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As a public service I am providing a shopping guide for things you can give to Jesus on His upcoming birthday. Let’s be honest…giving the King of Kings and Lord of Lords a unique gift is really tough. Yesterday’s post examined the gifts brought to the young Christ child over 2,000 years by the three wise men, I had hoped that examining what the Magi brought might jump start our gift giving ideas.  By the way, there is a plaque that is available in catalogs this year with the title “What if They Had Been 3 Wise Women?” Here is the conclusion….

They would have asked directions.
 Brought practical gifts
 Made a casserole
 Cleaned the stable
‘ Changed the baby
 And there would be peace on earth.

Alert readers from yesterday remember that the first gift was gold. That is always a lovely gift. But now it gets a little tougher.

Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Matt 2:11 (MsgB)

The second gift brought out of the luggage by the Magi was frankincense. Frankincense is a very costly and fragrant incense. It is a gum distilled from a tree found in the Middle East. It is a white resin or gum, and is obtained by slitting the bark of the “Arbor Thurisfrom”, allowing the gum to flow out (there will be a test). The word actually means “whiteness”, referring to the white colored juice which flows out of the wound in the tree. This gum hardens for three months, and is gathered at the end of the summer, and sold in the form of “tears”, or clumps of hardened resin. Frankincense is highly fragrant when burned, and was, therefore, used in worship, where it was burned as a pleasant offering to God. It is interesting to note that this sweet smelling resin comes as the result of the tree’s woundedness and pain. It is cut open and bleeds to give us the sweet smelling scent. The spiritual parallel is interesting. When we can worship God in the midst of our sorrow, our brokenness, then it is a sweet smelling offering to our Lord. 

King David wrote, “The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit: a broken and a contrite heart, O God, thou wilt not despise.” (Psalms 51:17 )

Much emphasis in worship today is on “celebration”. No time for agonizing and tears, only for shouts of joy and victory. While joyful praise is acceptable and pleasing to God, tears, like frankincense resin, oozing out of our hurts, broken hearts, and tears of repentance are especially pleasing – a sweet smelling sacrifice to the Lord. Anyone can dance and shout when blessings are flowing, and everything is going their way. But true worship happens when we must overcome feelings of self-pity, fear and doubt. So how can we offer a pleasing aroma to God?

How about giving Jesus the gift of belief for His birthday? You believe that Jesus is the Son of God…that He came to earth as a little baby over 2,000 years ago. That he lived a Holy life and died on a cross as perfect sacrifice for my sin and your sin. I would guess that most of the people who stumble onto this blog believe that. But what I am talking about is really believing God in every circumstance.

Think about giving the gift of really believing in Jesus for every need this coming year.

Believing that you are an amazing one of a kind creation whom God has placed where you are and with gifts that can be uniquely used where you are.

“You’re blessed when you’re content with just who you are-no more, no less. That’s the moment you find yourselves proud owners of everything that can’t be bought. Matthew 5:5 (MsgB) 

Later in the gospel of Matthew we find this…If you puff yourself up, you’ll get the wind knocked out of you. But if you’re content to simply be yourself, your life will count for plenty. Matthew 23:12 (MsgB)

I believe that comparison is one of Satan’s primary strategies to cause despair. You are wonderfully made by the Creator of the Universe and you are valuable. Michelangelo made a nearly perfect sculpture of David. The statue’s muscular tension is precisely rendered down to the muscle contraction on his forehead as David is poised to go into battle. It is perhaps the most important sculpture in the world and it was carved from one large block of marble. Why is that unique? Two other artists rejected the block of marble because of imperfections. Michelangelo saw the beauty in that block of marble that others did not. Jesus sees the beauty in you that others might not. Can you believe in a Jesus that can take you, even if you feel like a rejected block of marble, and then lovingly chip away until you become a beautiful work of art? Can you give Jesus the gift of believing that He is really there with you…as your Good Shepherd…ready to bind up your wounds and lead you to still waters.

