Christmas Conflict

It is not every year that Christmas comes on Sunday.  While getting to worship on Easter is no big deal, getting there on Christmas is for some folks a huge problem.  Of course, the problem centers around wanting to be home for the opening of Christmas stuff around the Christmas tree on Christmas morning.  Over the years of ministry there have been numerous folks who tried to convince me not to have worship on the Sunday when Christmas fell on Sunday.  Even though attendance might have been down on Christmas Sunday, it made no sense to cancel.    

The truth is our culture never wants to be inconvenienced by the spiritual community.  The secular culture demands to have the final word and when such is challenged or questioned, the church is put into the old fashioned and out of touch category.  We see this reality fleshed out with the way it would minimize the spiritual impact of Christmas as well as a host of other things which point to the conflict between culture and faith.    

When there is conflict between the two, it always seems that culture is always the winner.  Any talk of being compromising is just talk and nothing more.  The conflict between culture and faith always seems to mean that faith must give way to the demands of culture.  Maybe such is not the case anymore.  I have been away from the pulpit now some twelve years, but I suspect there are still some places where Christmas is something which gets in the way and not something which is celebrated as a spiritual event of utmost importance to the Christian community.