It is something of a moral obligation for preachers – and not just for preachers, but for many people of faith – to shake our heads and cringe at some of the ‘over the top’ antics of the “Christmas Shopping Season.” Chris had a conversation with a man yesterday who told her that on “Black Friday,” his wife had to circle the parking lot of Walmart, waiting for an open parking space. To make matter worse, there were vehicles of ‘first responders’ blocking the entryway. It turns out that one woman actually bit another woman in their mad rush to grab a sale item that both of them wanted. So, not only do we feel some moral obligation to question the real connection between the birth of our savior and crazy consumerism – it’s easier than shooting fish in a barrel. Thank goodness for really crazy people who make our own shopping habits seem a little more decent and orderly.

I want to suggest, however, that there is something more serious and understandable about the whole “Christmas Shopping Season” than meets the eye. A few years ago, I was under the impression that the term “Black Friday” has racist connotation – as do many of our references to ‘blackness’ as a negative term. But, one of you enlightened me that the term actually refers to the time of year when many retail businesses see their earnings move from being negative – “in the red” – to positive – “in the black.” That clarification was helpful and makes enormous sense. It also points to why those of us who would never sit in line for hours on Thanksgiving night, or queue up for a hot, new “Tickle Me Elmo,” or even bite somebody over the last item on the shelf, are still somehow invested in the whole “Christmas Shopping Season” phenomenon. It is the end of the calendar year. We do measure our “success” (rightly or wrongly) by numbers. We do assume (rightly or wrongly) that “a rising tide lifts all boats,” including our own, so there is cause for us to celebrate if big box stores as well as locally owned shops are profitable. We do feel (rightly or wrongly) that measures of “consumer confidence” are important indicators of whether we are economically secure, or whether we are facing an economic crisis. Even as one of those curmudgeons that refuses to enter a store on the day after Thanksgiving – I find myself hoping that retail numbers are positive, that businesses which employ so many people are successful, and that our overall economic health is viable.

What I am suggesting is that beneath the crassness of the worst expression of Black Friday there lies the drama that Philip Brooks described so well in the phrase, “the hopes and fears of all the years.” The anxiety that lies below our “Christmas Shopping Season” is more than economic. We worry about what will happen if the structure breaks down, if our system of supply and demand should fall, and if life as we know it should end. And so, we shop. We shop as if it is our duty as good citizens. We shop as if it is our duty as good Christians. We shop as if our lives depend on it.

During the season of Advent, we join with the people of faith throughout the ages who wait in expectation of the salvation of the world. To await ‘the salvation of the world’ means that we join with the worst of the Christmas Shopping Season villains in carrying “the hopes and fears of all the years.” It is this hope and this fear that lies behind the Hebrew understanding of Sophia, or Wisdom. Elizabeth Johnson writes that “Sophia was originally introduced into the scriptures to solve a spiritual and theological problem.”[1] Jewish theology emphasized the transcendence of God so much that it led to the idea that perhaps God was distant and maybe even uncaring about what happens to our world. To offset that idea, a number of symbols were used in the Hebrew Bible to speak of God’s close connection to the world, one of which is this term Sophia. In Sophia, the hidden, distant God openly comes near.

Our reading from Proverbs is one of the most beautiful and poetic expression of Sophia in all of the scriptures. She is described as the first of all creation and in just a few brief verses we watch her grow up. She was born after gestating from the very beginning, she was brought forth before the waters or the dirt. And she was constantly beside God during the activity of creation, like a child, delighting God daily and playing alongside as God creates the earth. Even after the formation of humans, Sophia is there, “delighting in the offspring of adam,” like a child fully immersed in the world of dolls. And, as we read a little further in the 8^th chapter of Proverbs, Sophia grows up and the mature Sophia addresses the reader as her own child, saying “Happy are those who keep my ways.” Sophia is not stuck in perpetual childhood as the apple of the creator’s eye. She is the consolation and hope for the fears of all the years. In Sophia, God has come near to us.

When John begins his story of Jesus Christ, he does not begin with a birth narrative, like Luke. He does not connect his story to the Hebrew story with a genealogy, like Luke and Matthew. He does not begin with copious citations from the Hebrew Bible, like Matthew. He begins by connecting Jesus to Sophia. Using the language of hymns and philosophies of his day, John draws on the Sophia tradition – on Wisdom literature – to describe the incarnation. (Like the Jewish philosopher Philo, John employs the Hellenistic term ‘Logos’ as a synonym of ‘Sophia.’) The moment when “the Word becomes flesh” in Jesus is not a ‘new’ story that has no connection to what takes place in the “Old Testament.” It is the fulfillment of the same hope that lies in the story of Sophia – the hidden, distant God openly comes near to us in Christ.

So, what has Sophia to do with the madness of the Christmas Shopping Season? We look at crowds and jingles and biting incidents and we see almost anything but “wisdom.” Wisdom, in our imaginations, is ivory tower stuff, contemplation on the peaks of the mountains, sagacious words from a wilderness hermit, or trembling insight from an ancient grandmother. But, as Bill Brown points out, Sophia in the book of Proverbs is not an ivory tower figure. “She is not ensconced in a secret garden or situated beyond human reach. To the contrary, she is found in the hustle and bustle of city life.”[2] It is here, in the madness of our scurrying anxieties, that Sophia calls out. She calls. She beckons us not to fall for the allure of self-importance and not to put our trust in the glimmer of gold. Sophia calls us to embrace the purpose and meaning of life amidst – and not apart from – the madness of the busy city. And, somehow, even through the noise of movement and the din of piped-in Christmas music, you and I can hear her voice. She still has that youthful giggle of the child playing in the new mud at the creation of dirt. She still has that fresh fascination with humans, despite our tendencies to bite. Even in her maturity, Sophia calls us to embrace life in all of its play-fullness.

Perhaps the most Christian thing we can do in preparing ourselves for the birth of Christ, is to take playful Sophia into the hustle and bustle where she is at home. With her, we can hand the last item of the perfect gift for our own niece to the harried shopper right behind us, and demonstrate a small glimpse of the joy of giving. With Sophia, we can stop to straighten a display that has suffered the effects of too many grasping hands, in order to appreciate the effort that has gone into it. With Sophia by our side, we can immerse ourselves into a time that reflects the anxious fears of all the years, with hope that God openly comes to us in Christ. Thanks be to God. Amen.

[1] Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Image of God’s Saving Presence” in The Living Pulpit, July-September, 2000.

[2] William P. Brown, The Seven Pillars of Creation: The Bible, Science and the Ecology of Wonder (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2010), p.162.