“I am the Good Shepherd. The Good Shepherd puts the sheep before himself, sacrifices himself if necessary. A hired man is not a real shepherd. The sheep mean nothing to him. He sees a wolf come and runs for it, leaving the sheep to be ravaged and scattered by the wolf. He’s only in it for the money. The sheep don’t matter to him. “I am the Good Shepherd. I know my own sheep and my own sheep know me. In the same way, the Father knows me and I know the Father. I put the sheep before myself, sacrificing myself if necessary. You need to know that I have other sheep in addition to those in this pen. I need to gather and bring them, too. They’ll also recognize my voice. Then it will be one flock, one Shepherd. This is why the Father loves me: because I freely lay down my life. And so I am free to take it up again. No one takes it from me. I lay it down of my own free will. I have the right to lay it down; I also have the right to take it up again. I received this authority personally from my Father.” John 10:11-18 (MsgB)

The Good Shepherd had the choice and chose to give us the marvelous gift of laying down His life and then taking it up again. Believing Him…really believing Him…would make a lovely gift to Jesus on His birthday.

 

We are just over a week from the hardest day of the year for most men. Many of us men give gifts to our significant others with fear and trembling. Humor columnist Dave Barry relates the confusion most men deal with when giving a gift to their wife.

He could tell by her reaction to the gift that she had not been dreaming of getting an auto emergency kit, even though it was the deluxe model with booster cables and an air compressor. Clearly, this violated an important rule, but the man had idea what the rule was, and his wife was too upset to tell him.

Barry continues his thoughtful treatise…

So why is the Christmas season so difficult for men? There are many complex reasons, by which I mean: women. The problem goes back to the very first Christmas. We know from the Bible that the Wise Men showed up in Bethlehem and gave the baby Jesus gifts of gold, frankincense, and myrrh. Now Gold is always a nice gift, but frankincense and myrrh – at least according to my dictionary – are gum resins.

 Barry asks the vital question…

Who gives gum resins to a baby? The answer is…Men. The three wise men…being men, didn’t even start shopping for gifts until the last minute, when most of the stores in the greater Bethlehem area were closed for Christmas Eve. The only place still open was Big Stu’s House of Myrrh.

Even though Barry’s interpretation of the Gospels might be a little suspect…I do think he is correct about the difficulty in finding the right gift to give to Jesus on his birthday. Eldest son Matt told me about a Christmas card  with Jesus partying on the front of the card and singing Happy Birthday to me.

On December 24th or 25th most of us will exchange gifts on Jesus birthday. Suppose you had a big party for me to celebrate my humble birthday this April. All of my close friends and acquaintances show up and you all start exchanging gifts on my birthday. But there is nothing for me. Oh, someone might mention my name now and then. But I just sit and I sit and I watch others open gifts. Then someone mentions how grateful they are for Dave’s birthday so we could all be together. I become hopeful. But then someone else yells that the refreshments are ready so everyone rolls into the kitchen and I am left sitting there….no gifts on my birthday. I wonder if we don’t do that exact thing to Jesus. We have reason for the season signs and all of that. But it is so easy to get all caught up and not even think of a gift for the guest of honor at our Christmas celebrations.
  
So what can you give the Lord of the Universe? If you think your mother-in-law is tough to buy for what do buy for the Saviour who has everything? Believe it or not…I decided to go back to the Three Wise Men and see if there was more to their gifts than first appears. What is the story behind these gum resin gifts? What is up with the gifts presented by the Magi? The simplest meaning is that these men brought items which, in their experience, represented the greatest worth. All of these gifts were rare, precious and expensive. Whatever else we may learn from this story, we know that they gave their best in honor to the One they believed to be the King, the Messiah. It’s interesting that we don’t know the names of the Magi but we know what they gave. We don’t know where they came from but we know that they worshipped the  Christ child.
                     
They entered the house and saw the child in the arms of Mary, his mother. Overcome, they kneeled and worshipped him.

The gifts were a part of their worship. They bowed down before Him, and they offered Him gifts. What an amazing spirit that must have surrounded that child that caused men of importance, wealth and education to fall down before Him!

The miracle of God becoming man… He became what we are so that He might make us what He is.
Then they opened their luggage and presented gifts: gold, frankincense, myrrh. Matt 2:11 (MsgB)

The first gift mentioned is gold.

