The Christmas Spending Dilemma

This gift-giving time of the year is when we often face the dilemma of being responsible enough to live within our means vs. giving sacrificially to others.  Does anyone else feel this tension?  The internal dialogue:  “I need to set a budget and only spend what is manageable for me.  Debt is bad.  And I need to save for the future.  Material goods are excessive in the US and we don’t need to contribute to a consumer culture.”  Also:  “I need to give gifts selflessly and show lavish love.  Hoarding my money for myself shows a lack of faith that God will provide for my future.  I should buy what pleases the other person and let God take care of the rest.”

So how do we tread this tricky strait?  Probably neither all or the other, as is often the case with Jesus.  He usually wants us to look for the third way. And that may be different for each person.  One family needs to spend generously to help out family members who don’t have basics, or maybe they have basics but can’t afford any little luxuries.   Another family has plenty of money and no one actually needs anything, so they decide as a group to give generously to someone who does have needs or to a great non-profit.  A different family may have needs themselves, but want to give to each other to show love, so they all agree to make homemade gifts. 

 There are multiple ways to do Christmas gifts.  There’s not one right way.  But there’s one thing I’ve learned from hearing Sara and Philip Matheny talk about the communal culture of the Burkinabe people.  Burkina Faso is a materially poor country.  So you would think the people would be eager to get all they could for themselves, and probably would need it.  But Sara says if one person receives a gift or lucks upon some free food or a treat, instead of gloatingly grabbing it for themselves, they immediately break it into pieces or find some way to share the bounty.  

This was such a rebuke to me.  We who have so much want to store our excess for the future, to hedge our bets against future famine.  But the Burkinabe, who have so little, choose to share immediately rather than save it for their own use later.  What love.  And what faith.  And what an example for us.  “Command those who are rich in this present world . . . to do good, to be rich in good deeds, and to be generous and wiling to share.”  II Timothy 6:17-18