Call to Worship
So here we are at the end of the month-long Muslim observance of Ramadan, and Hanukkah is also coming to an end. We're also in the middle of the Christian' Advent, on the cusp of the pagan solstice, and only eight shopping days left til Christmas. What an incredible confluence of religious holidays, material consumption and interfaith warfare.
I certainly do not want to be cynical at such a holy time since I do believe that religion is the star of hope in our night sky. But it must be a different religion than is practiced by those who continually go at each other's throats over superficial differences. It must be an Islam that surrenders to the God of peace, a Judaism that lights the candle of justice, and a Christianity that embraces revelation from all faiths.
What are the chances this will ever happen? Well, the chances will improve if in our worship this morning we open the door to the song of hope, to the word of love and to the hope of community. Let us worship together.
Sermon:
I love this time of year: the music, the lights, the carols, stories both ancient and modern, the anticipation of seeing family and friends, the expectation of giving and receiving gifts, and the pure joy that is palpable in the air. But as a minister I also know that this season is the most painful time of year for many. For those who are suffering grief, loneliness, depression or other emotional turmoil, the holiday season magnifies their misery. Ministers do most of their counseling this time of year, and we make every effort to reach out to those who are isolated and in pain.
What can be particularly difficult is the perceived expectation that you're not supposed to hurt at this time of year. No matter what you're feeling inside, you're expected to act cheerful.
How ironic that Christmas has shut out those who Christmas was especially meant for: those in need of hope and healing. Just reflect for a moment on the difference between the original Christmas, with the impoverished Mary giving birth to the baby Jesus in the darkness and silence of a shabby barn, and our crazy, commercial version today with the blinding glare of neon lights and high decibel noise of circus-like malls.
The prophet Calvin from the Calvin & Hobbes cartoon reminds his good Tiger friend: "Yep, Christmas is just around the corner. And what better way to celebrate a religious holiday than with a month of frenzied consumerism!" Hobbes replies: "I'm surprised other religions haven't picked up on that." And Calvin responds: "Getting lots of loot is a very spiritual experience for me."
I don't want to be a Scrooge, but getting lots of loot is not a spiritual experience for me -- even though when I was Calvin's age I guess it was. I don't believe we can experience the true spirit of Christmas unless we pull the plug on all those neon lights and somehow escape the circus atmosphere of frenzied consumerism.
There's a powerful poem called "The End of the World" by Archibald MacLeish that vividly describes what it might be like to have that plug pulled. He describes a huge circus tent filled with thousands of people. Laughter and light fill the air. All eyes are upon the animals and performers. Then suddenly a great wind comes up and blows the entire top of the tent off into the darkness. In a brief moment all those shocked people look up. The poem continues:
And there, there overhead,
hung over those thousands of white faces,
those dazed eyes,
there in the starless dark,
the poise, the hover,
there with vast wings across the canceled skies,
there in the sudden blackness
the black pall of nothing, nothing, nothing
-- nothing at all.
This is a poignant image because it represents an experience that we have all had at one time or another. It's the experience of being totally involved in what we think of as the normal world, captured by the moment, obsessed with the circus of family, friends, and job, dazzled by the lights of sensuality and materialism.
And then suddenly, from nowhere, this tent of illusion is blown away -- perhaps by a tragic loss or an almost unbearable rejection or a life threatening accident or illness or a national disaster such as September 11th B leaving us alone and in the dark, gazing into the blackness of nothing.
The reason we have a Christmas is because this is the season of fear and darkness. From the beginning of creation the sun has shortened its flight causing us to feel the chill winds of the north and to hide in our homes from the encroaching shadows. But in the midst of the darkness humanity has dared over and over again to celebrate the light. From the beginning of our time on this planet we humans have created celebrations at this time of year -- whether it be solstice, Hanukkah or Christmas -- as a way to drive away the darkness and to open the door to the light.
As the physical light became less important to the more civilized world organized religion fed humankind with a different kind of light and hope -- the vision of the Messiah. The man Jesus became such a Messiah for many people. He was the man-God who transcended the suffering and loneliness of his life, who emanated light in what seemed to be an eternally dark world of warfare and injustice.
