Selfies in the Manger

The trendy new Christmas gift this year is the Hipster Nativity set, created by entrepreneurs Corey and Casey Wright. It’s meant to be a humorous take on what the birth of Jesus might have looked like in 2016.

My favorite part of the set is the manger scene itself; Joseph is busy taking a selfie with Mary and the newborn.

I have no doubt that if Jesus were born these days, the shepherds, wise men, innkeeper, and the angels themselves would have pulled out their phones and selfie sticks to get a picture with the newborn king. I can even imagine the captions and hashtags — when there’s no room at the Motel 6; #strangerinthemanger; beautiful baby👏👏💖😇🎄

Selfies are just what we do these days, but it’s a very ancient human impulse, akin to the cave dwellers who scratched pictures on the walls of the cave thousands of years ago. We want to mark the moment; we feel the compulsion to capture our presence at that place and time. It’s our way of saying, “I am here; I matter.”

It’s also a piece of self-propaganda. Selfies are created so we can share the images on social media to let other people know that we were there. Since we were close to something or someone important, we must be important, too; we are one of the privileged few to have actually been there!

I’m amazed at the number of places I’ve been where I’ve seen people taking selfies — in the middle of church, in airports, in the midst of important meetings. Heck, I recall that Syrian refugees getting off plastic boats on the shores of Greece often pulled out their phones to joyously record their relief at arriving safely in Europe!

But we also are smart enough to know that some things are simply too sacred for selfies. We should know that it’s not always appropriate to pull out the phone and take a picture, because the moment is too wonderful, precious, divine.

How many of us would be inclined to whip out our cell phones in the presence of God Almighty? Most religious traditions record that those few people privileged enough to encounter the raw presence of God fell to the ground immediately. Their first thoughts were never to try to capture themoment in a selfie; instead it was to fall prostrate in reverence and awe.

When the prophet Isaiah saw the Lord sitting on a high and lofty throne, his first words were, “Woe is me! I am lost, for I am a man of unclean lips, and I live among a people of unclean lips, yet my eyes have seen the Lord!” (Isaiah 6:1-15).

Awe cannot be captured in a photo, nor can God’s fullness be contained in an image. The only appropriate response to a revelation of God is to worship God.

Remember that when the wise men entered the room where Jesus was laying, their first impulse was to kneel down and “pay him homage” (Matthew 2:11). We are not told exactly what the shepherds did when they saw the baby, but we know that they left the manger scene “glorifying and praising God” (Luke 2:20).

This Christmas I encourage you to put down the phone and refrain from taking so many selfies. Instead, pause long enough to enjoy the moments in which you encounter God’s love; soak it in and give God the glory.

I hope to see you sometime on Christmas Eve so that we can worship God together! And please ... NO SELFIES.

My Christmas Valentine

Just a month or two ago, a small handful of church members started serving as Reading and Math Buddies for students at Hogg Elementary School.

I have never done this sort of thing before, so I wasn’t quite sure what to expect. I was assigned to a third-grader named Jaylen. She’s quite small for her age, and she struggles to read. Every week, I sit with her for almost an hour and help her sound her way through first-grade readers.

Two weeks ago, I was feeling under the weather and called in sick to Hogg; but I showed up last week and went to find Jaylen. Her teacher said, “Boy, is she glad to see you! She was worried that you weren’t coming back.”

And out came a bouncing Jaylen with a big smile on her face. She handed me a small card made out of purple cardboard paper. On the front, she had written, “Ho ho ho ho.” On the inside, she had drawn a picture of a rose and the words “I love you” inside a pink heart. I’m not sure exactly what it’s supposed to mean, but I’m calling it my “Christmas Valentine.”

Then she said, “I’m sorry but I couldn’t remember your name. So I didn’t know what to put on the card.”

I laughed and told her my name. She said she won’t remember it. She says that a lot actually. It’s what she says when she can’t figure out a word. She says, “I always forget!”

