“THE RELIGION OF SANTA CLAUS”
A Sermon by the Rev. Bruce Clear
Sunday,
All
Last year and this year, I have
delivered an occasional sermon series on “The Religion of” various well known
people, such as “The Religion of Abraham Lincoln,” “The Religion of Susan B.
Anthony,” The Religion of Mark Twain.” I
thought it might be appropriate, during this holiday season, to explore the
religion of one of the most popular celebrities of all time: Santa Claus.
I do not consider it much of a
handicap in preparing this sermon that Santa Claus has himself written nothing
about what he believed. After all,
neither did Jesus. It was only those who
came after Jesus that wrote that record.
Nor do I consider it much of a handicap to my task that Santa’s story is
filled with incredible magic like flying reindeer. After all, most of the world’s great
religions offer stories that rooted in legends of supernatural events.
I suppose one factor that does present a challenge to my task
today is the fact that there are many people who do not believe in the
existence of Santa Claus. Those who
share this skeptical opinion seem to have in common one demographic
characteristic: their age is frequently
in the double digits. It would seem,
then, that I am facing an uphill battle today in trying to explain the religion
of Santa Claus to a demographic group that characteristically rejects the
premise of his existence. Be that as it
may, that is my task today.
But skeptics abound everywhere. And I admit the skeptics do have some
evidence to back up their opinion that Santa Claus doesn’t exist. I confess that there is some circumstantial
scientific reason to doubt his existence, which of course makes my task of describing
his religion all that much more difficult.
I cannot deny that sometimes the scientific
analysis of the story of Santa stretches credibility for some people. Here is an example of what I mean – a
scientific analysis of the Santa legend:
If you estimate the number of children in the world that celebrate
Christmas in some way, you find there are roughly 378 million. Calculating that there may be 3.5 children
per household, that means he will visit about 91.8 million homes on Christmas
Eve. He has only from sundown to sun-up
for this task, though fortunately it involves 24 time zones, so it is estimated
he has up to 31 hours to cover these stops.
Dividing the time available by the number of stops he needs to make, that
allows for 822 house visits per second, or roughly 1/100th of a
second per home visit (give or take a few nan-seconds) – which includes
parking, jumping down the chimney, leaving the toys, and climbing back up and
into the sleigh. (It’s no wonder nobody
sees him since he’s traveling so fast!).
Furthermore, in addition to these stops, he will need to cover approximately
75 ½ million cumulative miles of distance between these houses. This considerably reduces the time available
at each house, so it may be more like 1/1000th of a second. To cover this distance in the allotted time,
Santa must travel a minimum of 640 miles per second, or about 3,000 times the
speed of sound. Also, if we make a conservative
estimate that each child gets toys that weigh, on average, a total of two pounds
each, Santa will need to haul in his sleigh a shipment weighing 321,000 tons.
And so forth.
So you can see why some people might
question the existence of Santa Claus. I
myself do so from time to time. I
confess the evidence for his earthly existence is very thin, and it stretches
our faith even to entertain the possibility.
But if we suspend our skepticism for
a few moments, and hypothetically entertain the notion of his existence, we can
focus a little more directly on the nature of his religion, if any.
I’ve noticed something interesting
about the series I’ve been giving concerning the religion of notable people in
history. They seem to share one tenet in
common. So far, it appears they all of
them place far more value on how a person lives than on what a person
believes. For all of them, religion is
more about how it guides us in living than it is about telling us what to
believe. This was true of Abraham
Lincoln, Susan B. Anthony, Benjamin Franklin, and Mark Twain. I find this is also true of Santa Claus. In spades.
Santa’s criteria for rewarding
children, you will recall, is said to be how much their behavior is nice rather
than naughty. He gives absolutely no
weight of consideration to the children’s theological beliefs. He cares not at all about their metaphysical
opinions concerning transubstantiation or substitutionary atonement, or the complex
nature of the Godhead. The list that
Santa makes and checks and re-checks just before Christmas is not a list of
children who believe in biblical inerrancy.
He considers behavior to be infinitely more important than belief. In fact, behavior is the only factor he
considers worth rewarding.
As a result, Santa does not seem to
have religious prejudices. He does not
favor Methodists over Episcopalians, Presbyterians over Unitarians, or even
Baptists over Atheists. All he considers
is how well the child is in living out his or her life.
Santa’s religion bears a distinct resemblance,
it seems to me, with the doctrine of karma
as taught by the Eastern religions of Buddhism and Hinduism. The idea of karma suggests that the attitude
and values we bring to the world determine what we will receive from the
world. If we are generous, then that
spirit of generosity will come back to us and we will benefit. If we hurt someone, we can expect to be hurt
ourselves. If we forgive, we will be
forgiven when we need it. If we love, we
will be loved. Under the doctrine of
karma, “we reap what we sew.” We can
expect to have our deeds come back to us, even in this lifetime.
Doesn’t this sound just a bit like
the view of Santa that “nice” children be rewarded and “naughty” children do
not? I am not suggesting here that Santa
Claus was a Hindu or a Buddhist. Rather,
it is worth observing that Santa’s religion is not narrowly sectarian in any
way. It is compatible with many world
religious traditions.
Santa Claus is, to be sure, tied very closely to Christmas
celebrations, and to that extent he is shaped by the Christian tradition out of
which he came. But there is nothing in
the study of Santa’s religion that would incline him toward prejudice against
other world religions, or for that matter having a preference for Christian
children. There is nothing in his
theology to prevent him from rewarding good Muslim children or good Hindu
children or even good Jewish children, if they qualify behaviorally and if they
wish to participate in the tradition. If
children from other faith traditions do not receive presents, it is not because
Santa is unwilling to provide them. Santa
is non-sectarian, for he doesn’t require any child to affirm any specified
religious creed.
