How the Unitarians Saved Christmas

Rev. Kit Ketcham, with Nancy Logan

Dec. 12, 2021

            This is the time of year when that tired old War on Christmas rhetoric gets dragged out of the tattered decorations box and hung on the tree—or the cross, if you wish.  I don’t get into the fray any more but I do like to pass on the real story, because it is so deeply embedded into our culture and yet virtually unexamined by most folks.

            You may already know this, but the Unitarians actually SAVED Christmas, long ago, building on the foundation set in place by pagan worshippers over thousands of years of honoring the earth, sun, moon, and stars as divine.

            This month marks the Winter Solstice, a holy day which has been in existence since the earth began orbiting around the sun and has been observed for millennia, ever since the first human realized that, after this solar occasion, the disappearing light in the sky began to come back.

            Many familiar winter customs and symbols come straight out of earth-based, pagan rituals and practices.  The solstice was a huge occasion for celebration, as early peoples watched the slow return of longer days and shorter nights, even as the cold winter winds and snow made life still uncomfortable and risky.

            Suffice it to say that in their jubilation at what they considered the Birthday of the Sun, they celebrated joyfully in their relief at the sun’s gradual return.

            Many of their festive symbols are important to us too and the change of seasons during the year were significant as the air warmed and cooled and rain came and went. 

            But other changes were also in the wind,  because institutional religion began to take an interest in solstice festivals, and in about the 4^th century CE, Christian church authorities managed to refashion the ancient pagan revelry into a Christian celebration of Jesus’ birth.  They had tried in vain to halt these winter festivals because they honored pagan nature gods.

            But it wasn’t that easy.  Thousands of years of custom do not die gently.  So compromises were made, with nature deities being discreetly transformed into Christian saints and the whole shebang gradually became part of the Christian calendar.

            Since nobody really knew when Jesus was born, the day long associated with the rebirth of the Sun, December 25^th, became the date of Jesus’ birthday.

            Christmas became a mélange of world religious practices---with Celtic, Teutonic, Slav, Asian, Greek, and Roman influences.  It has never been a strictly Christian holiday.  

So take THAT, you War on Christmas folks.  We know the real story.    And in case anyone was wondering about that worrisome X in Xmas, that X is the Greek letter CHI which has been used since antiquity to indicate the word Christ.

            Let’s make merry now ourselves, with a hymn that celebrates some of what ancient peoples celebrated:  Deck the Halls, #235.  

PART 2:  THE DARK AND THE LIGHT SIDES OF CHRISTMAS

            In Merry Olde England, under Oliver Cromwell in the 17^th century, the godly Puritan Party passed legislation outlawing Christmas.  However, people rebelled and Christmas went underground with its revelry, which included heavy drinking, sexual misbehavior, and general debauchery.  The outrage at this infringement on popular custom resulted in the ousting of the ruling Puritan party.  So much for legislating godliness, sobriety, and chastity!

            But the Puritans were also settling in the New World and their disapproval of Christmas revelry meant that Christmas was banned for many years in early American communities.

         Christmas in the earliest years of colonial America was forbidden.  The Puritans found it offensive to their pious minds.  They had come to the New World with religious freedom on their agenda, but that freedom didn’t include the revelry of drunkenness, lasciviousness, and general chaos that erupted every Christmas season among the so-called “lower classes”.

            There were laws against Christmas celebrations and people could be punished severely for indulging in them.  Talk about a War on Christmas!

            The Puritans did have a point---Christmas had become a season of lawlessness, in which bands of hoodlums in masks, bent on forbidden activity, roamed the streets, and it drove the Puritans crazy!

            Records from 18^th century New England indicate a rise in unwed mothers and in babies born in September and October.  Something had to be done! 

So progressive religious leaders in New England decided that, rather than trying to squash Christmas, they should instead tame it.  Many churches began to schedule worship on Christmas Day and urged banks, shops, and schools to close so that families could spend the day together.  And our religious ancestors got into the act.

Well, you ask, what did the Unitarians do?  Well, they literally SAVED Christmas.  I’m not kidding!  Many of our favorite traditions today came straight out of Unitarian creative minds.

Here are a few of those Christmassy traditions:

In the mid 1800’s, the Christmas tree with its lights and festive hangings was introduced by Charles Follen, a Unitarian minister.

“Jingle Bells” was written by James Pierpont, organist and choir director at the Savannah Georgia Unitarian Church.

“It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” was written by the Rev. Edmund H. Sears, Unitarian minister in Wayland, MA.

“I Heard the Bells on Christmas Day” was written by Unitarian Henry Wadsworth Longfellow as a commentary on the horrors of the Civil War.

Unitarian artist, Nathaniel Currier, of Currier and Ives fame, painted an array of delicate Christmas scenes which decorate many a holiday card.

Episcopalian-turned-Unitarian Clement C. Moore penned the beloved story poem “A Visit From St. Nicholas”, also known as “The Night Before Christmas”, from whence comes our popular portrayal of that jolly old elf Santa Claus.

But the Unitarian author who brought perhaps one of the greatest Christmas stories ever told was Charles Dickens, who, in his immortal tale “A Christmas Carol” penned a story of compassion, generosity, and transformation as the miserly Scrooge is brought to an awareness of the neediness of the poor and the joy of generosity.

