole lot better than we do. And if we are to know the Truth of these passages, we will need their help.
But we do ignore the Truth of these passages, a truth woven within an understanding of culture, rather than a kidnapping and placement of scripture within our own cultural realities. Among churches in the United States, the dominant interpretation being preached and shared about adoption into God’s family is an individualistic message about choosing sides: God’s side or the world’s side. The message has been reduced to believing in the name of Jesus like some icon rather than taking on belief in his name as a family coat of arms – as a badge not only of honor -- but a badge to honor by how and where and to whom we wear it. Jesus has been made into an escape hatch to whisk us to heaven and away from the fires of hell, more than he has been lifted up as a teacher to hear and follow. Well folks, that sure does make for an exciting plotline for the Left Behind books, but it doesn’t make it right.
Adoption into God’s family isn’t about abandonment or escape. It’s about entrance into life that begins on this side of death – a life that was/is/and will be “the light of all people, shining in the darkness” as John, chapter one states -- not above it or beyond it, but right there in it…and not being overcome. Now that’s something that burns brighter than the Griswold family’s amped-out roof or our own efforts of merry-making.
But probably, the most important thing to know about God’s family is that it isn’t a solo act. It’s not just about me and God or you and God. It’s not a husband, a wife and 2.5 kids who all commit their lives to Christ and then isolate themselves from the world. The family of God is big and diverse, full of all types of people -- and meant to provide a better life NOW – for all the adopted children of God.
I guess the question we need to ask ourselves is “Do we want to open the gift of God’s new family?” Many around the world are praying that we will. Our brothers from another mother. Our sisters from another mister. Our family. God’s family. And it starts when we look with the intention of seeing them.
David Diggs, a staff person working in D.C. for a Haitian charity I support called Beyond Borders, shared this story about an exercise in beginning to see people that can start at home:
I was on my way to the bank and pushing my daughter in her stroller. She is nearly two and very adorable. I know she is adorable by the way total strangers react to her. When I walk down the street alone how do people react? They walk right past me, never looking my way, always absorbed in their own cares. But when I have my daughter with me, people can’t keep their eyes off of her. They smile at her and try to get her attention if she’s not looking at them. When we stop at a crosswalk waiting for a light to change, some people look down at her and make goofy faces and funny noises to entertain her. If she smiles at them, they light up. It’s love at first sight.
So, yesterday, while walking up Connecticut Avenue in Washington, D.C. with my daughter, I decided that I would play a little game. I would start looking at people I passed on the sidewalk as if they were as adorable as my daughter. I’d smile at them and try to get them to smile back at me. There was nothing complicated about this game. I simply tried to imagine each person I passed as the beautiful child they must have once been.
What started as a silly game, quickly turned into a spiritual experience. As I started trying to see everyone as adorable children, I was suddenly aware that God must be looking at all of us this way. God must be able to see beneath all our defenses and disguises and see us all as precious children. As I began to sense God delighting in all of us, my mood went from playful to giddy.
Several pedestrians who were walking the opposite direction down the sidewalk would first look at my daughter and smile and then look up at me beaming at them and quickly turn away. A few would tepidly acknowledge my gleeful grin, but I could see what they were thinking: “Beautiful kid. Too bad her dad is wacko.”
Only two of the several dozen people I passed seemed to connect with me. The first was an elderly woman moving slowly with a walker. She beamed both at my daughter and at me. I think we were both beautiful children in her eyes. I beamed at her for it wasn’t difficult to see her as a lovely, sprightly little girl. Outside she used a walker, but inside she was skipping down the sidewalk.
The second person who connected with me was Charles, a homeless man who sometimes hangs out in front of a local diner to ask for money. Most people make an effort to pretend that Charles doesn’t exist, even when he addresses them directly. So he seemed a little thrown that I initiated the contact. We ended up talking for a few minutes. He even offered me some Halloween candy that someone had given him. Because I was seeing Charles as a sweet child, I ended up forgetting that he was homeless and poor. He just seemed like the nicest kid on the block.
How different our world would be if we could see in each child the presence of God and if in each adult we could see a precious child of God. My goofy game of walking around looking at people like they were adorable children might not be so goofy after all. It might be an exercise that prepares us for the Kingdom of God, where we all are children and where God is present among us as a child.[1]
Adopted, loved children of God. God is looking at all of us this way. It’s why God came in Jesus. So he could do it face to face. And it’s why God continues to come through us. May we bear the name of Christ well in the family of God. Amen.
[1]David Diggs, “Beyond Borders” newsletter (December 2002).
