Gold, frankincense, myrrh —
and a gift card
A Christmas letter from the archbishop
Depending on your vantage point, we live in a world of poverty or plenty. I would argue the latter is our present reality.
At 
Christmas we who are blessed with plenty are challenged by the tradition of gift giving. As we make our annual trips to the malls and specialty shops in search of unique and meaningful gifts for our loved ones, our stress and anxiety levels rise to a fever pitch. In response to this challenge, the ever-creative world of merchandising came to the rescue of frustrated shoppers with the convenient, if impersonal, gift card. It’s a bit of plastic with a magnetic strip that stores the essential information — the dollar limit.
The recipient of a gift card is free to choose whatever is pleasing and desirable from the participating merchant’s stock — within that dollar limit — or to use that amount to offset the cost of a more pleasing, more desirable and more costly item. Many of us have received such gifts. Whether these bits of magnetic plastic constitute unique or meaningful gifts is up to us.
A recent
news report quoted what I thought were some interesting gift card statistics. I won’t list them all, but I believe a couple of them are significant: the aggregate value of gift cards purchased in 2008 was $91 billion (US); an estimated six to 10 per cent of them were not redeemed.
Do the math. That’s between five and nine BILLION dollars worth! That’s between five and nine billion dollars of direct profit to the merchants and zero benefit to the recipients.
While there are those who would claim this is “good for business,” I believe the challenge for the Christian heart in a world of plenty is to equate this one reality of waste, among many others, to the Gospel. The message is clear. It is more blessed to give than to receive. This Christian understanding is exercised all year long on many fronts, but our response is not always well thought out, especially at Christmas. I suspect if your house is anything like mine, a world of plenty is evident under your Christmas tree, and there are probably a few gift cards among those many “unique and meaningful” items.
But not all gift cards are magnetic plastic with a dollar limit. In recent years some of our friends have given us paper gift cards with sincere and generous Christmas greetings accompanied by an announcement that a gift was given in our name to a worthy social cause. We are always delighted to receive these gifts and the opportunities they bring to share with others from our abundance.
Such opportunities increase each year. Our own Anglican Church of Canada now offers Acts of Faith, Your gift guide to supporting the ministries of the Anglican Church of Canada. You received one in your November issue of the Anglican Journal/New Brunswick Anglican. If you can’t find it, a trip to www.anglican.ca will reveal all 31 opportunities to lend financial support to ministry initiatives in need. You can help networks of Anglicans and ecumenical partners house the homeless; provide life-giving financial support to Indigenous clergy; even help to keep the Anglican Journal and the diocesan newspaper network healthy and vital. And you can do it all on-line if that is convenient for you.
I urge you to study this guide carefully as you shop for “the perfect gifts” this Christmas, or at any time throughout the year. It is never too late to give support to the ministries of our church, and every day is a good day for an Act of Faith.
The gifts of gold, frankincense and myrrh the Wise Visitors gave to Jesus on his birth were not only unique and meaningful; they were the most precious material gifts available in their day. They were gifts of prophetic significance — they spoke to God’s incarnate presence in the person of the Christ Child as our king (gold), priest (frankincense), and, Saviour (myrrh).
Amid the abundance of this season, may we recognize our need to reflect God’s saving grace in our giving, and in the gift of the Babe of Bethlehem.
A blessed Christmas to all!