It is interesting and ironic that we Unitarian Universalists, heretics to the core in the eyes of the orthodox, have long been champions and even generators of the Christmas we know today.

Let’s join now in singing #244, “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear” in remembrance and celebration of the gifts our spiritual ancestors have given the world for Christmas.

#244 “It Came Upon a Midnight Clear”

PART III   Nancy:  King Wenceslas was not always Good.

INSERT Lyrics:   Good King Wenceslas

PART IV:

            Every year, it seems, I have to rethink my relationship with Christmas.  At one time in my life, when I felt lonely and bereft from the losses I had accumulated, Christmas was something to be endured until the new year.

           But every year since that symbolic “hitting bottom”, it has gotten better and, in my so-called retirement years, I have found a great deal of joy in this season, as we celebrate the rebirth of the sun’s light and the birth of countless babies, who may bring joy and peace into our world.

           Unitarian Religious educator Sophia Lyon Fahs wrote about this season:  

For so the children come 
And so they have been coming. 
Always in the same way they come 
Born of the seed of man and woman 
No angels herald their beginnings, 
no prophets predict their future courses. 
No wise men see a star to show 
where to find the babe 
that will save humankind. 
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night, 
Fathers and mothers- 
Sitting beside their children’s cribs 
Feel glory in the sight of a new life beginning. 
They ask, “Where and how will this new life end? 
Or will it ever end?” 
Each night a child is born is a holy night- 
A time for singing, 
A time for wondering, 
A time for worshipping. 

            As I think about the children I know today, the young ones who come to our RE sessions with Adriana,  at the park, the littlest ones with their parents chasing after them, the in-between ones looking up to the bigger kids and watching out for the little ones, the older ones growing taller and maturing into big kids, their active minds, their loving hearts—as I look at them and smile, I feel the holiness of this season, reflected in our children’s eyes.

            Sure, they love the gifts and goodies and songs and the stories.  But what I loved most, as a child, and I hope it is part of every child’s Christmas, was the warmth of my family’s love, the tender care that I received and that I learned to give to my own child, to his children, and the love and care that he has learned to give, from me and from his dad and other family members.

      It’s not the gifts we give and receive at this time of year, it’s not the decorations, it’s not the cards and letters, or even the music, though these all have their value.  It’s really the miracle of human life, from birth through death, and all the stages in between.

            We are so blessed by Life.  Even when it’s at its toughest, even when we are in pain, even when grief overtakes us, we have Life and its spirit gives us hope.

            As we look back over the past pandemic years, with their joys and sorrows, let us be reminded, in this holy season, that it is truly the rebirth of the sun and in that rebirth we can find renewal and strength to last us as long as we need.

            Let us act with that strength to bring joy and peace to one another and to all humankind, starting with our neighbors and reaching out into our communities, giving tender love and care to all we meet.  Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION:

Our worship service is ended but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that the season of Solstice, Christmas, Hanukkah, and Kwanzaa is a season of Light.  May we seek to bring the light of kindness, strength, and peace into the lives of all we meet, for in this way we will receive the Light ourselves and will be blessed by it.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.  

Turning Toward the Morning

                                      TURNING TOWARD THE MORNING

Rev. Kit Ketcham, Nov. 14, 2021, PUUF

            I remember discovering this song that we’ve just heard at a fairly bleak time of my life. It was late fall in Colorado, the golden aspen groves on the mountain slopes were now starkly bare of their leaves, we’d had two feet of snow on Halloween, my marriage was over, my son was struggling, my paycheck barely lasted from month to month, and I was dreading the cold Rocky Mountain winter ahead.

            One of my great pleasures in life then was attending the monthly acoustic music jams of the Denver Friends of Folk Music. And one Saturday night, a fellow folkie requested this song, and its words resonated with me and my anxious mood.

            I was curious to know where the song came from. I was familiar with the New England composer Gordon Bok’s work and looked for something from Gordon Bok about why he wrote the song “Turning Toward the Morning”. Here’s what I found.

"One of the things that provoked this song was a letter last November from a friend who had had a very difficult year and was looking for the courage to keep on plowing into it. Those times, you lift your eyes unto the hills, as they say, but the hills of … November can be about as much comfort as a cold crowbar.

“You have to look ahead a bit, then, and realize that all the hills and trees and flowers will still be there come Spring, usually more permanent than your troubles. And if your courage occasionally fails, that's okay, too: nobody expects you to be as strong (or as old) as the land." - Gordon Bok”

            I liked that idea, of not dwelling too much on the bleakness of today’s troubles and deliberately looking ahead to the brighter days of spring.

            But I also liked another, less obvious, theme within this song and that was the idea that this man took his friend Joanie’s sorrow seriously and gave her the one gift he felt he had to give: a song that reminded her that he cared about her sorrow and, with his music, might help her lift her sight from the icy mud of her surroundings and offer her courage and support by pointing to the simple fact that the world is always turning toward the morning.