This is the message of the season: light out of darkness comes. To fully appreciate the light of hope we must first experience the darkness within ourselves. As the Catholic monk, Thomas Merton, wrote, "I cannot discover my 'meaning' if I evade the dread which comes from first experiencing meaninglessness." In other words, the darkness of dread, of sorrow, of hopelessness, must be experienced before the light will come.
Francis Anderson, a colleague of mine, reveals that truth in this short poem:
"Christmas has no right to burst upon us
Suddenly and loudly from afar
Lighting up right where we are
With nylon trees and a long-life plastic star...
It is a lonely road to Bethlehem
That must be walked slowly and untalked...
Where no bright light or angel song
Intrudes ahead of cue
To wrongly claim arrival of the dawn
Before the night is Walked
By each of us
On through."
Unfortunately, Jesus has suffered the same fate as Christmas. His meaning and message have been buried under the circus tent neon light of resurrection and dogmatism. The Christ worshiped today is a superstar created to perform center-stage in the circus of Christianity, not the lonely man who cried out "Why hast thou forsaken me?" when he was nailed to a cross.
It doesn't necessarily take Jesus to give us that light. You've probably seen the cartoon showing a picture of the nativity scene on it with a bunch of people and animals gathered around the manger and someone shouting out: "It's a girl!" There are many people, female and male, who can help us to find that light.
What I appreciate about our Unitarian Universalist faith is that we believe all children come into this world not plagued by sin but filled with the light of hope and possibilities. Our task as human beings is to foster that light within each child and within ourselves so that it will blaze into love and creativity. In the words of Albert Schweitzer, "The one essential thing is that we strive to have light in ourselves."
These have certainly been difficult times to keep that light burning. How can we affirm that light of divinity when the ruins of the World Trade Center are still smouldering and tanks roll through the streets of Bethlehem? How can we keep faith in humanity when we quake in fear from a doubtful future?
Six of us from this congregation attended an excellent conference in Portland, Oregon for large Unitarian Universalist churches in early November. It was my first time on a plane since September 11th, and I was anxious to fly across the country.
I showed up at National Airport nice and early, but after I checked in and went to sit down in the waiting area, I noticed the first available seat was next to a young man with dark complexion who looked just like a terrorist. I decided to sit next to him because if he wasn't a terrorist I didn't want to hurt his feelings, and if he was one, I wanted to know before I got on the plane.
I started a conversation with him, and by asking some not-so-subtle questions I finally discovered that he was actually a gay beautician from El Salvador. So, anyone can make a mistake. He was just as anxious to fly as I was, so we were able to comfort each other. But it does go to show how susceptible we are to letting the darkness of fear control our actions.
I was glad I made it to Portland because the conference was extremely helpful. The keynote speaker, Gil Rendle from Alban Institute, talked to us about "Change In Congregations," with of course the backdrop being the tremendous amount of change brought about by the terrorist attacks.
One of the most helpful messages for me was his reassurance that we need to learn to live in the wilderness -- whether it be a personal wilderness of spiritual turmoil or a national one of grief and fear. Using the story of Moses in the Hebrew Scriptures, he said that Moses was called to lead the people into the wilderness, not to lead them out of it. The Hebrews who followed him grumbled constantly, complaining that it was taking too long to find the promised land. Like children on a long trip, they wanted to know, AAre we there yet?"
But the purpose of those forty years in the wilderness was not really to find the promised land. The purpose was to transform the Hebrews from a slave people to a free people, and that could only be done by suffering the deprivations of the desert. To be an authentically free people, we must learn how to be responsible for our freedom. We must journey through the darkness of pain and persecution in search of the light of hope.
