Do You Hear What I...What The...?!

I went out one night this week to visit a family in our church.

The family, which has a number of small children, has been without a steady income for months and was in urgent need of some financial help. We put out a call about a week ago and asked for our church, (which runs around 80), to help us raise $1,500 in five days.

Our people were generous, God was good, and we took in more than $1,600, with checks still coming in. (1 high schooler gave a check of $200!! This type of sacrifice and generosity is when the church is at its best, and being a member of the clergy is actually FUN.)

As I got back into my car to drive home, the radio was tuned into a station playing Christmas music. (By the way, do you have a station that starts playing Christmas music, round-the-clock, WAY TOO EARLY IN THE SEASON?? Listening to Christmas music in late Oct. is as bad as seeing Christmas displays in stores before the halloween masks have been taken down. It seems to sap a little of the "specialness" of the Dec. season. I avoid the music and the displays until after Thanksgiving. [I know for the Christian Church Calendar, Advent begins four Sundays before Christmas, but let's confess. In our culture, it actually begins the day after T-giving.)

So anyway, I'm in my car, the dj comes on and announces the next song is "O Holy Night" which is cool, a great song. And he proceeds to tell us the artist is... "Hall and Oates"?!!

Really?!

Hall and Oates??

Now I was a fan of "Kiss on My List" and "Private Eyes" as much as anyone.

But it was really weird hearing the same duo that did "Maneater" singing about "O night divine" and that special, once-in-the-course-of-humanity-event.

It got me thinking: What does their performing such songs say about Christmas?

The cynic in me replys that it says "anything to make a buck" and there's nothing sacred to the entertainment industry.

But the hopeful mystic in me says "maybe, just maybe, it says more people than we realize wonder if there isn't something going on here that is more significant, more spectacular than we can put into words; that we all recognize it, even if we don't know how to explain it; even if we haven't all pledged our allegiance to it. That the possibility of Jesus being the one, unique expression of the Creator stepping into time and space and human existence is an event that deserves all our voices. Even Hall and Oates.

What do you think?

Grace & peace.