I read in the Metro the other day about a teenage girl who has written to Father Christmas telling Santa he will be killed if she doesn't get at least two things from her long list of gifts, which includes a Blackberry smartphone and "the real life Justin Bieber." "Two of these or you die," she has written. The story gets worse...
Her mother has found the letter in her school bag, and she says this:
"When I first found the letter, I thought it was funny. Now I think I'd better get her what she wants. The last thing I want is for her to kill Santa."
And the girl says (this is even worse!):
"I don't really believe in Santa any more, but I was angry because I thought I wasn't going to get all the presents I wanted this year. I want all of these things and I don't see why I shouldn't have them."
Lord, have mercy.
I become more concerned that we are living in an age where if we don't get what we want, then we will make threats, even more worrying than this girl has done, I guess to her parents, rather than a Santa she no longer believes in. "I know what I want, how I like things done, I want my views heard, I am important."
Perhaps that's why the incarnate God was rejected in the Christmas narrative we shall hear this week. People had a list of demands of how God would come on earth and when he came into dirt and mess and outside of respectability, they began a process of trying to destroy him. People are still doing that this very day through lack of vision, lack of respect for others in community, lack of openness to the Gospel basics, lack of being receptive to surprise. I have had a year where in many ways I haven't got what I wanted. There are things that have happened to me I didn't want or need. I am still learning why some things have been as they have been. An Anglican friend wrote to me this morning quoting the Methodist Covenant prayer about being "laid aside" and I have had to face that, however uncomfortable it has been to not do, and not know what is happening beyond my illness and my home life and the lives of my friends. But if we always got what we wanted, we would be so unattractive and selfish, wouldn't we? Doesn't life teach us some hard lessons sometimes? God in his love for us is patient and all embracing, but he doesn't always give us our shopping list of demands. He gives us what is best, even if we don't see it at the time.
I contrasted our spoilt teenage girl with two children last night at a service of lessons and carols I went to in the Anglican church at Steyning. They ran up and down the transcepts, clearly annoying some people, but I watched their faces. They were excited, there were new things to explore, and they were there with wide eyed wonder at what was around us. They were exploring new possibilities and it was fun.
The picture in this post is of a recently dedicated stained glass window in the Methodist Church in Pett, East Sussex, where I shall be the minister from next September. I love this window and told them so when I visited them last month to look round. The colour and brightness of God can transform the darkness of the world, however bad, in God's time. I guess then there are two responses we can make: petulance and sulking when we don't get what we want, or openness to something unexpected.
So today, I am open to surprises. I don't want to be like that teenager, I don't want to be so boring I am not open to new ways of being shown God's purposes. Our Christian belief is that God is always making things new, not the same. There are always new things to look for, new things to learn, things not on our list, that will be better than what we think we want or need. (Although Bruce Forsyth's CD "These are my favourites" might be nice, Santa!)
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