One person who has helped me to understand that light out of darkness comes is Jacques Lusseyran. He was a Frenchman who lost his eyesight in a school accident when he was eight years old. Lusseyran struggled to stay in the public schools instead of being sent to a special school for the blind and eventually became the top student in his class. At the age of 17 he worked for the French Resistance and was arrested by the Nazis and sent to the Buchenwald concentration camp where he was among only 30 of 2,000 Frenchmen to survive. He later became a professor in France and America, but was killed in an accident in 1971.
Lusseyran struggled with the darkness all of his life, and he struggled to tell the world about "the subject of all subjects, the fact that the world is not just outside us but also within." In his autobiography he wrote these words [from Parabola journal]:
"Barely ten days after the accident that blinded me, I made the basic discovery. I am still entranced by it. The only way I can describe that experience is in clear and direct words. I had completely lost the sight of my eyes; I could not see the light of the world anymore. Yet the light was still there.
"It was there. Try to imagine what a surprise that must have been for a boy not yet eight years old. True, I could not see the light outside myself anymore, the light that illuminates objects, is associated with them, and plays on them. All the world around me was convinced that I had lost it forever. But I found it again in another place. I found it IN MYSELF and what a miracle! -- it was intact."
Yes, Lusseyran is right. There is a light within each and everyone of us, and it is a miracle. This is the miracle we celebrate at Christmas.
The light is easy to see in a babe -- like the Christ child -- but we tend to become blind to it as they grow older. Why can't we see that light in each other? Why do we let our fear, ignorance and hatred blind us to the goodness and love and pain within every human being? Why do we close the door to each other's humanity?
I love to be with people who open the door to the light, and I did just that this past Tuesday evening when I participated in an Interfaith Evening at St. Peter's Episcopal Church here in Arlington. With the help of representatives from the four quarters of Jerusalem -- Christian, Jew, Muslim and Apostolic -- we celebrated Ramadan, Advent and Hanukkah, and we searched for ways to bring peace to our world. I am always inspired and hopeful when different religions, cultures and races can be brought together in respect and civil conversation.
Jacques Lusseyran tells us that there is another light that shines within us as well:
"The second great discovery came almost immediately after the first. There was only one way to see the inner light, and it was to love.
"When I was overcome with sorrow, when I let anger take hold of me, when I envied those who saw, the light immediately decreased. Sometimes it even went out completely. Then I became blind. But this blindness was a state of not loving anymore, of sadness; it was not the loss of one's eyes."
What Jacques Lusseyran discovered was that:
$ Love comes from having wrestled with the darkness, with the pain, with the limitations of who we are, and then coming out the other side, whole and holy.
$ Love comes from accepting ourselves for who we are and accepting others for who they are without blinding ourselves with judgements and prejudice.
$ Love comes from seeing the Messiah within you and me, seeing ourselves as pregnant with great possibilities, and then being a midwife to each other's birth.
Let me end with one more story. At the beginning of this sermon Archibald MacLeish gave us a vision of the top of a circus tent being blown off into the darkness and all eyes looking up at the black sky. In his play called "J.B.", MacLeish helps us to find the light in the darkness.
"J.B." is a modern takeoff of Job. It's about a contemporary man who loses everything he has, and he struggles to find meaning in the midst of such hopelessness. At the end of the play J.B.'s wife, Sarah, returns, to give him a breath of hope.
"It's too dark to see," he says.
Sarah replies, "Then blow on the coal of the heart, my darling."
J.B. asks, "The coal of the heart?"
And Sarah speaks out: "It's all the light now. Blow on the coal of the heart. The candles in church are out. The lights have gone out in the sky. Blow on the coal of the heart and ... we'll see where we are..."
Like Sarah, I ask you this morning to blow on the coal of your heart:
$ In the midst of the darkness of commercialization, blow the mysterious spirit of Christmas back into flame.
$ In the midst of grief and sadness, blow the enduring spirit of hope back into flame.
$ In the midst of hate and fear, blow the sustaining spirit of love back into flame.
Carry that burning coal of love wherever you go. Let it always be glowing in the darkness. Let it always show you the way. Feed it. Nourish it. Let it burn bright and warm within you.
Blow on the coal of the heart, and you will see that light out of darkness comes.
Amen.