            Late fall can be a hard time of year, as the days grow shorter and shorter, sunny days are few and far between, and the darkness consumes more and more of our waking hours. It’s cold and often rainy and windy; we worry when the power goes out, unsure of how long it will be out and whether we will be able to stay warm. And the season seems to grind on and on. Often the upcoming holidays just add to our anxiety and gloom.

            Spring seems very far away in November. The holidays can distract us, but we need more than distraction sometimes. We need people and places we can depend on. We need to find the truths about the world that sustain us, give us hope, give us reason to keep pushing on, even when life’s troubles have overcome us and we see no easy way out.  Sometimes the only way out is through and November is like that.

            I thought of friendship as a theme for this service because Thanksgiving signifies the beginning of a season of waiting for the light, of celebrating in various faith traditions, the hope inherent in the change of seasons at the winter solstice, the sustaining grace of a menorah that never goes dim, the sweet joy of a child’s birth, all occasions of growing light and diminishing darkness.

            These relics of legend and history represent the truth of light and warmth and survival, of the mystical and the pragmatic, of the life process that includes both birth and death, both darkness and bright splendor.

            Remember that old camp song “Make new friends but keep the old, one is silver and the other gold”? Or Carole King’s “You’ve Got a Friend” and Paul Simon’s “Bridge Over Troubled Waters”. 

All these songs speak of the faithfulness and kindness of friends, the human need for friendship and connection with companions, the need for friends to see us through tough times.

            I used to be kind of wary of making friends, never quite sure I could count on them. Even best friends have a way of occasionally letting us down or hurting us. Sometimes we learn that a person we thought of as a friend really doesn’t like us very much or inexplicably disappears from our lives.

            Sometimes there are exclusions that deliver a message---you’re not our kind of people, so we’re not inviting you to the party, to our church, to our inner circle. Ouch! I suspect we’ve all had a few moments like these.  And some of them we brush off because they’re not important; others make us feel rejected at a deep level, make us wonder if we are worthy of friendship.

            I was talking with a person awhile back about an experience she’d had in which she felt excluded---possibly unintentionally, but….she wasn’t sure. And it stirred up old feelings for her, of times when she’d felt similarly excluded or watched others being excluded. Even though she was long past those experiences, the reminders stung.

           What are our experiences with friendship? Where do we find our closest friends and comrades? How many of us here still have some contact with friends from our early days, maybe even elementary school?   Why do we maintain contact with some of our earliest friends? What keeps us coming back to them?

          Veja and I talked a bit about the common characteristics of our favorite friendships: both of us noticed that we have several friends from long ago times whom we see regularly and keep in touch with. Our friends tend to be strong, independent women with whom we have a history of trust which has deepened over time.  During the long months and now almost two years of pandemic isolation, we have both found new friends as well as formed “pods” with trusted other friends to find fun and comfort socially.

            I’ve often noticed that shared loss can create a bond. Long years ago, one of my best high school friends, Audrea Montee, died of liver cancer. Audrea and I had palled around all during grade school and high school; she was a crackerjack softball player, smacking that ball way out into left field and then trotting leisurely around the bases as fielders scrambled after the ball which was often lost in the weeds of the far outskirts of the diamond. Audrea was pretty chubby, which slowed her down a bit as she rounded the bases, but she was the home run queen of our class.

            She and I were friends partly because we were both kind of teenage misfits, me because I was a preacher’s kid and a brainiac and she because she was heavy and had to wear matronly clothes, instead of the popular Pendleton reversible skirts that were a hot item in our 50’s era high school.

 I didn’t have such a skirt either, so we had that in common, but mainly we just liked each other. She was funny and smart and shrugged off the teasing she got because of her weight; I learned how to do that from her.

            When she died at about age 50, a consciousness of mortality seemed to hit some of us McEwen High School grads hard. Out of our tiny graduating class of 20 or so, eight had died young, some in farm accidents or car wrecks, some by cancer or other disease. And so it became important to us who still lived to find each other and hang on.

            When I moved back to the PNW from Denver in 1999, we started getting together, sometimes in Athena, sometimes at each others’ homes. And a core group of six women formed that has become one of my most valuable friendship groups.

            The interesting thing is that we weren’t close friends in high school, though we knew each other well. All of the other women in the group were part of a different crowd. They could date and go to the movies or go dancing; they had boyfriends and were cheerleaders.

 I didn’t and I wasn’t. My social life consisted of Baptist Youth Fellowship and other church activities. My school achievements were Honor Roll and Student Body treasurer. Not the stuff of high school dreams!

       But in our later years, when we were all in our fifties, we needed each other because our world was changing. No matter where we lived, what our careers meant to us, whatever our different circumstances had been in high school, the people who had been part of our lives for such a long time were dying.

            We couldn’t keep that from happening, but we could forge bonds of friendship that honored our long association and the common memories of growing up together in our small community.

            Not long after Audrea’s death, another friend, Donna Myers, died suddenly of a massive heart attack. And what had been just a vague idea in our minds became a project. Donna’s grandson, Riley, was in Doernbecher Children’s hospital in Portland with leukemia and the family had no health insurance. Could we help Donna’s family?

