The value of some things
lies in their emptiness

Speaking of Religion
The Rev. Dr. Tim Griffin

We fashion wood for a house, but it is the emptiness inside that makes it livable. We work with the substantial, but the emptiness is what we use. (Tao Te Ching)
Let the same mind be in you that was in Christ Jesus, who though he was in the form of God, did not regard equality with God as something to be exploited, but emptied himself, taking the form of a slave, being born in human likeness. (Philippians 2:5-7)

In case you have not noticed, Christmas is coming. I do not expect that this is news to anyone. One cannot leave home without encountering all of the decorations associated with Christmas, and most any store one enters has the songs and carols associated with Christmas piped in.
These familiar and happy associations are good for business. They remind us of our love for shopping, and they inspire us to spend our money on others in anticipation of the gifts that we will receive from them.
Or, perhaps, we are more altruistic, and we simply desire to tell others how much they mean to us. After all, nothing says "I love you" like an expensive gift.
Advertisers know that this is the way to get us to open our wallets. We can feel good about our extravagant purchases this time of year because it is, after all, a way of showing how we value others. At least, that is an old and well-established way of convincing us to buy. But this year I have noticed a couple of new wrinkles.
The first is the idea of appealing to the recipient rather than the buyer. This approach is subtle and involves informing the would-be recipient — usually a child desiring some kind of electronic device — that he/she deserves the expensive item in question. Thus the magic of this kind of advertisement is that it transforms desires into entitlements. And since there is this entitlement, woe to the gift-giver who fails to give the would-be recipient what is deserved.
Another approach, as clever if not more so, is to convince consumers — (And who among us is not a consumer?) — that the more they are able to consume the better their life is. Thus, one of the leading retailers has adopted a slogan that goes something like "Save money. Live better."
It is catchy — reminiscent of "Don’t worry. Be happy." When translated it means: "When you save money, you can have more things, and we all know that things make our lives better. (Indeed, things make our lives worth living!)
As I was pondering these mysteries of market capitalism, I was reminded how different these attitudes are from those our religious traditions have attempted to foster. The topic of emptiness is a good example of what I mean.
According to Taoism, the real value of things is generally a matter of the relationship between form and emptiness. Thus what makes a house good or a bowl good, or, by implication, a person good, is the quality of emptiness. A house or bowl without emptiness is of no value. In fact, without the emptiness, they are not a house or a bowl.
It is similar for us. Without emptiness we cannot develop, evolve and become the people we are created to become.
This latter point is most clearly expressed by Paul in his letter to the Philippians. Here Paul refers to Jesus — who is the image of who we are to be. But although we Christians regard Jesus as the perfect and true manifestation of God, we do so because Jesus emptied himself and assumed our form and nature. And that is, of course, the point of Christmas, and without Christ’s emptying of himself to assume our nature, there would be no Christmas.
So perhaps during this season we would do well to strive to empty ourselves a little. Perhaps we could give up the idea that we are entitled to a gift. Perhaps we could give up our efforts to blackmail others into loving us by giving them expensive gifts to convince them of how much we love them.
Perhaps rather than joining in the mindless shopping frenzy that is also associated with Christmas, we could spend some time each day trying to empty ourselves to make a place in our hearts for the One who is simply waiting for our invitation. ••
Father Tim Griffin is priest-in-charge at the St. Luke’s Episcopal Church, at 1946 Welsh Road in Bustleton.