I’m a bit of a late bloomer in the realm of parenting, so this is my first set of urchins to awaken to the ever-increasing wonderama that is Christmas in America. The oldest (four year old twins) are now fully engaged with the “I am getting presents” thing. This year they realized for the first time that the cookies they were decorating were good eatin’, and the desire to consume copious amounts of sugar quickly overtook the urge to open gifts, to the point that cookies were the only topic of dinnertime conversation for three days leading up to the blessed event. Our goal of convincing them that Christmas is all about giving to others is lagging behind a bit, but we’re making progress, despite the inherent narcissism that marks the toddler to preschool years. They now at least acknowledge that the baby Jesus is somehow connected to the chaos, and will tolerate other people getting presents without protest.

And then there’s Santa. I have to confess here that I have always had a dualistic relationship with the hoary elf. On the one hand, I never recall thinking Santa was real. On the flip side, I distinctly remember my Dad, with a wry wink, advising us to listen for reindeer on the roof of our mobile home on Christmas Eve. When it came time to educate our spawn regarding the ubiquitous December icon, we took a somewhat similar approach, albeit attempting to infuse a sense of theological accuracy. We teach that Santa is a fun story – a parable of sorts that teaches us about giving to others and doing the right things for the right reasons (by illuminating all the wrong ones, like “be good to get stuff”). With this approach, we get to pretend and play the Santa game with no jeopardy attached. I think the twins get it. On Christmas Eve I told them they had to go to sleep or Santa wouldn’t come. The red-head said “Oh – you won’t come with the presents if we’re awake?” Perfect.

In the mountain of ads crammed into my snail mail box each and every day there recently was a newsletter from…I can’t recall whom. But in the “cute human interest stories that make you think I’m a real person you can relate to so you can trust me and buy my products or services” section was a paragraph with this headline: “At Christmas, teach your kids to believe in magic”, followed by a series of exercises you could undertake to trick the nubbins into believing Santa had indeed stopped by (make fake reindeer prints in the front yard, leave a black sack next to your chimney, eat the cookies, etc.).

It’s a common sentiment to be sure. I have, in fact, been accused of killing the joy, innocence, and sense of wonder that are the hallmarks of childhood by not fully embracing the Santa myth. Some have even tried to tie a thread between St Nick. belief and belief in general. “I want my children to believe.”

At the risk of sounding like a wet blanket wielding party pooper, I have to say that pure belief is just not enough. I propose this amended desire: “I want my children to believe the truth.”

Belief without truth lacks a foundational context, without which it is naiveté at best, gullibility at worst. Truth itself becomes the bitter pill we find tucked away in the center of the sweet confection of fairy tales presented as reality – choked down the day we learn we’ve been sold a bill of goods.

Make no mistake – I’m a huge fan of whimsy, play, make-believe and even fantasy. I’m a father of four girls. It’s in the job description. I don’t trust a kid who doesn’t have their head in the clouds at least a little. We were created with the ability to imagine infinite worlds. We were endowed by our Creator with an innate knowledge that there is more to us than hands and feet, fingers and toes, hearts and brains. We are spiritual, and connecting with the spiritual world takes a leap of faith beyond what science can demonstrate or repeat.

But at what point do our flights of fancy and faith become the “vain imaginations” Scripture warns against? I think it begins when we “exchange the truth…for a lie.” To complete that swap, we have to treat the fantasy with the same regard and station as the truth itself. We give it credence and value and weight. And it starts with our earliest beliefs.

Over the years in conversations about the journey of faith, I have often heard a variation on this theme:

“I stopped believing in God when I grew up and stopped believing in fairy tales.”

The death of innocence is a weighty thing. The day we realize there is no Santa Claus – that he is only a concept, a story, a morality tale, a bill of goods – is the day we begin to question a lot of things. How much of what I believe – and have been taught to believe – is on the same level: a good story that teaches us values but is not to be taken seriously. Like the Bible.

And that brings us to magic. Confession time: I caught a few minutes of a J.K Rowling interview on the Oprah how recently (in my defense, I ha no intention of doing so – it was on, and I couldn’t look away. Okay, lame defense). I should also point out that I have no desire to have a conversation about Harry Potter and its place in the literary canon. I’ve only seen one of the movies (totally confusing) and read none of the books. But J.K. was defending the use of magic in the Harry Potter books, and in so doing paraphrased a quote I have heard somewhere before but can’t place (or find on Wikipedia):

“‘In magic, man has to rely on himself’…so in religion, of course, you’re looking for outside support… but that’s the perennial appeal of magic—the idea that we ourselves have power and we can shape our world.”

