By Rev. Dr. Joe Blosser, Robert G. Culp Jr. director of service learning and assistant professor of religion and philosophy at HPU
A stained glass nightlight. Scottish shortbread cookies. A books of the Bible tie. A “Brain Games” book. An “I love Chicago” Beany Baby. And a Jesus action figure.
What do all these things have in common? They are gifts from my aunt. She’s what I’d call an “unscripted” gift-giver. Every family has one. While all the rest of the family exchanges lists for Christmas and follows them rather closely, her gifts are unique, unexpected, and always from the heart.
I think Matthew’s magi were also unscripted givers. There’s no way that Mary and Joseph registered for gold, frankincense, and myrrh. I always pictured Joseph – the carpenter – as more of practical guy, a guy who’d just prefer you buy him some diapers. But here come the wise men with outlandish gifts. Gifts Joseph and Mary didn’t expect. Gifts Joseph and Mary couldn’t repay. Gifts so unique, so unmistakable, and so surely from the heart that they became part of the greatest story ever told. If you know the Christ-story, then you know about these gifts. While I’ve forgotten most of the other gifts I’ve received, I still know all of Aunt Chris’s.
Though the gifts we give and receive this Christmas will pale in comparison to the gift of Christ we celebrate, there are better and worse forms of gift giving. In fact, I think there is a spectrum with at least three types of gifts on it.
On one extreme is the “me-gift.” When I was younger, I had a habit that thoroughly annoyed my mother: if I saw something I wanted for Christmas on sale, I’d buy it – just in case no one got it for me. I, after all, “deserved a little something for myself.” That’s a “me-gift.” Such gifts are exactly what we want. And exactly what we expect, which is why these narcissistic gifts aren’t true gifts at all. When what we expect is what we get, when there is complete symmetry between what we want and what we receive, then it isn’t really a gift – it’s an acquisition.
Most gifts that we give and receive though aren’t exactly what we expect. Most gifts are “you-gifts.” They are a genuine expression of care for another person, and we open them with at least a little surprise. The problem with “you-gifts” is that they too often and too quickly become stand-ins for monetary exchange. For example, I know if I buy your kid a $10 gift card to Target, then you’ll buy my kid a $10 gift card to Walmart. While such direct reciprocation is indeed the fairest way to give gifts – and I have siblings so I understand the importance of fairness – it isn’t the truest way to give a gift. Gift giving shouldn’t be about fair exchange or it just becomes a form of bartering.
The recently deceased Nobel-prize winning economist Gary Becker once argued that the best gift anyone could give was cash because then we can buy whatever will bring us the most pleasure. Thus, because I rarely use the unscripted gifts my aunt gives me, Becker argued they are a waste of money. Now Becker remained married until his death, so I somehow doubt he stuck to his own theory and only ever gave his wife cash. What Becker failed to see about gifts is that they are not about fulfilling expectations. Gifts are about the unexpected, the unique. Gifts should surprise us and bind us to the gift-giver in love and gratitude.
This brings us to the third kind of gift: the “God-gift.” The Christian Gospel teaches us that gifts are not meant to satisfy our desires or expectations. As with the magi, gifts should be from the heart, unexpected, and not about reciprocity or fairness. St. Augustine of Hippo wrote in De Trinitate that the Holy Spirit was a gift from God. And as a gift, the Spirit disrupts the world of sin in which we live. It breaks our expectations, shatters our systems of “fair” exchange. It violates our status quo in order to show us a new reality: a new heaven and a new earth. The only true gift this Christmas is God’s gift. It is the Christ child who no one expects and no one is prepared to receive. It’s a gift whose generosity overflows. And a gift we can never deserve and never reciprocate. The most we can do is share it.
Of all the gifts that we can wrap and put under a tree, perhaps it’s my aunt’s unscripted gifts that come closest to being “God-gifts.” They are unexpected, unique, and surprising gifts that endear us to the gift-giver. Unscripted gifts become stories we share with others. And they are gifts no one ever forgets or can ever reciprocate. After all, what’s an equivalent gift to a stain glass nightlight? So don’t be afraid to throw out the list this Christmas and go a little off script. If nothing else, it makes for a good story, and a good story will outlast anything you can put under the tree…just ask the wise men.