            Somebody discovered that a softball tournament in Pendleton was being organized as a fundraiser. Maybe we could participate! How long had it been since any of us played softball? How good would we be without our slugger, Audrea? It didn’t matter.

    So on a chilly November Saturday over twenty years ago, “Donna’s Team” formed and played the crummiest softball you ever saw. But luckily, it was one of those jokester games where all you had to do was pay off the umpire and get a re-do on your strike-out or your being tagged at home plate. We played with toy bats and hollow plastic softballs. 

We actually won one game, thanks to my son Mike’s willingness to play and be one of the goofier, more entertaining players on the field.

            I still have my Donna’s team t-shirt and hat, mementos of a time when friends fought back the dark for a little boy whose Grandma had been one of us.

            We need each other, sometimes, to fight back the dark. Sometimes friends come to our aid when we have an emergency; they take us in when the power goes out; they cover for us when we are ill. They take us up to Portland when we have an emergency. They buck us up by listening understandingly (or just by listening, whether they understand us or not!), even if they can’t do a thing to help.

            We receive countless gifts from our friends, intangibles we can hardly name. And what do we give, what can we give, in return for this kindness and support?

          The thing is, friends give their presence and their aid without any expectation of return. It’s not a you scratch my back and I’ll scratch yours, much of the time. It’s somebody stepping in when there are few other alternatives; it’s somebody seeing our need when we are reluctant to admit our neediness.

             It’s not, usually, a “calling in of a chip” as we hear in the gangster movies on TV. “He owes me a favor” seems more like a business deal than an act of friendship, though I imagine sometimes that’s what we need.

           Thanksgiving has become a time to express our gratitude for blessings received. Because of the economic uncertainty in our country, our blessings may have morphed from material things to generosity measured in a different way.

           The generosity of both friends and strangers, plus our family members, is a sweet thing to consider. These gifts of time and energy fill our hearts and give us strength for the cold days ahead.

           But gratitude is a two way street. We receive gratefully from others, cherishing the thought and the generosity that those gifts of spirit entail. And we also give those gifts to others, grateful for the opportunity to be a giver of gifts of spirit.

         You and I have doubtless encountered many people who give only so they can receive something in return. There’s something uncomfortable about being either the giver or receiver with a person like that. The best gifts are given with no expectation of return; the best gifts are received with no expectation of payback. These are gifts of the spirit.

            The gifts of the spirit are numerous and have often been incorporated as pillars of some of the world’s great religions. They are universal values and we all have them to impart and to receive.

           After considering how we might both give and receive the gifts of the spirit, I want to tell you of seven gifts of the spirit that I have received and have been able to give, over my lifespan so far.  

I’m just going to name them now and expound on them another day, but think about these gifts we give and receive and we can talk more during our social time, if you wish.

          One important gift of the spirit for me is wisdom, both received and given. 

  Another is understanding---and being understood. 

           The ability to make good decisions I learned from mentors and have been able to teach others.

           There’s courage, courage I witness and admire, and the courage that others have called up in me. 

           Knowledge is another gift. I learn from you and you learn from me.

  Wonder and awe rise up in us at the beauty of our relationships and the beauty of our land. 

           Reverence is the final gift on my list.  When I experience the awareness of something bigger than myself and tell that story to others, reverence can blossom.

           Gordon Bok sings his gift of spirit to his friend Joanie, “oh, my Joanie, don’t you know that the stars are swinging slow, and the seas are rolling easy, as they did so long ago, if I had a thing to give you, I would tell you one more time, that the world is always turning toward the morning.”

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

BENEDICTION: 

Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we have gifts of the spirit to offer to each other and spiritual gifts to receive as well. May we reflect upon the gifts we have to give; may we receive gratefully the gifts that others hold out; and may we hold fast to the truth, that the world, both literally and metaphorically, is always turning toward the morning. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

Thinking about the Great Questions of Human Existence

 

THINKING ABOUT THE GREAT QUESTIONS OF HUMAN EXISTENCE

Rev. Kit Ketcham

Oct. 10, 2021

When I was a kid, growing up in a pretty strict Baptist minister’s household with my very devout parents, every religious question seemed to already have an answer, an answer that never changed much.

Who is God?  Well, of course, God is Jesus’ father and is everywhere, sees everything, controls everything, and will punish anyone who does bad things.  And, oh by the way, God is love, also.

What is the Bible?  Well, it’s God’s message to us, his people, and every word is true.  It is a history book and tells us all the important events of Jesus’ life, as well as what came before Jesus arrived.

Who was Jesus?  Jesus was the son of God, born to a human mother.  He was perfect, never did anything wrong (unlike me), and he was God too, in a way.  And he died on the cross to save us from our sins.

What is a sin?  It’s anything you do, deliberately or accidentally, that makes God mad at you.

What should I do with my life?  Well, as a Christian, you are expected to give your life to God in service.  You can be anything you feel capable of being, but your primary mission in life is to serve God and teach about Jesus and how to be saved.

There were slight variations on the theme, every time the questions were asked, but there was always an answer, always pretty much the same.  And questioning those answers was frowned upon, even though the correction might bes delivered lovingly and sincerely.

It was pretty soothing to know that there were answers to everything, that no question about God or life or good and evil was unanswerable.  At least when I was ten years old.