Gold was the usual offering presented to kings by their subjects, or those wanting to pay respect. Gold has always held extremely high value – as long ago as 2,500 BC, gold was especially prized, and used as a medium of exchange. Even today when investments get shaky you start hearing about buying gold as a hedge against economic downturns. The value of gold seems to be a constant in our civilization.
In both the Old Testament Tabernacle and the Temple, gold was used plentifully and was clearly associated with worship.

So should we give Jesus gold on His birthday? But most of us have a rather limited supply of gold. I am going to suggest that we give Jesus a commodity that is as valuable in today’s culture as gold was in the time of the Magi. That commodity of great value is time. When I think of gifts that we can give to Jesus…is there anything more precious than our time?

When you love someone you want to spend time with them.
If you say you love your wife but you go several days or weeks without talking to her she might be suspicious.
When we say we love our children but we can’t work them into the schedule they begin to have doubts…
When a young couple falls in love they want to spend every moment together. When they are apart they think of each other.

Percy Sledge sang that when a man loves a woman he can’t keep his mind on nothing else….

So we say we love Jesus. But we probably have little difficulty thinking of something else. We tell others that He is the center of our universe…but we can’t carve out the time to spend with Jesus. I am confessing here that I have been guilty of this far too often in my journey with Jesus. My lips confess my commitment to Him but my time with Him reveals my true priorities. The uncomfortable truth for me as a husband…as a father…and as a follower of Christ is that my Daytimer reveals my heart. I make time for the things that are most important to me.

Gift suggestion number one for Jesus on His birthday…give Him a little time or maybe a little more of your. Sit down with Him…talk to Him…enjoy His company.

And join us tomorrow for another last minute gift idea for Jesus. 

This is the time of the year when it gets a little crazy. The shopping list always includes some that are nearly impossible to buy for. And of course you have the concern that you will forget someone. Or the biggest  fear might be that a person who delivers a gift to you and you have a big bag of nothing for them. I was thinking this morning about someone that we (Christians) almost always acknowledge at Christmas but often neglect to think about what we are giving him. That person is the birthday boy himself…Jesus.

I was thinking about what I could give Jesus in the middle of the brouhaha over his birthday. I wondered how the Lord would react to some of the tactics that are being used in his name?  I came across some quotes from Barry Lynn, the Executive Director for Americans United for the Separation of Church and State in an open letter to Jerry Falwell.

“Since I debated you (Jerry Falwell) about the Christmas issue on Fox News Channel’s “O’Reilly Factor,” I have received 66 nasty e-mails, including two death threats. Observed one of my correspondents, “Hope you die soon. Merry Christmas.”

Lynn also noted that after a public school in New York made news for its holiday observance policies, “some education officials there received hateful mail of all sorts. One e-mail said “You are either bigoted Jews who hate Christians or mindless secularists.”

Barry Lynn and I disagree on many, if not most, issues. But I do not wish any ill to befall him. I don’t assume (as I mentioned in my December 9th post) that educators have any evil agendas when they set policies for Christmas.

I wish I could develop a grace check software program for any Christian who sends out a letter or email. Any ugly names or phrases or stereotypes would be rejected. The grace check feature would allow Biblical truth to be communicated clearly and forcefully but would remove all vindictive and insensitive language. I would love to add an intelligence module that would help writers have a point, use actual grammar, and make sure the spelling was better than the Chik-fil-a cow billboards.

Mr.Lynn notes writes in his letter to Mr.Falwell…

“The First Amendment of our Constitution ensures every American’s right to observe religious holidays or to refrain from doing so. We can wish each other a “Merry Christmas” or “Happy Holidays,” and it’s really none of your business which term we choose. We can call our decorated tree a “Christmas tree” or a “holiday tree,” and that’s our right. (We can observe the holidays of other traditions as well.)”

You certainly can. I don’t think that is the issue. But I also have a right to spend my money at a store that calls the tree a “Christmas” tree and notes that it is Christmas in their advertising and signage. That is my right of free expression as an American. Perhaps we have two different debates going here. One is my rights as an American, the other revolves around my responsibility as a follower of Christ. As a Christian my rules of engagement should be clear.

