The Working Catholic: Advent Part III
by Bill Droel

Every preacher has a sermon ready for this weekend or next in a folder labeled “Keep Christ in Christmas.” The theme is such a cliché that it is better to leave the folder in a file cabinet, away from the pulpit. Ordinary lay people know how to sufficiently navigate December’s commercialism. And who says that Christ is not in the office parties, the shopping for gifts, the decorating, the baking and all the rest? For those who falter, there’s a how-to book: Unplug the Christmas Machine by Jo Robinson (Harper Collins).
The entire “Put Christ in Christmas” movement, now championed by President Donald Trump, is misguided. It shows a lack of faith in the Incarnation. The error is an easy one to make. I catch myself on occasion saying something like, “Bring Christ to the Marketplace.” Although I don’t use the phrase “re-Christianize society,” I might nod in agreement when I see it in an essay.
Christ is already in the world and he cannot be removed, no matter how corrupt or indifferent people may be. A Christian is supposed to dispose himself or herself to God’s presence in the world; a lifetime task. Secondly, a Christian is supposed to assist others see the divine presence by making the world better match God’s plan for it.
The late November shampoo of our church carpets, the enhanced December décor of the church, the well-sung Advent hymns, the evocative Advent liturgy that makes use of Isaiah and early parts of the four gospels—all of these nourish us and prepare the way for the glory of Christmas. But the Bethlehem story itself points to the truth that God is most intimately available in the comings-and-goings of ordinary families, among unremarkable workers and especially among the poor.
Yes, the crèche in our home, in front of the church and in many public squares (including here in Chicago) is a visual reminder of God’s Incarnation. But the figurines in those displays are inanimate. The living Christ includes all the retail clerks who stack merchandise and direct shoppers. These workers, please understand, do not have to consciously exude Christianity. Indeed, some are members of other religious traditions; others do not worship at all. Yet, Advent is seeing Christmas in them and then improving their world. For example, don’t shop on Sunday so that workers have Sabbath time.
Restaurant workers mirror Christ. As an Advent discipline, bump up the tip, let’s say to 25% of the bill. The barber, the postal worker, the newspaper delivery person, your bartender.
Christ is the worker who sews the dress shirt that goes into a gift box. That worker is likely overseas and may well labor in a sweatshop. Christ is the worker in a Thailand shrimp house who washes and packages the little fish for the hors d’oeuvre tray at the office party. That worker is probably a slave. As an Advent discipline, only eat shrimp from the Gulf of Mexico or from a U.S. aqua-farm.
Christ is any family that can’t find a room at Mar-a-Lago, or at the Hilton or even at the Route 20 Motel. Christ is anyone who is not welcome at the family table, likely because that person is associated with too much sorrow and discord. During December, many Christians donate food or money for the care of the homeless. Get a closer look at Christ by volunteering at the pantry or shelter.

A few years ago I was in a Milwaukee shopping mall during Advent. Or better to say, my wife was shopping in Milwaukee; I found a bench inside the mall. A Pakistani-American woman and her baby sat down next to me. An older, well-dressed woman approached us and presumably mistaking me for the father said, “You are so lucky. This child is a great hope to us today.” How did she know?
Over 2000 years ago there was another baby. This one conceived out of wedlock to under-employed refugees. This baby’s life was in political danger and the family had to spend time in a foreign country with no green cards. In one sense Jesus did almost nothing that was extraordinary. He simply went about doing the unexpected: showing kindness to strangers, preaching subversively, associating with oddballs. Advent is about looking for the greatest in the unexpected. It is about great hope on a bench at a mall in downtown Milwaukee.

Advent is preparation for Christmas. Christmas is preparation for the day after Christmas.

The Working Catholic: Advent, Part II
by Bill Droel

Contemporaries Karl Marx (1818-1883), Friedrich Engels (1820-1895) and Charles Dickens (1812-1870) were concerned about the social question: Why in an industrial economy that promises upward mobility is there so much misery?
By the mid-1800s prosperity was arriving for “factory and mill and transportation interests,” writes Les Standiford in his intriguing biography of Dickens, The Man Who Invented Christmas (Crown, 2008). In addition to business owners, “a growing number of managerial workers were beginning to enjoy the relative ease of a middle class. But most of those who made the factories run were laborers, and they and their families lived in squalor.”
In his early 20s Engels was in Manchester, working and researching. Appalled by child labor, pollution and slum housing there, he began writing about the evils of capitalism. Standiford says that Manchester in 1843 set the stage for Engels. Had he “come of age in some more pleasant surroundings such as London, The Communist Manifesto might not have been written the way it was.”
Dickens gave a talk in Manchester in fall 1843. He too was appalled. He returned to London and in a fury wrote his anti-capitalist manifesto, A Christmas Carol. Dickens “had no use for revolt or violence as suggested by supporters of Mark and Engels,” Standiford writes. His novels are about the working poor, but they dwell on character not on macro-economics. The stories hinge on the tension between bad people and bad institutions, on one hand, and the possibility of redemption on the other.
The good guys (the poor) in Dickens’ stories are complex. He does not romanticize them. Poverty in itself does not make a person noble or worthy of pity. A poor person might drink, carouse, cheat and make bad decisions at times. Dickens’ premise, however, is that being poor is not a sin; the system is at fault.

