Before the Tree: Choose the Forgotten
Can you leave the poor out of Christmas and call it Christian?
NOTE: This is part 4 in “Before the Tree: Four pre-Christmas decisions that change how you do December.”
Link to Part 1—Choose the King.
Link to Part 2—Choose the Simple.
Link to Part 3—Choose the Gift.
We ask one question on repeat every December:
“So… who are we buying for this year?”
We make the list.
We compare budgets.
We debate if the cousins are still doing gifts or if we’re “just doing stockings this time.”
But there’s another question Jesus keeps asking that almost never makes it into the group text:
“Who are we forgetting this year?”
Because when Jesus describes the final judgment in Matthew 25, He doesn’t mention trees, traditions, or whether we nailed the Christmas vibe.
He talks about hungry people.
Thirsty people.
Strangers and prisoners.
The sick and the poor.
And then He says the line that should mess with our Christmas plans every year:
“Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brothers, you did it to me.” (Matthew 25:40)
Which means this:
You can sing about the manger, nail the family PJ pic, and have the prettiest Christmas cookies in town…
and still ignore Jesus all month—because you neglected the people He never did.
The numbers we’d rather not read
Let’s zoom out for a second.
Right now, hundreds of millions of people live in extreme poverty—surviving on pocket-change a day.
Over two billion people still don’t have safe drinking water at home.
Millions of kids still die every year from things a clean cup of water, a basic clinic, or a mosquito net could have prevented.
That’s the world Jesus stepped into.
And it’s the world He still loves.
When God wrote Himself into the story, He didn’t choose:
a palace with security
a hospital with a NICU
or a city with influence
He chose a feeding trough.
He chose “no room.”
He chose to become poor so that by His poverty we might become rich—not in stuff, but in mercy.
Christmas is God saying, “I have not forgotten you.” What’s interesting is that He said it first to the people everybody else forgot.
So if my celebration of His birth never moves toward the poor, the overlooked, the left-out… what exactly am I celebrating?
From cozy to costly
I love the cozy stuff. The candles, the movies, the matching pajamas that half the kids hate but wear anyway.
But if we’re not careful, all of that can turn into a warm, spiritual fog.
We feel moved. We feel thankful. We feel Christmassy.
So we stay where we are.
The thing is, the One we’re supposed to be celebrating didn’t stay where He was. He’s called Immanuel, which means “God with us.” (Matthew 1:23)
Love left the comfort of Heaven, took on flesh, and showed up in person.
If I’m following that Jesus, my love would have to get... uncomfortable, wouldn’t it?
It would have to interrupt my December.
It would have to inconvenience me.
Otherwise I’m just a groupie—a fan of the story, but not a follower of the King.
Who disappears from your December?
Look at your calendar for the next three weeks:
Work parties.
School concerts.
Friendsgivings that got pushed into December.
Family gatherings, church events, shopping trips, Amazon deliveries.
Now ask: Who isn’t anywhere on that calendar?
The single parent juggling three shifts.
The neighbor whose house is darker this year because their spouse isn’t there to hang the lights.
The older couple at church who always sit alone.
The refugee family who doesn’t understand half our traditions and just wants to keep their kids warm during winter.
The kid on the other side of the world who thinks of clean water and going to school as impossible dreams for the elite.
They’re not on the invite list.
They’re not in the group text.
They’re nowhere on the budget spreadsheet.
They’ve silently slipped out of our December.
Who are we kidding? They were never there to begin with.
What should wake us up from our December delusion is that the ones we forget are at the top of Jesus’ list every single time. The beggar gets a seat at the table. The sinner gets invited to the party. The leper is brought close.
Let’s put the Christ back in… Love.
Real love always costs you something—time, comfort, convenience, money, energy, emotional bandwidth, status.
If our love this Christmas doesn’t cost us anything, it probably isn’t love.
And if it’s directed only at those easiest to love (family and friends), it probably isn’t love. At least not Christ-like love. Or Biblical love.
Because the poor are at the center of the gospel of Christ, the message of Christ, the teachings of Christ. This isn’t a secret. It’s all over the New Testament:
Jesus launched His ministry by saying He was anointed to preach to the poor in Luke 4.
He said “blessed are you who are poor” in Luke 6.
He told us to invite the poor, lame, crippled, and blind instead of the rich to our parties in Luke 14.
In Matthew 5, He said give to the one who begs of you.
In Mark 12, He honored the sacrificial giving on the poor over the rich.
That’s just a few things Jesus said, but if you really want to know what God says about the poor, read the book of James—the New Testament’s “prophet for the poor:”
“True religion is caring for orphans and widows (James 1:27).”
“If you tell a poor person to ‘be warm and filled’ but do nothing, your faith is dead (James 2:15–17).”
“James 5 warns that the cries of the workers you’ve cheated have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts (James 5:1–6).”
The poor are at the center of the gospel and those who neglect them are the furthest from it.
If Jesus spent December with us, I’m not sure He would consider our Christmas celebrations in line with His own priorities, do you?
Loving like Christ this Christmas
Here are some starting points—not a checklist, just on-ramps:
Put a name on it.
Don’t just “give to the poor” in general. Choose one person or family: a sponsored child, a local family your group adopts, a widow, a single student. When love has a name, it sticks.Re-write the budget
Take a percentage of the Christmas budget aimed at people who already have plenty, and aim it at someone who has almost nothing. Let your kids or grandkids help decide where it goes and why. (Come on, you can do better than 5%. Let’s go with at least 20.)Open your actual table.
Invite someone who would otherwise be alone into real space with you—cookies, dinner, a Christmas Eve service with a seat saved next to you. Not as charity. As family.Show up where no one wants to go.
Hospital. Nursing home. Prison ministry. The house that’s always a little chaotic and loud. Don’t stay where you are—wearing Christmas pjs in your December delusion. Move.
Every time you do one of these things, you’re not just “being generous.” According to Jesus in Matthew 25, you are loving Him.
I could leave it at that and you’d feel great – “Love Jesus by loving the poor! Woohoo!”
But Jesus doesn’t leave it there. It’s absolutely true that by loving the least of these, you are loving Jesus Himself. But so is this:
If you don’t—if you neglect the poor, forget the poor, ignore the poor, dishonor the poor—you are neglecting, forgetting, ignoring, and dishonoring Jesus Himself. Not making that up:
“As you did not do it to one of the least of these, you did not do it to me”
(Matthew 25:45)
You will find Him in the eyes of the forgotten. And if you’re not close enough to look into their eyes, you haven’t found Him yet.
Gut-check time.
Before the tree goes up, sit with this:
Think about that refugee I mentioned earlier. If they had no knowledge of our Christian traditions and audited yours this year, what would they learn about the God you’re celebrating? What questions would they ask you?
“Does your God only care for rich people?”
“Did this Jesus only come to save people who look like you?”
“Why do you keep all your money and gifts for yourself (in your family)?”
“Does the Christian God not want you to celebrate by helping people who have much less than you?”
Or would they see the beggar at the table, your family serving at the homeless shelter, and the way your kids are taught radical generosity and be moved by your God’s love for the forgotten?
Before the tree goes up, I want to choose the forgotten.
What about you?
Who is the forgotten person—or group—Jesus is bringing to mind right now?
And what is one concrete thing you will do this week to move toward them before the tree goes up?
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