Sunday Reflections: Christmas VS Holiday

By Rev. Beckie Hickok

Every year around this time, someone decides to become offended over the use of the word holiday over Christmas. This year, it’s Fox News declaring war on Governor Chafee of Rhode Island who used the phrase “holiday tree lighting.”

And yet, when Fox spends hours of its time ranting and railing about Governor Chafee’s seeming transgression, even publishing his phone number and encouraging people to call and complain, all that does is to serve as yet another distraction in a season full of them. A distraction that keeps us from seeing what God would have us see—a world in need of transformation. A world in need of a new beginning. A world in need of justice. A world in need of grace.

Distractions. Sometimes they’re healthy. Getting our minds off stuff we shouldn’t dwell on too long. But other times, well, we let them get in the way of what we’re really supposed to be doing. Like being the agents of transformation for God here and now. With so much so wrong in our world, in our country, in our state, in our city, could we perhaps find something else to spend our time on rather than whether or not someone uses the word holiday instead of Christmas?

Last week, I was part of a prayer vigil, the purpose of which was to bring attention to the unemployed in Pittsburgh. Able-bodied and minded folks who have lost their jobs and now may lose their unemployment benefits. People who want jobs and can’t find them; who have lost homes and health care and some, even families, because of the economy. These are the people who are the statistics you read about in the paper. But they’re not statistics. They’re people. 

People who don’t give a hoot about the use of the word holiday over Christmas but who just want the opportunity to put their lives back together again. 

People for whom transformation and restoration should be our number one priority; not quibbling over what word should be used instead of another. 

God has sent me to bring good news to the oppressed; to bind up the brokenhearted; to proclaim liberty to the captives and release to the prisoners; to comfort all who mourn.

Rev. Beckie Hickok is the pastor at Waverly Presbyterian Church in Regent Square.