At age ten, I knew better than to ask a second time, knew better than to argue with the answers, knew better than to voice my own opinions, as they began to come along, with education and with the advent of my own ability to think critically.  By the time I was in college, though, and away from home, the answers to my questions were beginning to shift.  I wasn’t so comfortable any more with the old answers.

And over the years, I came to understand that there were questions underneath these questions.  That my question about God and what or who God was could be stated another way:  who or what is in charge of the universe? Or is anything or anyone in charge?  What runs the universe? How did the universe come to be?  What is the power beyond human power?

My question about the Bible could be rephrased too:  how do I know what to believe?  Who can I trust, when it comes to spiritual teachings?  If the Bible was written by humans and humans aren’t perfect, how could the Bible be perfect?  Are there other writings that are inspirational and that I can trust?

As I grew older and somewhat more wise, I came to understand that there are many heroes like Jesus, that there were many stories about those heroes and heroines, and that some of them had very similar miracle stories, as in being born of a virgin or healing people or performing other miraculous deeds.

When it came to the idea of sin, it occurred to me that maybe the question beneath the question is “what is human nature and why do humans so often behave badly toward each other?”

Human beings question things.  Human beings are even more curious, I think, than the legendary cat, the one curiosity killed.  And the questions we ask as we develop our own worldview and ethical standards tend to stir up a lot of the world’s anxieties:  “Is it ever okay to end a life?  How was the universe created?  Who, if anyone, should be privileged over others?”

When I went to seminary in 1995, I had certainly heard the word “theology” many, many times.  To me, at that point, it mostly meant doctrine or dogma, beliefs by various religions that formed the backbone of their religious practice and were the standard by which people became members of that religious community.

Literally, the word theology means “study of God” and for many religions, that’s what it is.  But non-theistic or pluralistic religions have a different take on it; it’s more the “study of the sacred” or ultimate value and a recognition of the idea of sacredness.

Because people who are agnostic or atheist or Buddhist or pagan or any non-theistic religious path have reverence for the sacred but do not necessarily have a concept of God, at least not a traditional concept of God.

Yet most human beings who are introspective at all or critical thinkers do ask themselves big questions and the questions tend to be similar in nature.  In seminary, I learned to think of these questions in categories.

There is the question of ontology or being:  who am I?  what is the nature of humanity?

There is the question of epistemology or knowledge:  how do I know what I know?  What is the ultimate source of human knowledge?

There is the question of cosmology, or rulership:  who or what is in charge of the universe?  What is the power that infuses life with meaning?

There is the question of soteriology:  What can heal me or make me whole?

And there’s the question of eschatology, or the end of days:  What does my death mean?  What is the state of human beings beyond death?

These are questions of ultimate concern for humans, questions that circle around us throughout our lives, changing form, expressed as yearnings, even depression, and joggling us into attention from time to time.  These are the questions that live deeply within us and, depending on the circumstances of our lives, arise to haunt us on occasion, even when we think we may have answered them once and for all.

Over time, doctrines and dogmas have developed to answer these questions in certain ways.  Religious doctrines and dogmas are efforts to institutionalize thinking about the great questions of human life.  Most religions expect their followers to believe in and follow the doctrines and dogmas in order to attain the blessings of the universe, or God as they understand God.

Unitarian Universalism does not have specific doctrines or dogmas that we are expected to follow.  We have our seven principles (going on eight, with the proposed addition of a principle about anti-racism), and these principles are behavior-based, rather than belief-based.  We do not test people on whether or not they adhere to the principles at every moment.  But our principles nevertheless suggest approaches to the great questions of human life.  And one unique feature of our faith tradition is that we are open to new truth and can change our thinking if compelling evidence presents itself.

We as individuals find our answers in our own experience of life; we are guided by the ideas of influential other humans, our own early religious learnings, science, the philosophies of many world religions, and our own knowledge of the earth and its cycles. We bring all these influences into this community and learn to live with the diversity of thought that we find here.  We do not all hold the same theology and that is good.  We do tend to hold similar values.

How and why did we humans begin to think about these questions?  Human beings from time immemorial have puzzled over their relationships with the world around them, recognizing that we have so little control over some of the events of our lives, and wondering how to influence those powers that seem to supersede our powers.

Out of a desire to influence the uncontrollable universe, ancient human beings devised ceremonies and behaviors that might convince the universe (or the gods) to favor them:  sacrifices of goods, crops, animals, even fellow humans.  They learned to work in concert with the universe, planting crops at certain times, using all the materials they had at hand as tools, as fertilizer, as shelter, as food, using the stars and planets, sun and moon as directional guides.

Out of these ancient practices grew many of today’s traditional religious practices and beliefs:  baptism of humans represents cleansing---of food or bodies or clothing—or the soul.  Jesus’ death on the cross is seen by many Christians as the ultimate sacrificial gift, as recompense for human sin, which was the function of sacrifice in ancient times, to appease angry gods.  Prayer for mercy from the weather gods expanded to become prayer for any number of blessings, including success in the stock market or on the football field.

