By Kim Thoday

Just the other day I found myself questioning my sanity. As I stood in the middle of brightly coloured over stocked shelves I suddenly realized I’d been taken for a ride. Long have I spoken out against our rampant consumerism, yet here again I found myself engulfed in the endless fog of commercial fantasy. My waking took the form of two shelves of doll-like ceramic pigs. I think it was the absurdity that woke me. Pigs. Cute pigs. I had to look twice. Female pigs and male pigs, with happy human faces and human genitalia. Half clothed pigs posed in various erotic positions. All ready for the Christmas buying spree in this large mainline franchised bargain store.

The waking of God within sometimes comes with frightening force. What on earth was I doing? Like a sleep walker here I was in the week before Christmas, searching for the elusive gifts that would be expected by relatives and friends. I felt sickened by my own unconsciousness. Yet the light of truth was simultaneously liberating. The question pounded my brain. Why am I buying things for people who already have everything? And why do I expect things at Christmas? I have everything and more. Absurdity changed to Obscenity as the plastic pigs jeered and gestured. Fully awake I left the store empty handed and with a new resolve.

One of America’s true prophets, the gifted communicator and Christian activist Tony Campolo, tells of a personal Advent moment. He lives in Philadelphia – the city of Brotherly Love. One evening in the city centre, as Campolo waited to walk across a street, he was approached by a Bum. This guy was particularly filthy – a smelly disgusting homeless person. He had a huge beard that seemed to stick out in all directions, bits of old food encrusted in its tangles. Here he comes to you now, you know how they come on city streets, pig-like, with jeering and gesturing looks, schizophrenic types who chatter aloud to themselves because they have no friends. It’s embarrassing isn’t it? We quickly try to hide our faces from them don’t we? Let’s cross the street! We avoid them don’t we? But its more than the fact that they repulse us, its because deep down we see some reflection of ourselves. There is a disturbing flash of recognition isn’t there?

“Hey Mister,” said the Bum to Campolo, “would you like to have a drink of my coffee?” Here this apparent monster held out a smudged McDonald’s coffee cup. Campolo recoiled. The last thing he wanted to do was sup from the creature’s cup. But then that voice of human conscience needed to affirm the man’s generosity. So he took the coffee and between gritted teeth sipped the liquid and then promptly handed it back. “I gotta ask you,” said Campolo, “why are you out sharing your coffee with strangers, I mean you don’t know me?” The reply came forthrightly, “Well tonight the coffee is especially delicious . and I figured if God gives you something precious then you gotta share it.” A pause. “Ok Ok,” Campolo found himself saying, “You got me, I know what you’r e doing, I guess now you’ll ask me for ten dollars.” A pause. “No,” said the man, “but what I would like is a hug.” Like a sleep walker, Campolo found himself hugging this homeless putrid Bum. And it was a long hug, an endless hug, this guy wasn’t about to let go. There they stood on a crowded street, Campolo aware of the disapproving and embarrassed stares of consumers. Then came a moment of awe – an Advent of Jesus. In this human embrace came the words of Saint Francis that the poor are a sacrament. He was embracing Jesus. And the words of the Christ were liberating and awakening as if from a state of unconsciousness: “When I came to you thirsty, did you give me your drink? When I came to you hungry did you give me your food? When I came to you naked did you clothe me? When I came to you as a stranger, a refugee, did you help find me a home? When I came to you unloved, despised and rejected, did you hug me?”

This Christmas, how will we encounter the Christ? Will he come in the giving and receiving of gifts by those who already have everything? Or will the true spirit of Advent come to us from the giving and receiving of things of eternal value from the one who comes to us with nothing?

Grace and Peace this Advent

Kim Thoday, Hewett Community Church of Christ, South Australia

http://www.hewett.org.au