The holy season of Advent is designed to convey this lesson: Charity is not romantic; it is a duty. Poor individuals are often not charming. They do, however, deserve help with no heavy moral judgment attached.
St. Luke wrote an inspired story about the social question (poverty). Like A Christmas Carol, it is popular at this time of year. The creator of the whole universe, the story goes, comes to visit his created planet. His holy family cannot get a room at Trump Tower and so they go to a barn. The creator is greeted there by poor shepherds. He eventually spends his life among the poor, all of whom St. Luke says have defects in their character but are open to redemption.
These weeks are the best time to read St. Luke (his first two chapters) and also Dickens’ tale. Get a decorative copy of A Christmas Carol from Acta (www.actapublications.com). Acta’s chief executive Grinch sits all day near the building’s front window, looking forlornly down Clark St., waiting until April 9, 2018 when he can take his seat in Wrigley Field, home of the Cubs (92-70 in 2017). Meanwhile, the joyous elves in Acta’s cramped warehouse can for $14.95 get A Christmas Carol into your mailbox, as quickly as any mega-supplier.

Droel edits a free newsletter on faith and work, INITIATIVES (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)

The Working Catholic: Health Care
by Bill Droel

Larry Keogh, a fellow teacher at our community college, began each semester by telling his students: “Life is not fair.” He used various techniques and examples to make this point. To master his course (social science) our students needed this maxim, Keogh believed. They likewise needed it to navigate their careers and their personal lives.

Atul Gawande is a surgeon in Boston and author of best-selling Being Mortal (Picador, 2014). He recently interviewed a couple in his Ohio hometown. The 47-year old wife had health problems since high school graduation. She had a medical discharge from the Army because of fatigue. Doctors were not getting at her precise ailment. They prescribed opioids for her joint pain. She became addicted and had to start withdrawal treatment. Then her liver began to fail. Finally, doctors at the famous Cleveland Clinic named the problem and found effective medication. This woman, Gawande reports, “got her life back.” Meanwhile her husband fell and was out of his job as an electrical technician for six months.
The couple has “amazing insurance,” says the wife. Maybe so, writes Gawande in The New Yorker (10/2/17). But their policy has “a $6,000 deductible and hefty co-pays and premiums.” During their setback, the annual health care costs to the family reached $15,000. They did not tell their extended family that they had to file for bankruptcy; which brings us to the curious part of this story.
Bankruptcy is “a personal failure,” says the husband, even though medical costs caused the bankruptcy. “Everybody should contribute for the treatment they receive,” the husband says. His wife is ambivalent about the Affordable Care Act, but she does not think adequate health insurance is a human right. “I work really hard,” the wife says. “I deserve a little more than the guy who sits around.” For this couple, any articulation of a right is accompanied by unwanted government regulation and allocation. They are also convinced that many people cheat the government. They have anecdotal “evidence.”
This couple’s “feelings are widely shared,” says Gawande. Many people in our country are uncomfortable with human rights talk. They are adverse to government programs. And in a defining characteristic of their thinking, these people make a distinction between the deserving poor and the undeserving poor.

Modernity teaches that hard work leads to success; failure is at least partially related to a personal defect. For example, John Calvin (1509-1564), one of modernity’s influential leaders, wrote in a typical Scripture commentary: “Adversity is a sign of God’s absence; prosperity of his presence.” This thinking is deep in our culture. TV talk show hosts, preachers, self-help writers, political candidates, technology entrepreneurs, sports stars, education gurus and more, all tell us that we are responsible for the outcome of our lives. Life is what we make of it, or don’t make of it. Some people might experience an unfortunate, temporary setback. They deserve help. But others create their own misery. They do not deserve help.
It is common in a bar, a barbershop, a neighborhood restaurant, a church club, a family gathering to hear in so many words: “Being charitable is important to me but I don’t owe assistance to anyone. Some people need a handout, but my taxes should not go into assistance programs.”

Is health insurance a corollary to the right to life? That is, something that is unalienable and not hinged to one’s social status or lifestyle. Or is health insurance a privilege, something that some people deserve more than others? That is, health insurance is not unalienable and is only begrudgingly extended to the careless. Is life fair?

Droel’s booklet, What Is Social Justice?, is available from National Center for the Laity (PO Box 291102, Chicago, IL 60629)