Still, despite our growing sophistication, our scientific understandings, and our differences in religious thinking, we still feel a drive to be in right relationship with the universe.  We study it, we want to understand it, we stand in awe at its beauty, we think about what our lives within it are like, what we’d like them to be like, what our potentialities within that universe might be.  And we do what we can to influence and/or moderate the universe’s effect on our lives.

In past centuries, it has also become increasingly obvious that our relationship with the earth (and the universe by extension) has become toxic; we lost sight, over the centuries, of proper care of the earth and its resources.  So our efforts to reclaim a right relationship with the earth have resulted in a heightened awareness of our need to befriend and care for the earth as part of our being in right relationship with the power of the universe.

What is the function of questioning in human life?  What does it mean that we ask questions?  In the beginning, we humans needed to learn how to survive on the planet; we asked questions of the earth, of our companions, of the animals we saw.  We built upon those answers to create a body of knowledge about the earth and the universe which enabled us to live more comfortably.

Since the beginning of time, human beings have asked questions about answers that seemed incomplete or based on faulty reasoning or, as our understandings of how things work developed, too reliant on supernatural forces which could be debunked.

Even the most seemingly-solid answers were open to question as humanity evolved into an organism which had a great capacity for understanding, for high levels of reasoning, for exploratory methods which could open doors to ideas never before considered.

Questioners in ancient times were often seen as heretics, as sorcerers, as eccentrics whose wild ideas were dangerous to the established order.  As religions became more institutionalized, questioners of the orthodox answers were often anathematized or excommunicated, from the body of believers, even executed.

As we consider what Unitarian Universalist theology has become, as it diverged from orthodox Christianity, it is useful to draw a general timeline of our theological history.

We are a descendent of the religion established in the wake of the prophet Jesus’ ministry on earth, over 2000 years ago.  However, when that religion (now called Christianity) institutionalized the doctrine that the Divine was three Beings in one (now called the Trinity and defined as the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit), our religious ancestors disagreed.  At that time, this heretical strand of belief was called anti-Trinitarianism but gradually acquired the name Unitarian, for its understanding of the Divine as One Being.

Some years, perhaps centuries later, Universalism as a religious idea, also heretical, formed in response to the idea of hell and eternal damnation for nonbelievers.  Our religious ancestors observed the nature of God and decided that if God was love, then God would not condemn beloved children to eternal hellfire, even if they misbehaved badly.  This too was considered a heretical idea and was an underground movement across Europe before moving to the American colonies.

During the Enlightenment period of the 18^th century, when reason was advocated as the primary source and legitimacy for authority, scientific inquiry, and democratic principles, reason began to make an impact upon religious and political life, spreading rapidly across the European continent and into the fledgling United States of America.

In the mid19th century, the rational Enlightenment Christianity of Unitarians was also modified by the thinking of the American Transcendentalist writers and philosophers, such as Ralph Waldo Emerson, Walt Whitman, and Margaret Fuller.  These thinkers began to see the Divine in the natural world and expanded the horizons of religious thought with their poetry, their essays, and their lectures.

In the early to mid 20^th century, Humanism, having developed out of the Enlightenment period, became a strong pillar of Unitarian thought, as Unitarians diverged farther from their Christian roots.  

In fact, for a time, Unitarians pretty well disparaged their Christian heritage and, indeed, even today some are made uncomfortable by some of the implications of that heritage, particularly as evangelical fundamentalism has devolved from Jesus’s teachings to the mouthings of the Prosperity Gospel preachers and their ilk.

In 1961, the American Unitarian Association and the Universalist Church of America, seeing that their numbers were small but that their open-minded approach to theology was similar, joined forces and became the Unitarian Universalist Association, probably the most liberal of all the protestant denominations which grew out of early Christian roots.

Over the decades since the merger of these two small but influential denominations, our UU theology has been modified.  Today Unitarian does not mean a belief in the Unity, the Oneness of God, as much as it means a belief in the Unity, the Oneness of the human species and the understanding that all humans are related to one another and are a part of the interdependent web of all existence.

Today, Universalist does not mean a belief in heaven for all, as much as it means a dedication to acceptance and understanding of the great diversity of the earth and of the human community, seeing that diversity as essential to a healthy and productive life that must be available to all.

We here in this congregation are the product of the coming together of a Rational religious philosophy as represented by Unitarianism and a Spiritual religious philosophy as represented by Universalism.  In this congregation, we meld strong scientific and rational ideals with a desire to explore our inner emotional and spiritual depths, acting these out as we strive to bring love and justice to the world around us.

We work hard at respect for individuals and divergent viewpoints; within this congregation we have Christians, we have Jews, we have Buddhists, we have atheists and agnostics, we have Deists and and pagans and none of the above.  We have lifelong Unitarians and Universalists and Unitarian Universalists.

Our aim in this congregation is not to dwell on the differing theologies we may hold, for we understand at a very deep level that it is our behavior toward each other and the earth that matters. Our theologies may inform that behavior, but our principles guide us toward a common set of goals, emphasizing our responsibility to treat each other with respect, kindness, and humility.