I couldn’t agree more. Sort of.

Therein lies the fundamental conflict between sorcery and spirituality; between magic and miracles. To believe in and eternal Creator who revealed himself to us through prophets, Scriptures, and that baby born at Christmas, we must first accept there is a power and authority greater than ourselves, and we have to deal with Him on a personal level. Magic only requires that we believe in an impersonal force that aids us in achieving our self-determined ends. If we trust in magic, we can command the universe to bow to our whim (see “The Secret”). To depend on miracles requires humility, patience, and often the grace to suffer through unanswered requests.

Allow me to set up a straw man by guessing at the objections these thoughts might provoke: “Golly, Jon, you’re taking this stuff a bit too seriously, aren’t you? It’s just kid’s stuff. Let ‘em believe in fairies and Santa and the Easter Bunny as long as possible, then let them down gently. That’s what growing up is all about.” I have a few concerns with that theory.

First, magic is not make-believe. As a person of faith I believe in sorcery, magic, divination, and witchcraft. I just don’t believe they are good or amoral.

The power exerted by magicians (the real kind, not the Vegas illusionist kind) does not come from a benign impersonal force somewhere in the cosmos. There is no such thing as a good witch. There are plenty of very deceived, very naïve practitioners of the dark arts, but all spiritual power has a source. The source of spiritual power used in magic is not the Creator. And there is only one other option. In the light of this truth, teaching kids a non-specific or neutral view of magic is playing with fire. Here I should note that unless you accept the premise that there is a God and  a Devil, you will disagree with this and everything else I say.

Scripture is not ambiguous about magic. It has no concept of good and bad sorcerers. All attempts to assert spiritual power outside relationship with Jesus is called witchcraft, and strictly forbidden for God’s people. Satanists will tell you these things are written to control people and keep them from discovering their true potential; to keep them under the thumb of religious authorities. But Scripture teaches these laws are for our protection – to keep us from being owned and corrupted by the enemy of our souls, who from the very beginning has tried to be God’s peer and convince others to partake in that folly (“you can be like God” – the world’s first and most powerful lie).

If magic is real, it means that we have to very carefully decide what stories and fairy tales and fantasies we expose young minds to. I am abused of the notion that my primary job as a father is to teach my children who God is and lead them to experience His love, grace, forgiveness, and family.

Which leads to my second concern: I don’t want Jesus to be just another fairy tale; another story about magic and mysticism that turns out to be poppycock in the light of scientific rationalism.

When they “grow up” and stop believing that animals can talk, toys play by themselves when no one is looking, and dragons roam the countryside, it is vital that the stories of David, Samson, Jesus, Peter, Paul, and the rest not be so easily discarded. They have to be given a greater weight. They have to be taught as truth, not fiction.

Let me tell you where I come down on all this: It’s all about context. What is true? What is just a story? What is a fun game? What is a dangerous dalliance? For our girls, we have risked harming the childhood sense of wonder by not allowing stories to go unchallenged or uncategorized. Rather than attempting to shield them from all non-Biblical sources of information, we carefully evaluate and provide critical analysis. A movie does not get played for the first time without commentary. I don’t teach them magic isn’t real, I teach them that magic is different than faith. I teach them that their bedtime Bible stories are real, but many other stories are pretend. We don’t write letters to Santa asking for toys, but we do pray each night for protection, blessing, healing and hope.

We read fairy tales. We watch Disney movies. We play pretend with princesses and dragons and knights and ladies. We encourage imagination. But through all of this we teach, admonish, remind, and exhort. And we elevate Scripture and prayer outside the context of entertainment or fancy. They are treated as wholly other and superior.

It’s a bit of a problem at Christmas time. I am not popular with the parents of children to whom my fiery red-headed daughter has proclaimed “Santa is just pretend.” I am sure they think I am a fun-free fundamentalist. We’re working on her impulse control. “Dear, you don’t need to tell everyone everything that you know.”

But in the end, it’ worth the risk. I want my kids to have fun with stories and make-believe (and trust me, they do) but I maintain that their ability to believe in God is not predicated on their ability to believe in fairies. The two are not connected. One is real. One isn’t. Different.

So we will continue to have fun with the Santa myth, acknowledge the existence of magic (with added context) and trust that if we do our job, God is faithful to help them sort fact from fiction, faith from fantasy.

