Idle Play or Idol Worship

January 3, 2008 at 1:00 am | In church | 3 Comments
Tags: , , ,

A reflection on the tradition of children’s toys in Christmas Day worship

Worship and entertainment, though not mutually exclusive, should not be too closely associated. Ones goes to the movies to be entertained–money is paid, popcorn is consumed, emotions are experienced. At the movies, we, “Sit back and enjoy the show.”

Ideally, one approaches worship differently. Yes, money is sometimes offered, refreshments consumed, emotions experienced, but the goal isn’t sitting back and enjoying the show. Ideally, in worship one actively ascribes all glory, honor, and praise to God. Ideally, through faithful worship, one is equipped for service in the world.

For any church-going person, it’s far too easy to react negatively when hearing or participating in foreign traditions. The bane of many a minister’s existence is phrases like, “But we’ve never done it that way before.” So I try to be cautious when criticizing traditions with which I’m not familiar. That said, the tradition of children bringing presents to Christmas Day worship feels much more like run of the mill entertainment than holy worship to me.

It is the tradition in many Church of Scotland churches, as well as at home, for children to bring a present with them to worship on Christmas morning. The presents then, in all their glory, are shared with the congregation. The congregation dutifully ohhhs and ahhhs, perhaps laughs at the minister’s dealings with the presents, and is caught up on the latest children toy fads. Sure, all of these reactions are not horrible, but they don’t seem particularly worshipful to me.
Any attempt to tie the presents to the “true meaning of Christmas” will likely feel stretched, cliche, an afterthought. God and scripture quickly loose their central focus. It’s difficult not to cultivate a “my present is better than yours” attitude. And it is hard to figure how the congregation is equipped for Christian service other than for their next toy shopping experience.

Perhaps I’m being overly critical again–seems to be a specialty of mine. Perhaps Christmas morning is a time to relax, and we should just be happy these folks are attending worship at all. Perhaps I’m somehow jealous of the children’s toys, or deep down feel the children’s fifteen-minutes of fame takes the spotlight away from the ministers. Or, perhaps, showing off one’s Christmas presents in worship is less idle play than idol worship.

3 Comments »

RSS feed for comments on this post. TrackBack URI

  1. Well, I don’t know what to make of the gifts, but I think there is something to be said for actually having a Christmas day service. We only do it here (in my experience) when Christmas falls on Sunday, and it’s often treated like it’s kind of an inconvenience.

    Comment by Catherine N — January 3, 2008 #

    Reply

  2. My first thought was as Catherine N – nice to have Christmas day worship when it is NOT on Sunday.

    In my experience, even when Christmas was on Sunday (2-4 times when my children were younger as I recall – they are 20 and 24 now) presents were not brought to church and “displayed” – now a book or stuffed toy may have made it in to the sanctuary – but it wasn’t a “tradition.” Learn something new every day (thank goodness) but am reasonably sure this is not something I would encourage and might find a way to actively discourage in an appropriate way/time.

    Comment by Sarah — January 3, 2008 #

    Reply

  3. I just want to know how and why the kid got those giant hands and feet as gifts. Did he lose a bet?
    Actually, I noticed that Scottish kids did not all walk in with Nintendo Wii’s and iPods, which is probably what would have showed up at my church on Christmas day. So is the good news here that they are less materialistic?
    I do like having the service on Christmas and agree with the other comments on that.
    The oohing and aahhing over the gifts by the congregation reminded me of the book, “Upon This Rock” about a black church in NY. They didn’t bring gifts, that I know of, but at some points in the year, the congregation did call up the youth and read their report cards and highlight other successes the youth and children had at school and in the community. I think there is something good about actually calling kids up front and having people give them focused attention (perhaps not for their christmas presents…) rather than just saying, “we support youth”.

    Comment by Marci — January 7, 2008 #

    Reply

Leave a comment

XHTML: <a href="" title=""> <abbr title=""> <acronym title=""> <b> <blockquote cite=""> <cite> <code> <pre> <del datetime=""> <em> <i> <q cite=""> <strike> <strong>

Blog at WordPress.com. | Theme: Pool by Borja Fernandez.
Entries and comments feeds.