In his book “Letters to a Young Poet”, Rainer Maria Rilke wrote these words, with which I’d like to close:

“Have patience with everything that remains unsolved in your heart.  Try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books written in a foreign language.  Do not now look for the answers.  They cannot now be given to you because you could not live them.  It is a question of experiencing everything.  At present, you need to live the question.  Perhaps you will gradually, without even noticing it, find yourself experiencing the answer, some distant day.”  (And haven’t we all been there?)

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.              

                                                         

BENEDICTION:  Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place.  Let us go in peace, remembering that we all have questions about what it means to be who we are and what our lives should be.  May we be patient as we seek our answers, looking to each other for the emotional and spiritual and mental connections we crave, and may we strive to live with open hearts and minds, so that our answers are not rigid but loving and accepting of those with other answers.  Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.

The History of the Flaming Chalice

 THE FLAMING CHALICE: What it means to Unitarian Universalists

August 14, 2011
Rev. Kit Ketcham

Hey, remember our teenage years when we’d go to summer camp and sit around a big bonfire at night, make googly eyes at each other across the flames, and sing goofy songs like this:

One dark night, when we were all in bed, old Missus O’Leary put a lantern in the shed. The cow kicked it over and winked her eye and said “There’ll be a hot time in the old town tonight! Fire, fire, fire, fire!”

Whether we experience it in a friendly way---around a campfire or in front of a fireplace in a cozy room----or as a frightening event in our lives, there’s something compelling about fire. We seem drawn to its light, its warmth, its flickering magic, the smoke that rises into the skies. And we also may shrink from its glare, its inferno-like heat, the caustic fumes it can generate and we fear its destructive power even as we kindle a small cooking fire.

We light candles for our own quiet times, or when we desire a sense of the holy. We take care not to let fire get out of control, we keep fire extinguishers handy in our kitchen, by the hearth, and at the campsite. We gaze in horror at the destructive nature of fire upon homes, forests and, property, and we also marvel at its regenerative powers when the ravaged forest begins to bloom again.

A cup, too, a goblet, a container for lifegiving substances, has significance to us. How many mugs with funny sayings on them have you received over your lifetime? We give and receive gifts of containers, from silly mugs to beautiful silver goblets to beer steins and even pasta bowls.

All of these gifts are intended to hold something we value---our morning cup of tea, a celebratory glass of champagne, a cold brew, a hearty meal. We look at the goofy mug and think of its giver----our child who tells us we’re the best mom or dad ever, our sister or brother who can’t resist making one more joke about the difference in our ages.

We raise our champagne goblets high and drink a toast to the bond between newlyweds. We look at the intricate designs on that authentic German beer stein and marvel at the colors and figures on its surface. We pour savory sauce over the pasta in the wide bowl and anticipate its delicious flavors.

Our flaming chalice is a combination of these two things: a bit of fire and a container to hold it. A flame and a safe environment for that flame.

Today we’re going to consider how our flaming chalice came to be important to Unitarian Universalists, the variety of meanings ascribed to it, a bit about its history, and what it means that we light it at the beginning of every worship service and even at board meetings and committee gatherings. And I’m going to ask you for your thoughts a few times to be shared during our social time.

The flaming chalice was not always our iconic symbol of UUism. It came into being at least twenty years before Unitarians joined forces with Universalists to become the religious movement we are today, and it took 20 more years to become our symbol.

The flaming chalice design was the creative idea of an Austrian artist named Hans Deutsch, in 1941. Deutsch had been living in Paris but ran afoul of Nazi authorities for his critical cartoons of Adolf Hitler. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, he fled, with an altered passport, into Portugal where he met the Rev. Charles Joy, who was the director of the Unitarian Service Committee.

The Service Committee had been founded in Boston to assist Eastern Europeans, among them Unitarians as well as Jews and homosexuals, people who needed to escape Nazi persecution. From Lisbon, Rev. Joy oversaw a secret network of couriers and agents.

Deutsch was impressed by the work of the Service Committee and wrote to Rev. Joy: “There is something that urges me to tell you…how much I admire your utter self denial (and) readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well being, to help, help, help.”

The USC (Service Committee) was an unknown entity in 1941, which was a huge disadvantage in wartime, when establishing trust quickly across barriers of language, nationality, and faith could mean life instead of death. Disguises, signs and countersigns, and midnight runs across guarded borders were how refugees found freedom in those days.

So Rev. Joy asked Hans Deutsch to create a symbol for the USC’s papers, as he said, “to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work…When a document may keep a (person) out of jail, give (them) standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.”

So Hans Deutsch drew a simple design, and Rev. Joy wrote to his colleagues in Boston that it was “a chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice…”

And for all of us who have a little case of cross cringe when we see one, Rev. Joy noted that the chalice suggests, to some extent, a cross, and he emphasized that for Christians the cross represents its central theme of sacrificial love.  So you can tuck that information away in your thesaurus of religious words you don’t really have to be disgusted by.  We UUs do sacrificial love all the time, with our families, our friends, and our faith community, to say nothing of our social justice efforts.

The flaming chalice design was made into a seal for papers and a badge for agents moving refugees to freedom. In time it became a symbol of Unitarian Universalism all around the world and of the humanitarian call to action by people of faith who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need.