So the religious value of Santa is
that good behavior ought to be rewarded, and that behavior matters more than
their beliefs. It is important to
observe, though, that his simple religion has become profoundly distorted as it
is interpreted widely in our culture.
Instead of good behavior being rewarded, too often presents are given
far more on the basis of how much people choose to spend giving presents. The notion of rewarding good behavior becomes
lost in a culture that gives power to the wealthy. It was not Santa’s design that children of
families with greater financial resources are rewarded more than children of
poor families. That tradition is not to
be found anywhere in Santa’s theology.
It should be remembered, though, that the religion that Jesus taught
also has become widely distorted once it became the possession of the
culture. Like Santa, Jesus taught about
the virtue of doing good to others, but somehow many of his followers have
turned it into a religion of metaphysical beliefs about the supernatural. We should keep that in mind as we study the
religion of Santa Claus and realize his religion should not be confused with
the heretical doctrine of consumerism that seems to be a commonly distorted interpretation
Santa’s religion.
Another characteristic of Santa’s
religion is that he does not wish himself to become some kind of object of
devotion. Santa is not doing what he
does for approval or for veneration. He
is doing what he does because he wants to encourage and support others as they
grow.
Santa wants us to look not toward
him, but toward a broader “Spirit of Christmas” which he hopes to represent. The spirit of Christmas has to do with family
and friends gathering together, with a sense of joy in a spirit of celebration,
of honoring tradition, and of giving.
Santa’s religion is about these things.
The religion that Santa seeks to spread is no more about him than the
religion that Jesus taught is about Jesus.
Both point to values and principles that are transcendent, that exist
beyond the realm of any individual person.
His is also a religion of hope and
expectancy, qualities that fill the air this season, especially for
children. Santa nourishes the idea of
hope in every child, and I must say it extends to the adults as well as they
observe a child grow and change and hope deeply for that child’s future. Hope pervades Santa’s religion, so it may be
a good idea to look just a bit more deeply what it means to hope.
I begin with the
premise, and the conviction, that hope is, by definition, a fantasy, or even an
illusion. When we hope, we hope for
things which might come true, and then again, they might not. If we are convinced of the outcome, if we
know for certain what is to happen, then we are not dealing with hope,
we are dealing with expectation or prediction.
A child who knows ahead of time what is in those presents does not experience
the feeling of hope when they are unwrapped.
To be hope, our
feelings must in some form be rooted in our imagination. Yes, there must be some concrete evidence to
support our hope; and yes, to hope without much evidence is foolish. But genuine hope always enjoys an element of
mystery and risk, of fancy and fantasy.
I do not mean to
demean or diminish hope by saying that it is by nature largely fantasy and
illusion. In fact, so many of the noble
concepts of our civilization share that characteristic. It is no insult to say of hope that it is
illusory.
Think for a moment
about the great trinity of ideas, identified by ancient Greek philosophers: Truth, beauty, and goodness. Are not all of these in some sense illusion,
in some sense fantasy? Is not
yesterday's truth changed because today's truth supersedes it? Cannot we expect that what is today believed
to be true will be believed differently tomorrow. Is not truth, then, illusory?
Or what about
beauty. Is not beauty likewise fantasy
because it is always subjective, that is because beauty is always in the eye of
the beholder?
Whatever we
consider to be beautiful always entails a component which is largely in our
mind rather than in the world "out there." And to that extent, does not beauty contain
some part which is illusion and fantasy.
As with beauty,
and as with truth, likewise goodness -- the third in the trinity of
philosophical categories -- also is largely illusory. Goodness, whether it be aesthetic or moral,
contains as much subjective evaluation as it does objective.
I have dipped very slightly into this morass
of philosophy to say, simply, that I mean no insult when I say that hope is
always partly illusion and fantasy. All
of our great concepts share that quality.
Christmas is the season of hope, and Santa is one of the messengers of
hope. That the legend of Santa weaves
itself through illusion and fantasy helps, rather than hinders, the pursuit of
hope during this season.
There is a famous
and wonderful poem about hope by Emily Dickinson that many people from time to
time dismiss as utterly meaningless. I
suggest this simple little poem can make sense if in fact we understand that
hope is in some real degree illusion. It
is in that sense that Emily Dickinson can describe hope as "a thing with
feathers."
Hope is a thing
with feathers,
That perches on
the soul,
It sings the tune
without the words,
And never stops at
all.
Now
I would not be so crass as to rewrite Dickenson saying that “reindeer” is a
thing of feathers,” thus explaining their flight, and try to patch the religion
of Santa into the poetry of Emily Dickenson.
The point is simply the grand illusiveness and imaginativeness of the
human experience of hope.
Finally I would suggest
that the religion of Santa involves an appreciation of the great mysteries of
existence. It doesn’t seem to bother him
that we mortals find the tale of flying reindeer questionable, or that we can
doubt his ability to deliver toys at a speed exceeding, as I showed earlier,
more than 3,000 times the speed of sound.
Santa’s religion is one
that does not hesitate to embrace in life the fact that we can’t always explain
everything, and that the mysteries of life are not a threat but rather make
life all the much more beautiful and enjoyable.
I wrote in the
newsletter that in preparation of this sermon I tried to seek out for interview
We are all familiar
with the story, and somewhat familiar with the newspaper editor’s answer. One line from his answer, defending the
existence of Santa Claus, stands out for me in this context. He wrote, “Nobody can conceive or imagine all
the wonders there are unseen and unseeable in the world.”
This
idealism is central to the religion of Santa.
He teaches that there is magic and mystery in the world and it is to our
benefit to appreciate it when we encounter them. He does not ask that we deny our reason, but
simply to embrace that part of life experience which does not lend itself to
explanation, such as love, hope, compassion and gratitude.