Every person has value in the eyes of the one who’s birthday is being debated. No one should be condemned or judged by me. I should represent the love of Christ to those I disagree with and demonstrate His amazing grace when they turn less than civil. It is supernatural responses that draw people to Jesus. When Christians respond with angry and ugly diatribes the message is lost and the cause is damaged.

Mr.Lynn continues…

“I think we all know what’s really going on with your campaign. You (Falwell) want an America where there is no separation of church and state and where your rather narrow interpretation of Christianity is forced on everyone. If you can convince Americans that their cherished Christmas traditions are under fire, you think maybe they will join your nefarious crusade to tear down the protective church-state wall that guarantees our freedoms.”

I can’t speak for Mr.Falwell and I certainly wish that people would quit assuming that he speaks for me. But I can tell you that I do not want an America where my interpretation of Christianity is forced on everyone. You see, my interpretation of Christianity cannot be forced on anyone. I gladly share the Jesus that has changed my life. What you do with that is up to you. A relationship like that cannot be forced. 

Sorry for getting a bit sidetracked. Tomorrow I will give you my gift list for Jesus on His birthday. There are still plenty of shopping days left.

 

On December 9th I posted a story about the decision by a Wisconsin elementary school to rewrite the lyrics of “Silent Night” to make it acceptable for the winter program. The unfortunate choice for a new title was “Cold in the Night”. Some things just shouldn’t be done. It is like the old Jim Croce song…”you don’t tug on Superman’s cape, you don’t spit into the wind, you don’t pull the mask off the old Lone Ranger, and you don’t rewrite Silent Night” (New Revised Version).

Writing that post brought to mind a legend I had heard involving the song “Silent Night” and a wartime Christmas truce. I researched the story and found that it actually happened. Here is a nice Christmas story for your Christmas season to share at Christmas gatherings this Christmas Day (was that too obvious?).

The year was 1914 and soldiers were having to spend Christmas Eve night on the battlefields of France during World War I — the Great War, as it was called. After only four months of fighting, more than a million men had already perished in the bloody conflict. The bodies of dead soldiers were scattered between the trenches. Enemy troops were dug-in so close that they could easily exchange shouts.

On December 24, 1914, in the middle of a freezing battlefield in France, a miracle happened.

The British troops watched in amazement as candle-lit Christmas trees began to appear above the German trenches. The glowing trees soon appeared along the length of the German front.

Henry Williamson, a young soldier with the London Regiment wrote in his diary: “From the German parapet, a rich baritone voice had begun to sing a song I remembered my German nurse singing to me…. The grave and tender voice rose out of the frozen mist. It was all so strange… like being in another world — to which one had come through a nightmare.”

Silent Night

Holy Night

A man named John McCutcheon recently wrote a song about the nearly unknown incident. These lyrics are from his work called “Christmas in the Trenches”.

The cannon rested silent, the gas clouds rolled no more,

As Christmas brought us respite from the war….

“They finished their carol and we thought that we ought to retaliate,” another British soldier wrote, “So we sang The First Noël and when we finished, they all began clapping. And they struck up O Tannebaum and on it went… until we started up O Come All Ye Faithful [and] the Germans immediately joined in …. this was really a most extraordinary thing — two nations both singing the same carol in the middle of a war.”

McCutcheon’s lyrics continue…

“There’s someone coming towards us!” the front-line sentry cried.

All sights were fixed on one lone figure trudging from their side.

His truce flag, like a Christmas star, shone on that plain so bright

As he, bravely, strode unarmed into the night.

It is recorded that enemy soldiers greeted each other in the no man’s land that was a killing zone on December 23rd. The soldiers wished each other Merry Christmas and agreed not to fire their rifles on Christmas Day. The spontaneous cease-fire eventually embraced much of a 500-mile stretch of the Western Front. According to the reports of soldiers at the scene, hundreds of thousands of soldiers celebrated the birth of the Prince of Peace among the bodies of their dead.

Soon one by one on either side walked into No Man’s Land.

With neither gun nor bayonet, we met there hand to hand.

Other soldiers told of how the “enemies” exchanged badges and buttons from their uniforms. Others shared photos of wives and children and some even exchanged addresses and promised to write after the war ended. The German troops rolled out barrels of dark beer and the British reciprocated with offerings of plum pudding. Some soldiers produced soccer balls and a spirited match broke out as fellow soldiers shouted encouragement.