 Every Sunday UUs all over the world light the chalice as a time-honored ritual---in huge congregations and tiny ones, big historical sanctuaries, rented strip mall spaces, and even home living rooms. And now, by the magic of technology, in Zoom services as well.

I’m wondering----what does lighting the chalice mean to you all, when we kindle this flame at the beginning of our worship time? During our social time after the service, we’ll have a chance to share our thoughts.

The chalice lighting is often preceded by words of dedication or poetry or the wisdom of some sage, carefully chosen to focus on the event beginning, whether that is a time of worship, of memorializing, of honoring, or doing sacred work.

The lighting of the chalice signifies, to many, the moment at which we move into another realm, into a sacred time, into a time in which we consider matters of worth and value, a time in which we find wisdom and strength in the act of being together in community. It focuses our attention on the work at hand, when we light the chalice before a board or committee meeting, and it reminds us that the work of the religious community is sacred work.

Now let’s think about the possible meanings of combining the vessel of the chalice with the living, breathing flame. Here is a container for nourishment—the chalice--and here is an ever-changing, comforting yet dangerous element—the flame. What spiritual significance might be found in this juxtaposition of these two disparate elements? Let’s think about this idea. And during social time, we’ll share our thoughts.

A couple of years ago, our UU ministers’ email chatline considered the significance of the flaming chalice and how that meaning has developed in our own understandings since the custom began, sometime in the 80’s, introduced by the youth’s and women’s caucuses at a long ago General Assembly, when youth and women were beginning to have a huge effect on the direction of Unitarian Universalism.

Here are some of their thoughts: the chalice is a container for the holy. The chalice signifies open-hearted community where all are welcome. The chalice is a poetic, visual metaphor for community. In dreamwork it indicates a need for spiritual nourishment. The chalice bowl is deep and wide, big enough to contain many paths and ideas, hopes and intentions.

The flame is a conduit to the transcendent. It is ever-changing, alive, untouchable, dangerous; it can tempt and it can also heal. The flame is a symbol of spiritual transformation; it reminds us of the sacrificial flame of antiquity. It is a light in the darkness. It brings change, creation, rebirth. It is a cauterizing, purifying element.

The flaming chalice, as our iconic symbol of UUism, came into being at a time of great global turmoil. The forces of oppression and tyranny were strong across the earth. Few were able to withstand and survive that assault, but underground, beneath the surface, there was constant clandestine activity by those who resisted, those who dedicated themselves to saving others who were in danger, regardless of the personal cost.

Interestingly, a chalice design similar to our original design by Hans Deutsch mysteriously appears on the cover of a book entitled “The Ideal Gay Man: the Story of Der Kreis” or the story of “The Circle”, the international gay literary journal published from 1932-1967. Except for a slight difference in the curve of the flame, the two drawings might be the same thing. Did Deutsch draw both symbols? I can’t say for sure and am not willing to pay over $100 for this out of print book!  Though I did get a peek at it when a colleague gave me a link to a Google document of the book.

But the significance of a chalice and a flame adorning official-looking documents enabling refugees to leave Nazi Germany and serving as the symbol of an underground journal which published gay European writers-----that’s interesting. Not only interesting, but compelling.

It makes me ask, what does the flaming chalice stand for? And what might it challenge us to do? Let’s think about this symbol and its challenge. And we can talk about it a bit during social time.

In the songs today,  the flame’s reputation for passion and intensity comes through, hot, ardent, eager. Also steamy! Light My Fire and Ring of Fire are classics in the country rock world, making no secret of the heat of passion that drives us mammals to find each other and make new mammals.

Passion drives us in many ways, not just sexually, and it is this passion for action that the flame of the chalice expresses to me. Your thoughts also may reflect your desire for passion, for fire in your lives as well as the comfort of the sacred space we create with our Beloved Community.

I like the symbolism of our congregation, our sanctuary, being a sort of chalice, a community that is safe, healing, and nourishing, welcoming all into its circle. I like the symbolism of our passion to help our community being the flame set inside the chalice, warming us, inspiring us, moving us to action.

I like to think of the lighting of our chalice on Sundays and before our meetings as a visual and heartfelt reminder that we are together in love and commitment, safe within these walls but eager and ready to move out into the community to be of service to those who need us.

And each of us embodies the message of the chalice; each of us can be that safe haven, that healing presence, that source of nourishment to those we meet on life’s path. And each of us can offer the passion nourished within these walls to those beyond these walls. As one of my heroes the late Dag Hammersjold once famously wrote, and Veja repeated these words earlier: “Each morning we must hold out the chalice of our being to receive, to carry, and give back.”

Let’s pause for a time of silent reflection and prayer.

Our closing song is Johnny Cash’s “Ring of Fire”.

EXTINGUISHING THE CHALICE 

BENEDICTION: Our worship service, our time of shaping worth together, is ended, but our service to the world begins again as we leave this place. Let us go in peace, remembering that we carry within us the same fire that lights our chalice flame. May we carry our passion and fire into our daily lives, committed to doing whatever we can to serve our neighbors and friends as we live out the symbol of our flaming chalice. Amen, Shalom, Salaam, and Blessed Be.