“Americans celebrate the holidays with an orgy of value destruction.” These are the words of the economist Jared Waldfogel, making the case for why we shouldn’t give gifts. And from a microeconomic standpoint, that case is apparently pretty easy to make.

If the purpose of giving gifts, as economists assume, is to maximize satisfaction, buying presents is a terrible way to do that. Waldfogel points to studies that show that, on average, we value the gifts we receive 20% less than the gifts we would have bought ourselves with the same money. And of course, in turn, the recipients of our gifts value them 20% less. The end result over a $65 billion holiday gift-giving season is $13 billion of value destruction, $13 billion of squandered satisfaction.

The solution, according to Waldfogel, is simple: give cash. Let people choose presents for themselves. We will never be as satisfied as we are buying our own gifts.

I came across Waldfogel’s argument in the book What Money Can’t Buy: the Moral Limits of Markets, by Harvard philosophy professor, Michael Sandel. What Money Can’t Buy explores the ways in which market thinking has invaded every aspect of our lives and asks whether there aren’t times at which we need to put such reasoning aside and remember a different way of valuing. Sandel asks whether a market analysis is really the lens through which we want to view the presents under our trees? Or is there another way of understanding what’s going on with holiday gift-giving?

He writes, “To insist that the purpose of all gifts is to maximize utility is to assume, without argument, that the utility-maximizing conception of friendship is morally the most appropriate one, and that the right way to treat friends is to satisfy their preferences—not to challenge, or deepen, or complicate them.” Sandel writes to remind us of something that can be easy to forget in our market-dominated age: that we can choose to live by another value system, that there are ways of thinking about giving other than as satisfaction-maximizing transactions.
This week, on our new UCG blog (which you should all be reading- www.ucgainesville.org; like us on Facebook…) Shelly wrote about the possibilities for transformation that exist in a gift. “Often,” she said, “gifts are given with the hope that they will help to make a dark and painful reality better somehow…Our simple gifts…can create new realities inside and out.” And this makes gift-giving, from a spiritual perspective, the perfect practice for the season of advent.

Advent, as Mary’s song demonstrates, is a season of preparation for a new reality, a new way of valuing our world and the people who live in it. Mary’s words make it clear that this little baby is here not to sanction the existing power structure, but to demolish it. God comes to earth as Emmanuel for value destruction: to scatter the proud, to bring down the powerful, to lift up the lowly, and fill the hungry with good things. The gift of Jesus means new realities inside and out.

But what does that look like? Imagining such a world seems nearly impossible. I can imagine a slightly more just world, but not a truly just one. I can see a world in which power is shared more evenly, but I cannot envision one in which power does not matter. I have been so thoroughly shaped by the system of values in which we live, that trying to picture a new reality in which gifts and even people are not quantifiable in dollars and cents, in which the present power structures have been completely destroyed, is like trying to envision what it would be like to see a new color, or use a new sense, or exist in four dimensions. How can I imagine a world outside of the one which has shaped my imagination?

I was thinking about these questions over Thanksgiving as I listened to a series of lectures by the Franciscan priest, Richard Rohr (you may have heard about him on my blog post last week- www.ucgainesville.org; give us a good review on yelp or Facebook!) In these lectures, entitled The Art of Letting Go, Rohr discusses the life and teachings of St. Francis of Assisi.

Francis is well-known for his relationship to creation, and especially to animals. But he is also remarkable for his relationship to money. He referred to it as dung, and more than once is said to have thrown it in the toilet to make the point. It was while listening to this description of St. Francis, that I had what seemed like an amazing idea for bringing across the shocking new reality made possible by Christmas. In hindsight, it may have seemed amazing because I was walking Cresecent Beach all alone just before sunrise, but in that moment I was certain how this sermon would end: I would take out my wallet during the sermon, pull out a $50 bill, and burn it by the advent wreath.
Stay with me. The idea of destroying $50 seemed like a way of getting outside of the system which that bill represented. I could show that it was just paper and ink, and we have the choice about what power we give to it. Like holiday gift-giving, that value destruction could open the door to a new and different reality. Right?