At one location along the front the men who just the day before sought to kill one another now gathered together to bury their dead. Together, with heads uncovered, they held a service to memorialize their fallen comrades. A solitary voice began to sing Silent Night, in French. He was joined by another voice — this one singing in German — the words of a Christmas song known and beloved by all.

But the miracle of peace was temporary. Slowly, under threats from their officers, the troops returned to the trenches and the recoils of rifles split the temporary “Silent Night.” Some soldiers admitted aiming so their bullets flew well above the heads of the “enemy.”

Soon daylight stole upon us and France was France once more.

With sad farewells, we each prepared to settle back to war.

But the question haunted every heart that lived that wondrous night:

“Whose family have I fixed within my sight?”

My name is Francis Tolliver, in Liverpool I dwell.

Each Christmas come since World War I, I’ve learned its lesson well:

That the ones who call the shots won’t be among the dead and lame,

And on each end of the rifle, we’re the same.

That is the message the Prince of Peace brought to us on Christmas long ago. Perhaps those of us who celebrate the birth of the Saviour could learn a lesson from this Christmas miracle. Those on the other side of the cultural trenches are not unlike us. We are the same. The message delivered in Bethlehem was peace and goodwill toward men. When we fight the cultural war remember that the whole purpose of Jesus invading our space and time was to love and ultimately die for those on both sides of the battle.

 

 

I did a rare thing for me. With the charming Mrs. Burchett at my side we braved opening day crowds to see the “Chronicles of Narnia: The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe”. I am a fan of the writing of C.S.Lewis and the Narnia series. My fear was that the producers would stray from the story and the message. They did not. The movie is beautifully shot, the human characters well cast, and the magical figures of Narnia imaginatively portrayed. I loved the movie. I recommend it highly to anyone and especially to fans of the Narnia tales.

On Sunday I browsed online to see how the movie was faring at the box office. The opening projections were very strong and at the site I noticed a link for an online review. I am always curious to compare my reactions to the critics. I have generally found that they genuinely deserve the title of “critic”. Frankly I would not want to party with some of these people. But I clicked on a review by a writer named Scott Holleran. The title for his review was “Literary Fantasy Adaptation is Christian Tract”. I suspected the review would not be glowing. Here are some of Holleran’s descriptions of the plot. My comments are italicized.

“fanciful Christian propaganda…” (it is simply the book on screen…if a film portrayal of a book is propaganda then I guess they are guilty)

“Up until not, Lucy is a nice kid, but, like the movie, she grows less benign as she personifies the self-abnegation theme.” (uhhh…self-abnegation was not something I regularly discuss…primarily because I have no idea what it means. I realize the rest of you know that self-abnegation means renunciation of your own interests in favor of the interests of others. Many English speaking people would simply say self-denial)

“The story remains intact, such as it is, with Narnians prattling on about a prophecy and someone named Aslan…” (they were prattling about the most important character in the book…)

“all Aslan seems to do is negotiate with the enemy and sacrifice himself.” (some would call his act heroic and selfless)

“Narnia stands for death, destruction, and renunciation of self in a poorly disguised Christian fairy tale.” (My take…Narnia stands for good ultimately triumphing over evil, the consequences of sin, and the incomparable love that would give up your life for another in a clearly enunciated Christian allegory).

At this point I really wasn’t sure if we saw the same movie. The movie faithfully reflects the book. It is not a Christian “tract” or “fanciful Christian propaganda”. The movie tells the story of four children in the land of Narnia. It is exactly what fans of the book series expect. This production is no different than what the fans of Harry Potter expect when those books are made into films. I decided to see if Mr.Holleran had addressed faith at other times.