That’s my plan. What’s yours?

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DISCLAIMER: Just about everything in this post is mostly for me. I am not writing to anyone external, I am writing to myself. If you find yourself in the same boat, so be it. And I don’t think I am doing ANYTHING right on this topic in my own life. Think of this as sermon to me, at the end of which I responded to call to repentance and said “yep, that’s me. I suck.”

The early church in Jerusalem for a time had a very communal approach to life. There isn’t definitive evidence that the extreme level of sharing they were practicing extended to every community of faith, but it IS very clear from Church history that concern for the needs of others – especially “the poor” was paramount. Paul even recounts Peter, James and John’s only instruction to him, when they gave him the right hand of fellowship (a phrase we really ought to revive) was to “remember the poor“.

The debate now is fascinating – many Christians have come to believe that a government that cares for the needs of the “poor” or “poorer” (however you define that) by means of taking money from the “rich” (however you define that) is a righteous form of government, and making sure our leaders push through that agenda is more important than any other moral issue. Many Christians believe helping the poor should be the work of the Church, so government should stay out of it and leave the giving to us. Inexplicably, many of the people in camp #2 fight for less taxation and then do very little or nothing at all to directly help the poor (beyond small donations to their local church or some other “distance giving” activity). Which makes the people in camp #1 think the gov. should take their money so they would be forced to do the right thing.

I think both entirely miss the point. It doesn’t really matter to Jesus what your government does. It matters what you do. Let us go to the tale of the tape (old school football reference, y’all):

Luke 14:12-14 (New American Standard Bible)
 12And He also went on to say to the one who had invited Him, “When you give a luncheon or a dinner, do not invite your friends or your brothers or your relatives or rich neighbors, otherwise they may also invite you in return and that will be your repayment.  13″But when you give a reception, invite the poor, the crippled, the lame, the blind,

 14and you will be blessed, since they do not have the means to repay you; for you will be repaid at the resurrection of the righteous.”

And then there’s this one:

Matthew 5:40-48 (New American Standard Bible)
 40″If anyone wants to sue you and take your shirt, let him have your coat also. 41″Whoever forces you to go one mile, go with him two.  42″Give to him who asks of you, and do not turn away from him who wants to borrow from you.  43″You have heard that it was said, ‘YOU SHALL LOVE YOUR NEIGHBOR and hate your enemy.’  44″But I say to you, love your enemies and pray for those who persecute you, 45so that you may be sons of your Father who is in heaven; for He causes His sun to rise on the evil and the good, and sends rain on the righteous and the unrighteous.  46″For if you love those who love you, what reward do you have? Do not even the tax collectors do the same?  47″If you greet only your brothers, what more are you doing than others? Do not even the Gentiles do the same?

Jesus’ very simple assertion is that the kind of life that marks the sons and daughters of God on the earth is one that does more than is required. And He defines the kinds of actions that cause Him to know us in strikingly specific detail:

The Judgment
31″But when the Son of Man comes in His glory, and all the angels with Him, then He will sit on His glorious throne. 32″All the nations will be gathered before Him; and He will separate them from one another, as the shepherd separates the sheep from the goats; 33and He will put the sheep on His right, and the goats on the left. 34″Then the King will say to those on His right, ‘Come, you who are blessed of My Father, inherit the kingdom prepared for you from the foundation of the world. 35′For I was hungry, and you gave Me something to eat; I was thirsty, and you gave Me something to drink; I was a stranger, and you invited Me in; 36 naked, and you clothed Me; I was sick, and you visited Me; I was in prison, and you came to Me.’ 37″Then the righteous will answer Him, ‘Lord, when did we see You hungry, and feed You, or thirsty, and give You something to drink? 38′And when did we see You a stranger, and invite You in, or naked, and clothe You? 39′When did we see You sick, or in prison, and come to You?’ 40″The King will answer and say to them, ‘Truly I say to you, to the extent that you did it to one of these brothers of Mine, even the least of them, you did it to Me.’

 41″Then He will also say to those on His left, ‘Depart from Me, accursed ones, into the eternal fire which has been prepared for the devil and his angels;

We all know the rest. The bad guys did NOT do all that feeding and clothing and visiting. A few conclusions we can draw:

1. Jesus cares very deeply (in an eternal fire sort of way) about how we treat the hungry-thirsty-naked-stranger-sick-prisoner types.
2. There seems to be no discussion of the worthiness of the beneficiaries of this care, and no consideration of what everyone else was doing to alleviate their suffering.

