Christmas is coming, the goose is getting fat,
Please put a penny in the old man's hat.
If you haven't got a penny, a ha'penny will do,
If you haven't got a ha'penny, then God bless you.
Christmas is indeed coming. The adverts insist. Aside from the fact that turkeys have supplanted geese on our dinner tables and that most children nowadays haven't got a clue what a halfpenny is, the old rhyme still rings true. It points up the continuing contrast in Britain between the 'haves' and the 'have-nots' which in this season of peace and goodwill feels either uncomfortable or blasphemous or both.
Not without reason is Christmas called the 'season of conspicuous consumption'. Dinner tables positively groan under the weight of food and supermarket shelves are stashed with goodies. Pillowcases and stockings bulge with presents at the bottom of beds and expensive toys lurk under Christmas trees. Meanwhile the homeless sit on pieces of cardboard in shop doorways, complete with regulation emaciated dog asking if I have any spare change.
How do I manage these contrasts as I prepare to celebrate the birth of Christ? How do I reconcile them with the God who chose as his lot the 'poor, the mean and lowly'? Not very easily, to be honest.
In the Bible the call to charity is not an option: it's a command. Christ tells me to give to all who ask, not just some, but I don't. As I walk by on the other side, I tell myself that much vagrancy and street-crime is alcohol or drug-related. But I'm only half-convinced.
The trouble is in the past I've often been taken for a ride and ended up angry and feeling a fool. Years ago when visiting Calcutta I realised that even if I were to give all my 'spare change' and more to every beggar who asked me, it would never be enough. As Jesus says, 'You will have the poor with you always.'
So I learn to live with my guilt, sometimes rationalising it away, sometimes buying a copy of The Big Issue to salve my conscience, occasionally giving more generously if the person selling it seems genuinely down on their luck. Their vulnerability breaks through my protective shell of cynicism.
But here is a paradox in all this angst. Deep down I know that it is good to give.
I don't mean that it is virtuous, or that God approves, or that the poor benefit. All of that is manifestly true. I mean that when I give I am more alive as a person.
The fact is I need to give in order to be me, in order to be fully human.
And that's the point. Christmas is about the God who became fully human in Jesus Christ, the child of Bethlehem. I need to be on the same journey, growing into a humanity measured by Christ himself.
So I'm busy praying not to become Mr Grumpy and to stop moaning about the price of Christmas cards in the shops. Instead I'm going to be thankful for all the great things in my life, including good health, good food, good friends, laughter and a bed to sleep in. I'm also praying for the generosity 'to give and not to count the cost', not just that others less fortunate than me may live, but that I might live inside too.
