The politics of Christmas

Before the recession Christmas was a time of seemingly unending consumerist binging. It started earlier every year, or so we thought. Christians would whinge about the real reason for Christmas being forgotten. Inviting friends to church and having their children play in the nativity tableau was the remedy that many of us chose to fix worldly ignorance.

Perhaps the pastor would remind people of the important event, pointing to Easter and delivering the gospel message that Jesus died for your sins. Some of us, those on the side of what I like to call “social justice”, collected toys to fill shoe boxes. We sent them to needy children in Africa. But Christmas by and large was, as it still is, very domestic.

Post the big financial collapse and those thoughts still flutter their way through our minds, but things have changed. Unemployment rates, the riots, trade union strikes, the austerity cuts and the impending collapse of the euro have meant that many of us are looking ahead and worrying about the future. Our braces need adjusting; we will be spending less.

Christmas is still a commercialised time. Christians will continue to complain about that. We will gather around the Christmas tree lights, sing carols and pop some crackers. We might have a couple of mince pies less this year. The wine will not be as good as it was in 2008, but we’ll plod on as before. The status quo won’t be upheld for folk who have lost their jobs, of whom there are many, but most of us will eat too much on the 25th. Christmas will remain domesticated and apolitical. Just like most of our church life.

However, a new Theos report takes Santa’s glove off and throws them down before Christians and politicians alike, challenging us to remember the politics inherent in the Christmas story. Dr Stephen R Holmes, senior lecturer in theology at the University of St Andrews argues that much of what we associate with Christmas these days has its roots in a Victorian rewriting of the rituals we undertake during the winter season. Christmas is largely a domestic affair in which we provide charity on Boxing Day. We hear the Queen’s speech, but the political arena becomes mute. Politics becomes not only private, but silent. It’s an inversion of how God is so often treated in politics. But when we remember the particulars of the incarnation narrative, you can hear our political silence howling.

Jesus, God himself, becomes not a man, but a little baby boy. He takes on Herod, the genocidal faux half-king of Israel, but not in the way Herod suspected. He was born into a manger, homeless, during a political event, the census conducted to keep taxation records. He was visited by emissaries from far off lands. He was worshipped as a King by the lowly shepherd in the field. Herod’s fear made him and his family asylum seekers, driven off to Egypt.

Holmes reminds us too of the importance of the genealogical account of Jesus line. It is his modern day passport, his identity. In Matthew we read the genealogy and if we had been Palestinians of that day, we would have been shocked by the inclusion of four women: Tamar, Rahab, Ruth and Bathsheba. Rahab was a prostitute, Ruth an asylum seeker not of Jewish descent, and Bathsheba? She committed adultery with David, who murdered her husband to cover up his guilt. This is not only a political line but a genealogy challenging the status quo.

This Christmas, when we sit in our domestication and enjoy the roast turkey, let’s at least try and start to remember the powerful politics of Christmas. Let’s let our politicians know that God will not stay silent.