Worship fully. Spend Less. Give More. Love all. This is the core of a movement known as Advent Conspiracy. Advent Conspiracy first came on the scene about ten years ago; a small movement that called upon Christians to reclaim the meaning of the season of Advent, or at least its spiritual roots, from the appropriating reach of consumerism. A group of pastors realized that many in their flocks were consumed by consuming; shopping, spending ever increasing amounts of money on goods and decorations, and that somewhere in the mix the “reason for the season” was getting lost.
Together they proposed through Advent Conspiracy that our Christmas preparations line up more closely with the Christian message, and less with the cultural message. [Watch their great video here.] It reminds us that Christmas is not about shopping for the perfect gift, but about giving freely, especially to someone who needs it. We could probably assume that Jesus didn’t go out of his way to search for the perfect gift for everyone on his list. What he did do was to give of himself freely and love and care for those who needed it. There’s something to that.
On their website for this year, Advent Conspiracy asks the following: “What was the one gift you remember getting for Christmas last year? Next question: What about the fourth gift? Do you remember that one? Truth is, many of us don’t because it wasn’t something we necessarily wanted or needed. Spending Less isn’t a call to stop giving gifts; it’s a call to stop spending money on gifts we won’t remember in less than a year.”
Instead, Advent Conspiracy suggests that we give more of ourselves, not stuff. The core of human existence is relationships, and when we invest in those, we change lives more than when we give the gifts we wrap in fancy paper with bows. As the last of the four tenants of the movement suggest, love is one of the keys to a proper Advent. Everything we do should be an extension of the love we share, the love we first received from God through Jesus Christ – the very one whose arrival we prepare for and celebrate in these coming weeks.
One of the ways we can help keep aligned with the spirit of the Advent season is by worshipping fully, as the movement also advocates. In our tradition, Advent is full of the mystery of the now and not yet. Our hymns capture the yearning of our hearts for the nearness of God and the anticipation of God’s greatest saving act in creation. The blue on the altar (a faded black from the days before synthetic black dies), the candles on the Advent wreath that count up as the light grows, and the slightly subdued ornamentation in the church all point us towards something mysterious and just out of reach. These next three Sundays are beautiful and unique in the church year, and we have other services in this season, too. All of them help us to focus our Christmas preparations where they might best be focused.
At the end of the day, what Advent Conspiracy hopes for each of us, is to re-center ourselves on the Christmas story and its meaning in the church. If you watched the video above you also know that they pair this new orientation with opportunities to do great good in the world. When we spend less on trinkets and bobbles and clothing that aren’t really necessary, we have more money freed up to give away to help others. In fact, many times we can help another person and give that help to one of our friends and family as a gift by wrapping up a note that explains what we did on their behalf. Many of our friends and family already have what they need. Instead of giving them something else they don’t need, we could give someone clean water (the Advent Conspiracy’s mission of choice), livestock, warm clothes, shoes, or some other essential lacked item on behalf of our loved one. And then we have a moment to share a brief word about the Christmas story and how it compels and calls us to do such things.
If you can’t walk away from the typical Christmas with its shiny wrapped do-dads, you can still start changing your approach. Start with ten or twenty percent of your Christmas budget, and do something life changing with it. Talk about it with your family, if it needs to be a family decision. Whatever we do, spending some time on considering and responding to the four challenges of this Advent Conspiracy movement will benefit us and those around us. As the folks in the movement hope and say, perhaps the Christmas story can still change the world.
Tom+
Almighty God, give us grace to cast away the works of
darkness, and put on the armor of light, now in the time of
this mortal life in which your Son Jesus Christ came to visit
us in great humility; that in the last day, when he shall come
again in his glorious majesty to judge both the living and the
dead, we may rise to the life immortal; through him who lives
and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and
for ever. Amen. BCP Collect for the 1st Sunday in Advent