Charles Dickens grew up as the wheels of the industrial revolution were moving at full speed, everyone and everything was becoming part of this machine. After a walk through the streets of Manchester, Dickens set out to write a scathing pamphlet about the conditions of poverty he observed. 

But he chose to write a story that might change people’s hearts. (Which is fair because pamphlets are not famous for setting the world on fire.) A further turn, he wrote about the rich rather than about the poor, hoping for a greater impact on the culture and he was right. The book has never been out of print and the story has been adapted to plays and movies, echoed special episodes and even the Muppets have taken a moment to change Scrooge’s heart. (which by the way is clearly the most disciplined of Scrooges to not laugh out loud as he scolds frog Bob Cratchet.)

He wanted it to be a sledgehammer in favor of the poor man’s child. He knew what it was to be poor or on the edge of poverty. His own father had gone to the hell that was debtors' prison. Dickens was 31 with his fifth child on the way in a world still vulnerable to poverty - and so in 6 weeks he composed this Christmas classic. He not only wanted to secure his own income but he knew first hand the horrors of social violence. He himself worked a job gluing labels on shoe boxes for 10 hour days. Perhaps this is where his characters began to dance and dream in his mind. 

When Scrooge says are there no prisons? He means it. And he means that his taxes have made this terrible provision. In 1576 early iterations of the Poor Law were edited to manage what the now dissolved monastic communities once mitigated. Some relief for poverty became a part of the collective work of the state in England. Workhouses emerge where in absolute desperation one might go. Families would be separated, you may live there, receive food and a uniform there and you would be required to work. There is no truer statement than “many would rather die that go there.” Work was hard, the food and care was meager and as the industrial revolution cooked along, the poor houses became a tool for captains of industry to make more money on the backs of the most vulnerable.  If you have ever walked a treadmill and wondered about the experience of getting nowhere, just know that this tool was a part of this time of deep and expansive oppression, 12 people would run the treadmill, making their lives ‘productive” for someone else’s profit. 

Christmas, the season itself was impacted by the industrial revolution. The holiday that once stretched from St. Nicholas Day to the last of 12 days of Christmas on January 6th with a diversity of festivals and happenings had to be shortened. Cromwell, leading a puritan revolution forbade the holiday in 1644 and demanded it be all about penance and outlawed festivities and merry making, parties and presents and probably even smiling. The Georgian Era that followed invited Christmas back and the festivities that invited folks to be merry but as industry grows so do its need for human cogs working their hour upon hour. If you are measuring British history via historic dramas, I am talking somewhere between Queen Charlotte and PBS’s Victoria. Christmas gets limited to one day of celebrating because the machines can’t stop for anything, even Christmas.  

This is the context Dickens offers: The Christmas Carol and presents the beauty of Christmas through Fred, the ever loving nephew of Scrooge. “I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round—apart from the veneration due to its sacred name and origin, if anything belonging to it can be apart from that—as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable, pleasant time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow-passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys. And therefore, uncle, though it has never put a scrap of gold or silver in my pocket, I believe that it has done me good, and will do me good; and I say, God bless it!‘”

He places Fred’s generosity of spirit up against the cold and covetous old sinner for any reader trying to imagine themselves in the story. Three spirits haunt Scrooge in the night and Marley shows him a world of spirits regretting their choices in life as they can no longer act to make the life of vulnerable folks better. Scrooge is transformed. 

We can all laugh and cry even. Dickens was right at the power of story to transform us. Story always does, that’s why Christmas is filled with stories. That’s why our faith is filled with stories of people brushing into God and being forever changed. 

But I think maybe a follow up pamphlet to the story might be in order. Because we can’t count on ghosts haunting rich people to make the world better. When Donald Trump had COVID, I imagined him being haunted, Dickens style by three ghosts. Hillary Clinton would be the ghost of Christmas Past, of course and Trump would wake from his fever a changed man. He would wake up, leave the hospital and host a press conference about giving everyone the healthcare he received in a pandemic because everyone is Tiny Tim. 

But as you can see, that didn’t happen. Tiny Tim deserves healthcare and good food and a Dad who isn’t stressed by the threat of a poor house. And he deserves this with or without Scrooge’s support and care. 

Christmas stories need to change our hearts. Our hearts need to do the work that makes us all better but we cannot stop there. We must do the work to re-make the structure. It will take all of us, and all of our hearts changing. It will take courage to say, no. No you do not get to have all the wealth while our neighbors struggle. 

The future isn’t set, “Are these the shadows of the things that will be or the shadows of things that may be only?” Let’s change them.

Praying with A Christmas Carol

For the spirited hearts that wish one and all merry 

no matter how loud the humbug or how hardened the hearts might be, 

the joy that radiates in the harsh spaces 

and the relentless love that cannot find an unkind word to say.

For the light burdens that we carry with joy, 

hoisted high on our shoulders, ready to gallop 

and share in the gifts of delight. 

For the lessons of the tiny, the vulnerable, 

those pleading us to care beyond 

ignorance and want, stinginess and greed.

For warmth that cooks the plum pudding and 

toasts winter chilled hands, 

the party’s festive dance and silly parlor games, 

that makes the room toasty with laughter and delight.  

For the candle’s generous glow that radiates in the dark 

and one more coal that warms the cheap grinding cold. 

For the bells that chime and the echoes of the past and present 

that opens our hearts to a new future. 

For the business of our fellow men, 

the wellbeing of every being, 

the sacred flame that opens our eyes beyond l. 

For  the common good that with tending and intention might profit us all. 

 

For the Shadows we can change, 

for the things that might be, 

if we have the heart to make them so. 

For a dream where abundance isn’t tightly grasped 

and the fears of scarcity widely spread. 

For a future where tiny Tim doesn’t need a benefactor 

and the wealthy don’t need to be haunted to share. 

May it be so. Amen.