book-plumcreek            Every Christmas Eve I read to my girls before they go to bed.  I did so this year, even though they are all fully grown.  I know that at this point they continue the tradition largely as a courtesy to me – but that’s fine.  I used to include quite a number of selections – A Visit from St. Nick, The Polar Express, The Velveteen Rabbit  among others – but always, and now only Mr. Edwards Meets Santa Claus, from Laura Ingalls-Wilder’s On the Banks of Plum Creek.  In it the creek is so high that Pa couldn’t get into town, thus Santa can’t cross the creek either, and the girls doubt there will be a Christmas that year.  Luckily Mr. Edwards meets Santa in town and brings the packages himself, wading the torrent of the swollen creek and nearly freezing himself to death.  In their stockings they each receive: a tin cup, a little heart-shaped cake, a stick of peppermint candy, and a new penny.  “It was all too much,” everyone agrees.  Laura and Mary had never imagined such a haul – especially “having a whole penny all for yourself.”

           I started reading that to the girls because I remembered Victor French, as Mr. Edwards, playing the scene on the “Little House” television program, and because I wanted the girls to hear about a time when a tin cup, a peppermint stick, and a penny was considered a good haul at Christmas.  Really, it is me that needs to be reminded.

            What would Laura and Mary have to find in their stockings nowayears to feel similarly fortunate?

dbpurse            Laura and Mary pulled out iPhones, one for each of them, and Wii gaming systems, and in the bottom they each found a Dooney & Bourke purse – it was all too much, they thought, and Ma and Pa said so too.

            In the news last week came reports that the penny will almost certainly be going out of circulation.  Mail service will be cut back to five days a week.  We heard about wall-street barons taking bail out money with one hand, then ordering luxury jets, and handing out billions in bonuses with the other.  President Obama called this extravagance “shameful” Missouri Senator Claire McCaskill called the offenders “idiots,” and asked: “What planet are they living on?”  They are living on the planet Luxury with the rest of us – they just live in a better neighborhood than most.

            Jesus tells the story of a prosperous farmer, blessed by windfall harvests so large his barns aren’t big enough to contain the bounty.  It doesn’t occur to him to share his excess with those who have not been so blessed.  His assumption is that these gifts are his to enjoy for himself – his sense of proprietorship is absolute, and he makes grand plans to “eat, drink, be merry,” and take his ease.  Of course we know the outcome – God’s justice is swift and severe: “You fool, this very night your soul will be required of you, then who will own what you have prepared?” (Luke 12:16-21)

            We read this passage from Luke and agree heartily with the Lord and always assume he is describing Commodore Vanderbilt, James Pierpont Morgan, John D. Rockefeller, or the Sultan of Dubai.  He is describing a farmer who foresees an early and comfortable retirement – not a magnate buying up private islands and original Pollocks.  A comfortable (preferably early) retirement is something we have come to expect as a right.  I’m not suggesting we shouldn’t prepare for a comfortable retirement.  I am suggesting that the level of luxury enjoyed by the rich man in Jesus’ story is not far above what we have come to expect as normal.

            The old guys, and the young girls on CNBC, and the Fox Business Channel keep saying that our standard of living is about to plummet, and will not rise for several generations – that we’d better get used to doing with less.  Maybe.  It sure seems that way.

             I do believe that we have been blessed so far beyond the level enjoyed by any other nation at any other time - and for so long - that we, too often, take it all for granted.  I fear that few of us are familiar with real sacrifice.  I believe that “taking it all for granted” is sinful, and has dire consequences.  I believe that sacrifice is the definition of “taking up our cross daily” and following Christ (Luke 9:23).  I believe that to recognize the blessing of small gifts – even “a whole penny all for yourself” - allows us to recognize the value of larger blessings.

            How often, though, do we take these blessings, large and small, in our stride, as though we deserve them?  And will we feel that somehow God has cheated us if we, because of our own excesses, cease to enjoy such a high level of luxury?

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