In America, we make these distinctions. First, those who get help must first be worthy of it. We think what Jesus really meant was “I was hungry – even though I have a job and work really hard everyday for minimum wage, I was sick – but not the kind of sickness caused by my own bad choices like aids or cigarette-induced lung cancer, I was in prison – but I was wrongly convicted or I was rightly convicted but I’m really sorry and trying to change my ways.”

Some of us think the “brothers” Jesus is referring to are people who believe in Him – hey Bible scholars – can any of you lurkers out there prove He was only talking about Christians? Or that He wasn’t?

Some of us think He meant “I was in need and no one else was trying to help me.” Those of us in this category think that our responsibility begins where there are gaps in government programs. We adopt the Ebenezer Scrooge mentality that says the poor should avail themselves of the services provided, and if there are no services, we can then be asked to help them (“are all the poor houses out of business?”).

Even more of us think the help should be conditional and, we say, redemptive. We don’t want to just give handouts to those who do not work, because then they will always rely on handouts. We don’t want to enable and perpetuate their negative cycle.

All of these things are fine and well when discussing public policy, but that is not what Jesus is discussing. He is discussing you. And me. And our private policies. And He is telling us to act like God does.

And God does what He does not have to. He goes beyond what is required. He sets up a universe with laws and consequences for actions, and when we choose death, he allows the laws to remain and destroy our bodies, but gives His only Son to save our souls. He sends rain on the just and the unjust. He freely gives mercy to those who will openly mock it and reject Him. He loves those who hate him. He redeems those who have made themselves His enemies, not by accident, but by conscious choice.

Jesus is saying that caring for others is not about what it does for THEM, it’s about what it makes YOU. It makes you like Him.

It’s easy to see what we ought to do, then. I think we should all discuss openly the role of government in our lives, since we live in a democracy and have that right. And after we have cast our votes and paid our taxes, we should take some of the resources Uncle Sam leaves us and use them to invite strangers to our homes, and the poor to our parties, and visit the sick and imprisoned, and clothe the naked.

Of course we must attempt to bring about real change and redemption whenever we can, but we must actively seek out those who do not deserve our help, who do not qualify for our programs, who can give us nothing in return – not even the self-satisfaction that we have helped someone get their lives straightened out with our giving. Jesus said we would always have the poor with us. Because there will always be junkies and criminals and fools and drunks who just can’t seem to get it together. And to love them, with no hope of seeing anyt change in their condition is to hear the heartbeat of God and become His sons and daughters.

Many will say, “Jon, you can’t help people who don’t want help.” I agree. You can’t make anyone do anything. “Aha!” you will then say, “so shouldn’t we focus our finite resources on those we CAN help?” Only if you believe that the goal of Jesus’ story was to get us into the business of rehabilitating the least in our society. But I don’t think so. I think He wants us to do these things to rehabilitate US.

How about this: rather than decide who to show compassion on, let’s decide first to show compassion, then ask God to show us who the target is. You might be shocked to find He picks some very undeserving, unrepentant, unfix-able folk. Don’t worry about that. That’s his problem. The same God who told Hosea to marry a prostitute who would be unfaithful to him the rest of his life might ask you to take care of someone who never says the Sinner’s Prayer. The time will not be wasted. It’s about His agenda, not yours.

In part two, we will discuss how to do all this without becoming self-righteous (or at least attmepting not to become so). But to summarize part one, Jesus commands us simply:

In loving others, go beyond what is required (or even reasonable).

And that can and must be done under any government – socialist, Marxist, totalitarian dictatorship, left-wing, right-wing, Republican, Democrat, Utopian, or even Roman. Because love is not against the law. And loving like Jesus makes us more like Jesus. And that is His point.

As always, if you disagree (heck, even if you agree), puh-leeeze post a comment.

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It’s that time again to look to Washington for salvation – from budget crises and overseas terrorists. I wrote before a post called The Politics of Faith about our sometimes obsession as people of faith with political heroes. I won’t rehash it all, but I do want to approach this from another angle…

The hip thing these days is to mock and ridicule the “other side” in politics. This creates an environment where it is tempting to get into wars of words and witticisms, both on TV and around the water cooler. The question, then, becomes “what should people of faith do in such an environment?” Is it our responsibility to determine which candidates are best for our country from a moral and even a spiritual perspective and attempt to thoughtfully defend those candidates around the office and the lunch table? Shouldn’t we be the people who advocate forcefully for candidates that hold to Judeo-Christian principles? Shouldn’t we try to convince people who they should vote for?