I knew it was an amazing idea, because as soon as I had it, I was terrified to follow through. It felt too real, too earnest, too dramatic. Plus it happened to be illegal and kind of expensive over the course of two services. And mixed in with my fear were dread and horror that I would actually be destroying something worth $50. When I was done, I would be $50 poorer. While I could picture myself talking about how this bill was just a piece of paper, and that we could choose to value it however we wanted to, something inside me wasn’t sure I believed it. In that moment, I realized that a piece of me – a huge piece of me – really believed in the value of that money, did not think of it as paper or dung but as a true source of power, maybe the true source of power, and I recognized how deeply invested I am in the present system, how hesitant I really am to have it remade.

And all of that—the fact that I didn’t want to do it and I wasn’t sure I could—made me even more certain that it was exactly what I needed to do. We believe in first-person preaching here, and how could I really preach about the gift of advent and a world remade and renewed if I was unwilling to take this tiny step into that world? If I wouldn’t sacrifice even a lousy 50 bucks for a taste of the Magnificat? So I decided to do it.
And then another round of objections kicked in. They said, “You are a middle-class, straight, white, cisgendered, American man. You have every privilege. Easy for you to burn money when you have a full-time job, a house, two cars, health insurance, and multiple retirement accounts. You sir, are no St. Francis. What would it really mean for you to perform this symbolic act? Won’t it just reinforce the very power structures that Mary sings about destroying? You should give the money to charity, to a good cause, to someone who can use it if you really don’t want it.”

And all of that is true, but it still didn’t deter me. Because the reality is that whatever I do with my money, I do it from a position of power, and giving it to charity, while one of the best things we can do in the present system, is not the same as participating in a new system. Like Waldfogel’s idea of giving cash, charity is a way we can and should maximize satisfaction in this reality. But it can never go far enough to inaugurate a new reality. And advent is about that new reality.

I need to become more generous and more loving in the present order, and perhaps that is all I can expect, but God doesn’t come to earth to convince me to be a little less of a cheapskate. God comes to earth to show me that the money that I idolize and the value that I give it are an illusion. I need to do what I can to share my power, but God doesn’t come to earth to remind me to use my privilege responsibly. God comes to earth to show me that the systems in which I put my trust are not trustworthy, are in fact oppressive, and a different way is possible.
That sounds a little extreme, almost as extreme as destroying a $50 bill. But I believe that advent is extreme. Advent is not about a little more for the less fortunate. It is about a world in which the words “less fortunate” make no sense, about every valley being lifted and every mountain and hill made low, and all sharing in the abundance of creation.

Advent is not about making the system marginally more fair for those who have been cheated by it; it is about destroying every system that insists that some must lose so that others can win.

Advent is not about welcoming a few more thoroughly-vetted immigrants over our borders; it is about a world in which it is unimaginable that invisible lines on a map should dictate that some die by violence while others live undisturbed in peace.

Advent is not about diversity training that teaches us how not to offend one another; it is about a world where racism, and sexism, and heterosexism do not and can never exist, because fear and ignorance are no more.

Advent is not about saving a few more lives from gun violence; it is about the beating of guns, and swords, and nukes into farming implements and studying war no more.

The most we may be able to do is to make the world a little better. And we should do that. We must do that with everything we have. But God does not come to earth for such half measures. God comes as a little baby to begin the radical transformation of our world, and while we go about our positive and pragmatic work this year, we must remember that our true end as human beings is to live in the way of absolute hope, peace, love and joy.

I’m not going to burn a $50 bill. In the end I decided it would be too distracting. But I still want to destroy some value this morning, to make a start, however small, as a reminder to myself of what has true worth. So I decided to do it the old fashioned way: by giving you each a gift. During our final hymn the ushers will be coming around, and I hope you’ll take one of these St. Francis medals. It bears the picture of Francis with the man-eating wolf of Gubbio, which the saint famously tamed. It seemed like a fitting image to remind us of the world that God intends, a world in which lion and lamb lay down together, a world in which all life is valued and at peace.

This small gift destroys value, at least as it has been defined for us. It is probably worth only 80% of what you would have done with the same amount of money. It is a very small gesture; it does not go nearly far enough. But I hope you will look at it as you go about your holiday gift-giving and receiving and remember that you can choose a different way of valuing. That you are already part of a new world, coming into being. A world which is not marginally better or a little improved, but a world that is radically remade by the God of hope, and peace, and love, and joy. May the gift of Jesus refuse to satisfy us this year. May God instead challenge, and deepen, and complicate our lives until we are prepared for the new and better reality of which Mary sings.