Christmas: The Season for Faith and Firearms

When my nephew, an Iraq war veteran, married recently his brother bought him a gift – an assault rifle.

I was mortified.

“John, why in the world would you buy David an assault rife?” I implored.

“Uh, because he gave me one for my birthday,” John replied, as if the exchange of assault weapons as gifts was as predictable as white socks and bold ties.

John loves me. He would never do anything to purposely rile me, so he tried to explain that David needed an assault rifle to go hunting and that he needed one himself because of all the break-ins occurring in his neck of the woods, which happens to be a very nice area of Seattle.

“The people doing those robberies are probably looking for assault weapons,” I said.

I am not a member of the NRA but neither do I think that gun ownership should be outlawed. I just don’t think any of us needs an assault rifle and it would never, ever occur to me to give one as a gift. Not for Christmas, or birthdays or especially not for a wedding gift.

You know what they say about taking a horse out of the barn, it’s still just a horse?  It’s that way with rednecks, too.

Okay. Maybe that’s not how the saying goes, but there’s truth in that. In or out of the barn, a horse is still just a horse, and it doesn’t matter if a person lives in a trailer on cinder blocks or in a high-rise in Seattle, a redneck is still a redneck.

I come from a long-line of redneck people.

My children simply don’t appreciate the fact that I settle my disputes without the use of firearms. Probably because they were raised in a house void of guns.

It wasn’t that way when I was growing up.

There’s this story that my aunt tells about a time she threw hot coffee on me after I smarted off to her once. My aunt, who was the victim of domestic violence, was living with our family at the time – in a trailer perched on cinder blocks. Mama, who was typically a patient and kind woman, took the shotgun and told my aunt to get the hell out of her house, and to take her baby with her. Mama wasn’t about to tolerate anyone throwing hot coffee on her daughter.

Now, if you ask Mama, she doesn’t recall the story happening this way. Yes, she remembers the hot coffee incident. Yes, she remembers telling Aunt Mary Sue to take the baby and leave, pronto. But Mama doesn’t remember any gun being involved in that confrontation, in fact, she outright denies that there was.

Me? I just wish I hadn’t smarted off to my aunt and created whatever chaos led to Mama asking my beloved aunt to leave, particularly since it wasn’t like she had any place better to go.

Sarah Palin might have killed a moose or two but she has nothing over my mother. Mama kept a stash of firearms in the drawer by her bed, in the closet, in the glove-box in her car. I never knew Mama to hunt but she once told my husband that if he ever hurt me she’d kill him. He apparently took her at her word. He’s been a loyal and devoted husband for the past 31 years.

Christmas is such a sentimental season, a time for remembering the love of family and ties that bind us. Things like faith and firearms.

It was actually the story of Christ’s birth that reminded me of all that. I decided that instead of reading the story from Luke as I would typically do, I’d turn back and read it from Matthew’s perspective. Sometimes, a listener just wants to hear somebody else’s voice.

Admittedly, Luke tells the story in much better detail than Matthew does, but I suppose that’s because Luke was educated and uppity and Matthew, I’m pretty sure, was a redneck.

The reason I say that is because he begins the story by talking about who Jesus’ people were, and every redneck I’ve ever known is curious about that – Who’s your Daddy’s people? Who’s your Mama’s people?

Turns out Jesus came from a long line of illustrious rednecks, the most notorious of which committed murder and adultery. You can read it for yourself: “And to David was born Solomon by her who had been the wife of Uriah.” Matt. 1:6.

That woman was Bathsheba.

We talk so much about Jesus being born of a virgin and all that we totally forget about the more troubling members of his people. They might not have had access to assault rifles but they owned their share of firearms. And some of them were mean as snakes. Rehoboam, David’s grandson, warned the people in his kingdom that he was one tough son of a gun.

“If you think my daddy’s tax policies were tough, wait till I get through with you. My little finger is bigger than my daddy’s dallywhacker and I’m going break your back with it,” Rehoboam said.

That’s something for you to jaw over while gathering with your loved ones during this holiday season.

Part of his coming to us as fully human meant that Jesus had to put up with the rednecks and outlaws in his family, just like the rest of us do. That we don’t settle more family disputes with firearms is all part of the true miracle of Christmas.