And I assure her that, with practice, she’ll remember and become a better and better reader.

That small exchange made my week. I have the card on my desk, and every time I look at it, I remember that it doesn’t take much to make a big difference for someone else. You don’t have to travel halfway across the world, or write checks with lots of zeroes. You don’t even have to have a special skill.

Sometimes all you need to do is give a little bit of your time away. One hour per week in a classroom is all I need to give in order to put a smile on Jaylen’s face. Isn’t that amazing? Who would have thought that such a simple gesture could make such an enormous difference? Who could have known that creating a new relationship could be life-changing? It’s so easy that it doesn’t even feel like “volunteering” or “missions.”

Maybe that’s because it’s meant to be ordinary and easy. The life that God has given us is profoundly relational; it is meant to be shared with others. It doesn’t feel like work when we live life the way God intended it to be. Perhaps we make the life of discipleship more difficult than it’s supposed to be.

Maybe there is nothing more Christian than making a new friend, nothing more Jesus-like than opening a relationship with a stranger.

Who will your new Christmas Valentine be this year?

Click here to learn more about becoming a Reading and/or Math Buddy at Hogg Elementary School.

Embrace the FOMO

I have solved the problem of declining worship attendance. I now know why fewer and fewer people these days are going to church on Sunday mornings.

I lay the blame squarely at the feet of a social disorder known as FOMO.

What’s FOMO?, you ask. It’s an anxiety born of social media use — Fear of Missing Out.

This explains why so many of us are always checking our phones, inboxes, Instagrams, Snapchats, and Twitter feeds. Deep down inside, we are scared to death that something else is happening in the world that is more exciting, more interesting, and more important than what we happen to be doing at that same instant.

And I can positively guarantee you that, between the hours of 11 am and noon on Sunday, you are missing something if you happen to be in church. You can be sure that a friend somewhere else is having a wonderful brunch, or that a family member is enjoying your niece’s first steps, or Trump is tweeting something else ridiculous.

The key is learning to put FOMO aside during that hour, and embracing instead the idea that you are indeed missing out, and that you are very happy to be missing out, because you are instead choosing to focus on what is happening right now. In fact, this must be a daily practice for each of us if we want to keep our senses going into 2017.

I would like to suggest that the entire Christmas story is one big exercise in embracing FOMO. Let’s begin with the location. There are hundreds of more interesting and exciting locations for the birth of the Savior than the tiny village of Bethlehem, an insignificant spot in an even more insignificant piece of geopolitical real estate. Rome would have been a more important place for a divine birth; Athens would have also been a notable city. Or perhaps the Savior should have been born a member of the Han Dynasty in China.

But Bethlehem? That wasn’t the happenin' place.

And what about that birth? It took place in a stable, a mundane, uninteresting place. It might actually have been a little embarrassing for Mary to lay her newborn baby in a manger; it must have felt a little like putting her baby in a dog bowl. Would she have Instagram-ed that? I doubt it.

It wasn’t Mary’s idea to have the baby arrive in the midst of their trip to Bethlehem. I’m sure she would much rather have stayed home in the presence of family and friends for the happy occasion. What was she missing by being in the stable?

More than once, I bet Joseph entertained his own FOMO. What was happening back home? Was he missing any work orders? What if someone stole his tools while he was gone?

Of course, we know that this birth is the MOST important thing that has ever happened. Joseph and Mary had front-row seats to a world-altering event. They didn’t miss anything at all; instead, they got to witness it all.

That’s how God usually operates. In the routine and ordinary flow of life, grace is quietly working. In the change of seasons and rhythms of landscapes, the most incredible signs of hope appear.

If you have FOMO, however, you might just miss it.

When we are able to set aside the anxiety that something else interesting is going on somewhere else, then we might be able to discern the way that God is working in the here and now.

The truth is, if you suffer from FOMO, then you really are missing out. Because God is at work. Right in front of your very eyes.

What better time than Advent to start paying attention?