You better watch out. You better not cry. You better not pout. I’m telling you why; Santa Claus is coming to town.
Thus begins the ominous strains of the most threatening of all Christmas carols. Who doesn’t love getting in the holiday spirit by being commanded to watch out? But the part I’ve been thinking about today is when we’re told, “To be good for goodness sake.” What does that mean? I’ve always interpreted it in the sense of, “Oh for goodness’ sake, can’t you be good?!” But I could be wrong. What if instead the intention was for us to be good not for personal gain but solely because good is a worthy end in and of itself? Could it be that this song is, in fact, telling us that virtue is its own reward and that the goodness we create is sufficient enough to justify its existence? I’m going to go out on a limb and say the answer to that is, “No.” I’ll back this conclusion up by pointing out that the entire purpose of the song is to scare children into withholding tears so they can get their rooty-toot-toots and rumpy-pum-pums.
But imagine if there was a world where the rooty-toot-toots and rumpy-pum-pums were less important that helping others. That would be something, wouldn’t it? I know that I’m writing this well after Christmas has come and gone, but I’ve already written two separate things that I thought would work and sometimes you need to welcome inspiration wherever it comes from…
That song is an extreme form of this quid pro quo expectation of the world, but that doesn’t mean it’s an outlier in the Christmas carol canon.
Now that we’re past Christmas and into the weeds of everyday life, we have a couple of options. We can live every day like it’s Christmas, in which we will be punished for inadequate gratitude and will be extorted into caring about people. Or we can life every day like it’s Christmas, where we spread kindness and goodwill to all and we show how God’s presence among us. We could be, “Good, for goodness sake!” or we could be good for the sake of goodness.
We’ve got plenty of time to practice for next Christmas, so I expect you all to be good if for no other reason than the fact that it is the right thing to do.
Peace,
Rev. Jeff Fox-Kline
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