In the Gospel of Luke the pregnant virgin Mary sings a song of praise to God about what God has done and will do. Part of it goes like this:
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty. – Luke 1:52-53
Though it’s nice that Ebenezer Scrooge has a change of heart at the end of A Christmas Carol, his transformation isn’t the main point of that story. (Maybe it’s the main point of The Grinch, but that’s a different blog.) The main point is to feed the poor and screw the rich. If the story is about transformation, it’s inviting us to go from being the rich to being those feeding the hungry. In the book that explicitly includes societal change like funding education and prison reform.
Perhaps Christmas was always political after all. But it has nothing to do with Starbucks cups or store clerks saying “Merry Christmas” versus “Happy Holidays.”
Instead, it’s about honoring a new born King that demands we make sure everyone’s got the food, shelter, and clothing they need, that the voices of the poor aren’t drowned out by the money of the rich. It’s about praying, “Your kingdom come, your will be done, on earth as it is in heaven,” not just with our words but with our actions.
Christmas is about singing along in word and deed:
He has brought down the powerful from their thrones
and lifted up the lowly;
he has filled the hungry with good things
and sent the rich away empty.
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