In February of 2004 he wrote about Mel Gibson’s “The Passion of the Christ” and he flippantly entitled the piece “Jesus Christ Superscar.”  Without having seen the movie (by his own admission) Holleran deduced that the movie’s theme is that suffering, not joy, is man’s proper fate. Again, I apparently saw an entirely different movie. Gibson’s message (and the Gospel message) is that man’s proper fate was mitigated by the life, death, and resurrection of Christ. I saw the movie as a movie of hope although, admittedly,  the suffering of Jesus was difficult to watch. Later Holleran describes the movie as being “religion for what it is – – abject misery here on earth.” Actually on this point Holleran and I agree. That is a consequence of religion. But, at the considerable risk of intellectual scorn, I am convinced that is why the message of Jesus is different. Jesus talked about relationship and not religion. Love and not law. Grace and not condemnation. Perhaps Scott Holleran has never witnessed that type of follower of Christ. Maybe his contempt of all people of faith would blind him to the possiblity of such a relationship. I wish he could get to know some Christians I have been privileged to know. Holleran would likely not change his worldview but I think he would realize his bitterness toward all Christians is unfair and even bigoted.

Holleran’s final quote is honest and I respect him for that. “Whether the besieged culture is ready to renounce reason, yield to faith, and submit to suffering does not depend on Mel Gibson’s fundamentally religious movie.But his box office success, especially for those of us who are infidels, may offer an ominous sneak preview.” 

I am saddened by the presumptions that Holleran makes about my faith. I would not call him an infidel for not believing as I do. I don’t feel a need to “convert” him or “argue” with him about my faith. I don’t believe you have to renounce reason to embrace Christianity. I did not enter into my faith relationship with some deep seated need or desire to suffer. And I don’t think that my worldview is ominous to self-described infidels. I wish that I could sit down with people like Scott Holleran and talk. Maybe he would realize I am not such an idiot. And maybe I would understand his disdain for religion. I doubt we could get any further apart and maybe, just maybe, we could find some common ground of intellectual respect. Hey, it is the season of miracles.

I love Christmas. It is my favorite time of the year for sentimental and spiritual reasons. I love the lights and the stories and the music. Especially the music. I love everything from “O Holy Night” to “Grandma Got Run Over By a Reindeer.”  

I know…I need help.

There has always been something special to me about Christmas music. So it was with a bit of bemused sadness that I read about the rewriting of “Silent Night” to make it acceptable for an elementary school program. A Wisconsin school altered the song to become “Cold in the Night” for it’s winter program. The lyrics were changed to the following:

Cold in the night,

 no one in sight,

winter winds whirl and bite,

how I wish I were happy and warm,

safe with my family out of the storm.

 

When I was a kid there were Santas all over town. Now there are lawyers on every corner. Maybe I could adapt my own song for the current battle over Christmas to be sung to the tune of “Silver Bells.”

 

City lobbies…
Busy bodies…
Dressed in holiday style
In the air there’s a flurry of lawsuits.

 

People griping
Talk shows sniping
Who’s offended today?
And on every street corner you hear

 

Lawyer’s Bells, Lawyer’s Bells,
It’s “Winter” time in the city
Ring-a-ling, skeptics sing
This must be called “Holidays”.

 

No Baby Jesus
You must please us
Cause we might take offense
If the name of the season is spoken.

 

We’re in danger
Lose that manger
You’ve infringed on our rights
And above all this bustle you hear

 

Lawyer’s Bells, Lawyer’s Bells,
It’s “Winter” time in the city
Ring-a-ling, PC is king
You must all say “Holidays”.

 

Okay, I will stay with my day job. Back to our “Silent Night” rewrite, Mathew Staver, Liberty Counsel president and general counsel said in a statement. “When a public school intentionally mocks Christian Christmas songs by secularizing their content, they cross the line from a neutral position, which the Constitution requires, to a hostile position, which the Constitution forbids.”

 

I am not sure that I would go so far as Mr. Staver. I don’t believe that the intent was to intentionally “mock” Christian Christmas songs and I doubt the purpose was overtly hostile. I suspect it was simply fear of lawsuits run amuck. It only takes one “offendee” to make life miserable for a school district. My conversations with most educators seems to indicate that fear more than conviction drives these decisions to make the programs formerly known as Christmas into generic winter don’t offend anyone events. 