It’s a dilemma to be sure. On the one hand, we would like to see things go “our way” (whatever you have determined that to be). But many of us also live in environments that are hostile to our worldview, and choosing our political candidate based on that prism opens us up to heated attack and even ridicule. In a place like Seattle, I am even seeing a trend amongst Christian-types – a concerted effort to rationalize the dispensing of certain moral criteria in order to support candidates that will gain them a little more credit with co-workers and friends.

Who would Jesus vote for?

That’s what we’re trying to figure out. Some of us say he would vote Democrat because of social justice, and anyone who elevates other moral issues above helping the poor is not a real Christian. Some of us say he would vote Republican because of abortion and gay marriage and anyone elevates helping the poor above these issues is not a real Christian. Who would Jesus really vote for?

I think He would vote for you. I’m not saying I don’t hold political views. I do. Strong ones. And I share them vociferously around the house. I am ridiculously well-informed, consuming much media from both sides. I have a view of how the American government should best be managed. But it’s not on my name tag or my backpack or my mini-van’s bumper (I know, a minivan – what a sellout!). That’s because this is not the thing that defines my person-hood. Because it’s all gonna burn. American democracy is the greatest form of government and the greatest nation ever to exist on planet earth, and it is still only a dim shadow of the world that is to come, not worthy even of comparison.

Jesus proved consistently throughout His ministry that he elevated people above politics. He sluffed off political questions, teaching instead that the residents of His kingdom should make every effort to live at peace in whatever regime they found themselves and concentrate instead on advocacy for the truth of His death and resurrection. This is our core issue – Jesus lived a sinless live, died once for the redemption of all who receive Him, was crucified, dead, and buried, rose on the third day, and ascending to the right hand of God. This simple message is enough to gain us scorn and ridicule. leaving aside our politics.

We must not look to Capitol Hill for a savior. We must not look to supporting political views to gain us credibility or likability with friends and co-workers (translation – supporting the latest new hip candidate will not make the story of Jesus more palatable to your friends, any more than your super-hip tattoo or choice to smoke a cigar. There’s nothing wrong with any of that, unless you’re doing it just to look good to people outside of faith. Then it’s vanity at best, hypocrisy at the worst. But I digress). We must look instead to defend and propagate the incredible story of the love of God through Jesus.

Change we can believe in…

…to shamelessly borrow a phrase . General leadership principle: leadership is influence, and good leadership makes deposits into our bank of credibility and influence. Every time we put some one’s person hood before their position, listen to their opinions, spend time caring about what they care about, demonstrate integrity or sacrificial leadership, do what we say, live consistently, or a thousand other goodly things, we build our influence account. It’s like loose change in a piggy bank that eventually accumulates into a new video game (minus the Coin-Star fee). It takes time, but eventually we build up the kind of influence that can be used to persuade someone to make a change.

The real question is, what will you spend your change on? If you have built enough influence to REALLY influence someone, what should you invest that change account into? Most of us don’t think this strategically. We attempt to exert influence all the time, or at unimportant moments. The condition of the soul is far more important than what people invest their money in, who they vote for, or what they do in their free time. This is why Paul, explaining his method of ministry in Corinth, said:

1When I came to you, brothers, I did not come with eloquence or superior wisdom as I proclaimed to you the testimony about God.^[a] 2For I resolved to know nothing while I was with you except Jesus Christ and him crucified. 3I came to you in weakness and fear, and with much trembling. 4My message and my preaching were not with wise and persuasive words, but with a demonstration of the Spirit’s power, 5so that your faith might not rest on men’s wisdom, but on God’s power.

I Corinthians 2

I want to be like Paul. I want it to be clear to everyone who knows me that the truth of Jesus and Him crucified is at the core of my being. When we talk politics, I have something to say, but no axe to grind. When we talk sports, I have thoughts, but no hill to die on. When we talk work, I am diligent and responsible, but my heart is not buried at the office. When we talk faith, I am fully invested, ready with an answer, and willing to spend whatever good will I have to impress upon the listener the centrality of faith in Jesus to our very existence.

Spend your change wisely. It would truly tank to convince someone of your political argument (or convince them you believe the same way politically) and not have any influence left when the talk turns to matters with eternal weight. Save wisely, spend wisely.

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