The Impractical Gift
Christmas Eve 11:00 p.m. 2007
I love impractical gifts. Maybe it is because I am so practical. I rarely buy things that are not on my grocery list and I usually save my birthday money. On occasion I will receive gift cards, they are bittersweet. They force me to buy something that I don’t really need and I secretly revel in it. It brings out a particular kind of bliss, like I get to pick out something so unnecessary that it is truly wonderful. This year, with my gift card I bought bright red rain boots. They are too wild to be practical, but too wonderful to miss. Using one of my gift cards a few years ago, I bought a designer purse. It is too good for my usual thrift store attire, but it goes with everything and it makes me smile. There is something quite magical about impractical gifts.
Citing the author Hanford Luccock, John Buchanan points out how impractical the gifts highlighted in “The Twelve Days of Christmas” really are. Luccock says that the gifts listed in “The Twelve Days” are a compilation of “riotously inappropriate and ludicrous gifts.” And when you think about it, it’s true. Most of us don’t really need animals this time of year, and certainly not birds: a partridge, a dove, hens, calling birds, whatever those are, geese and swans. And who really wants drums, pipers, leaping lords or dancing ladies? I guess the only two that might be nice are gold rings and some maids, but I don’t really need those either. For the most part, this is a list of impractical gifts. But there is something about them that seems so filled with joy. They are so unexpected they are truly wonderful. Luccock further notes that “The best gifts of love are those that show a lovely lack of common sense.” And it would be easy to make the same claim about God’s gift to us in Jesus. It is most certainly not the gift that the faithful of the time were hoping for. They were hoping for a gift that would resolve the fall of the monarchy. They were hoping for a gift that would abolish those in power and restore the rule they longed for. They were hoping for a gift that would change everything. So imagine their surprise when the most impractical gift arrived- a baby. Now I only know from experiences of close family and friends, but a baby is not a practical gift. They require ungodly amounts of energy and time. They need attention at all hours and seem to require nearly superhuman qualities on the part of their parents. But they do in fact seem to change everything. God it seems gave us the most impractical gift, a baby in a manger. A baby has no ability to care for itself, little status and no possible chance of yet caring for others. But a baby demands our attention. A baby rights our priorities. A baby asks more of us than we ever thought we could give. A baby makes us believe again in our wildest dreams. A baby invites us to believe in the miracles of everyday. Maybe God came to us in a baby for the very reason that it was impractical. God has a way of being impractical. God does impractical things like love us just as we are. God does impractical things like forgiving us and listening to the deepest cries of our hearts. God does impractical things like coming to us in a baby to offer us a path that leads to life. And only our God could show up as a baby in a manger and change everything- it’s so impractical, but it’s a gift too wild to be practical and too wonderful to miss. Amen.
“Extravagant Gift” by John M. Buchanan in the Christian Century, December 11th, 2007 (Quoting Hanford Luccock in A Sprig of Holly.