 

When these stories become public many secularists hope that Christians will get hysterical. That reinforces the stereotype of people of faith. I hope that Christians will be gentle, informed, and intelligent in our defense. What I am looking for in the public arena is a level playing field. What is good for the Christian goose should be applied to the other ganders. Uneven treatment of Christians over other faiths is what raises my blood pressure. But I have determined that none of this is going to steal my Christmas joy. Because I believe that it was a bit more than just a “Cold Night” in Bethlehem. It was a holy night and the original lyrics sum it up quite well.

 

Silent night, holy night
Son of God, love’s pure light
Radiant beams from thy holy face
With the dawn of redeeming grace
Jesus Lord, at thy birth
Jesus Lord, at thy birth

 

Redeeming grace. What a gift I was given on Christmas day! Keeping with our lyrical theme I finish with a little line from Gershwin that I am relating here to the miracle of that birth on Christmas and the battle over that message.

 

The way You change my life
No, no they can’t take that away from me.

 

 

The Catalogue for Philanthropy just released their 2005 Charitable Giving Index. Some of the data is intriquing. Their methodology is outlined at their website. (http://www.catalogueforphilanthropy.org/cfp/generosity_index/faq.html)

Using published data of individual tax returns from the Internal Revenue Service, we compare the rank of each state’s average adjusted gross income (AAGI) to the rank of each state’s average itemized charitable deductions (AICD). The arithmetical differences between these two rankings are then themselves ranked, resulting in the Generosity Index rank.

The top three states in adjusted gross income were Connecticut, New Jersey, and Massachusetts. How do they fare in the Generosity Index? Connecticut ranked 45th, New Jersey 48th, and Massachusetts ranked 49th when the study compared per capita giving versus income.

According to this index you might want to set up your charitable outreach somewhere other than New Hampshire. The Granite State’s ranks of 8th wealthiest and 48th in giving combined to land them at number 50 on the list.

Conversely, the most generous states were not the ones with the most income or national prestige. Mississippi ranks dead last in average adjusted gross income in the United States. But the giving rank (a ranking of the average donations) for Mississippians was 6th in the country! That level of generosity put Mississippi at the top of the list. The top ten states in generosity after Mississippi were Arkansas, South Dakota, Oklahoma, Tennessee, Alabama, Louisiana, Utah, South Carolina, and West Virginia.

The top 25 most generous states are part of the political red sea that is the butt of national jokes. After you sort through the red neck jokes and wisecracks about the plains and tasteless humor about the South you will find the most generous people in the nation. I knew that before I read this index. My state of Texas fared quite well by finishing as the 12th most generous state but with the 4th highest giving rank.  

The first of the “Blue” states to show up was New York at number 26 in the Generosity Index. I don’t want to make this another Red/Blue harangue but the take away for me is that stereotypes don’t work. The idea that the blue states are generally more socially conscious and caring because of their ideology simply doesn’t play out in reality. Many of the most giving people are the ones ridiculed and demeaned by the media and cultural elite.

Not much has changed in the past couple of millenia as Jesus observed in the Gospel of Mark.

   He continued teaching. “Watch out for the religion scholars. They love to walk around in academic gowns, preening in the radiance of public flattery, basking in prominent positions, sitting at the head table at every church function. And all the time they are exploiting the weak and helpless. The longer their prayers, the worse they get. But they’ll pay for it in the end.”

    Sitting across from the offering box, he was observing how the crowd tossed money in for the collection. Many of the rich were making large contributions. One poor widow came up and put in two small coins–a measly two cents. Jesus called his disciples over and said, “The truth is that this poor widow gave more to the collection than all the others put together. All the others gave what they’ll never miss; she gave extravagantly what she couldn’t afford–she gave her all.”   Mark 12  The Message

The average church attendee gives a paltry 2.6% of total income according to the Christian research group empty tomb, inc. So before we get too carried away by state pride or red state power we might meditate a bit on the Gospel of Mark. If evangelical Christians alone would simply tithe we could generate another 80 billion per year. Can you imagine what could be done with that kind of money? Many of us are generous at Christmas. But the truth of God’s Word is sobering.

From everyone who has been given much, much will be demanded; and from the one who has been entrusted with much, much more will be asked.  Luke 12  NIV

Followers of Jesus need to step it up year round. I have been given much. I can do more. I suspect you can as well.