A person proffering a gift, wrapped in paper decorated with candy canes and tied with red and white string. Photo: By Kira auf der Heide on Unsplash.
Present and correct? Mark Russ’s Thought for the Week
‘Gifts are about a longing to be known.’
I’m a Quaker who celebrates Christmas and loves gifts. My non-Quaker husband annually wonders aloud whether, this year, we should forego gift-giving. The answer’s always no. I love having something to open on Christmas Day. Does that make me a bad Quaker? Giving gifts for the sake of it does seem pretty wasteful. My family is materially comfortable, and so each year I find myself buying presents for people who already have everything. I see my nephews drowning in excess, overwhelmed by the mountain of gifts to the point that individual presents lose all meaning. Quakers might call this ‘cumber,’ that which weighs us down, which stifles our relationship with the Spirit and obstructs our ministry. Many Christmas gifts aren’t even gifts in the true sense, given freely with no expectation of return. Instead, they are mainly a reciprocal affair. The festive orgy of exchanging needless gifts-which-aren’t-gifts transgresses our Quaker commitments to both simplicity and truth.
Amid this wasteful excess, can anything good be said of gifts? I remember useful gifts with joy. As someone who pays very little attention to my wardrobe, getting a package of second-hand jumpers from my sister was a welcome delight. Every day I’m thankful for the toaster we got as a wedding present, still toasting well a decade later. If you give me a useful gift, it shows you know me well enough to know what I need. There is something special about a gift that is perfectly tailored to the receiver. The standout Christmas present from my childhood was a huge toy spaceship filled with little plastic robots. I couldn’t believe my eyes when I tore off the wrapping paper on Christmas morning. My parents had realised their son was a sci-fi nerd with an imagination. They knew who I was. I also remember how nonplussed I was to be gifted a crystal radio set and a pair of boxing gloves, presents from relatives who clearly didn’t know what to give a gay boy with camp sensibilities.
‘I remember useful gifts with joy.’
If we remove the cumber, I think gifts are about a longing to be known, our desire, in the words of Paul, to be known fully even as we are fully known (1 Corinthians 13:12). The magic of a gift is partly in what it communicates between the giver and receiver. Does a gift leave the receiver feeling deeply known? Does a gift reach into the receivers’ life, speaking to their needs and authentic self? When Jesus stayed at a house in the town of Bethany, a nameless woman anointed him with oil (Matthew 26, Mark 14, Luke 7). Jesus’ disciples complained at the costliness of the gift, at its wastefulness. But the nameless woman knows what Jesus needs. Jesus has received little hospitality from his host, without even the basic gesture of offering water to wash his feet, yet the woman treats him like an honoured guest. The woman also knows who Jesus is. She anoints his body as if for burial, showing she knows where his ministry is leading. Whether we give Christmas presents or not, do we Friends know each other well enough to make such a gift?
Mark is the author of The Spirit of Freedom: Quaker-shaped Christian theology.
