Tend the Spirit

Sermon delivered December 9, 2012 at Unitarian Society of Germantown

Listen to a podcast of this sermon.

Call to Worship

In this season when light has turned to dark and

when miracles abound if we are willing to see

we gather

we gather here holding together and for each other

all that brings us joy and all that brings us despair

To fill each other’s lives with love

Welcome to our celebration of life

- Joan Javier-Duval

Meditation

Spirit of Life

Source of New Beginnings

Miraculous Mystery Beyond all Understanding

Our hearts are big enough to contain multitudes

As darkness turns to light

May our anguish turn to hope

May our rejoicing fill the world

with a joyous noise

May we announce through our being and through our doing

that love indeed is on the way.
- Joan Javier-Duval

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Today marks the second Sunday of Advent in the Christian tradition and the second day of Hanukkah in the Jewish tradition. In today’s service, we are taking a very Unitarian Universalist approach to our celebration as we lift up both religious traditions in music and in word. Ours is a living tradition with Judeo-Christian roots and we are living into that today.

Indeed, the traditions we draw from hold revelations, deeper truths, that can inform the practice of our Unitarian Universalist faith. We lift up the truths of Hanukkah revealed in the struggle for freedom and the miracle of abundant light. And, in my sermon today, I want to draw our attention even more closely to the truths revealed in the celebration of the season of Advent.

In the Christian tradition, Advent begins on the fourth Sunday before Christmas Day and is characterized as a time of making ourselves ready. Advent happens to coincide with the rapid change of season towards winter and the narrow gap of time between Thanksgiving and Christmas.

In this window of time, there are signs all around us that it is time to shift gears. The last few leaves have fallen off the trees leaving what are now mostly bare branches. Pumpkins and gourds and other remnants of autumn have been discarded. Or, if you’re like me, you have yet to get around to taking the Indian corn off your front door. My excuse is that I’m waiting to make my wreath this afternoon to take its place.

It is hard to get away from the sense that there is much to prepare in this bustling holiday season. This time between Thanksgiving and the line-up of Hanukkah, Kwanzaa, and Christmas can move at lightning speed. And it can feel like there is so much to get ready. To prepare. From home decorations to gift lists to holiday cards for mailing.

But Advent deals with a different kind of preparation altogether. Preparations of a different sort than making ourselves ready for an expedition to the mall on Black Friday or our online shopping spree on Cyber Monday.

Advent as a religious season holds the counter-cultural, counter-consumerist message that amidst the hustle and bustle there is a deeper truth held within this season of change.

Traditionally, Advent leads to Christmas, the coming of Jesus the Messiah. All of this preparing is for the arrival of God made incarnate in the miraculous birth of an infant.

Now, most of us here, do not believe in Jesus as divine savior and Unitarianism in fact grew out of a difference in belief about the divinity of Jesus. So Advent for us, isn’t really about awaiting the arrival of a messiah. We are not holding our breaths in anticipation of a savior in human form.

So, if we are not awaiting a savior, what might we be waiting for?

The wisdom held in the season of Advent for me is that we yearn for new possibilities in our own lives and in the world at large. As we await the turning of the whole, round earth again towards the sun, we await, too, the turning of our lives towards wholeness, goodness, and peace.

And, I believe that it is in this anticipation that we can make space for new wisdom and insight to enter our lives.

The Advent hymn we sang earlier is a song full of anticipation. You may have noticed that these are not the traditional words of the hymn. This version was produced for our Singing the Living Tradition hymnal and emphasizes the more mystical meaning of the original. But it keeps that core Advent message that we anticipate the coming of something new. In many ways, O Come, O Come Emmanuel tells the story of our longing and our rejoicing. Of the ways we hold together the complex pairing of anguish over what not yet is and hope for what can be.

Choir member sings from choir loft:
O come, o come Emmanuel, and with your captive children dwell.
Give comfort to all exiles here, and to the aching heart bid cheer.

One difficulty in inviting in this season of waiting and preparing is that when we sit still long enough we might not feel ready for what we encounter within ourselves.

We have been in a season when the dark hours of the day have gotten longer and longer. And this can lead us to encounter the darkest parts of our souls, to encounter our aching hearts.

In this season we can be reminded of loved ones we’ve lost. We may be estranged from our families or just living at a great distance from those we love. We may be held captive by difficult relationships and seek comfort for these wounds.

You may be in your own season of waiting – for that hoped-for job to come through, or for a nagging health issue to pass. This kind of waiting for personal change in our lives is not always easy to live with. It can feel as though our lamps of hope have run out of oil.

And, please know that whatever the reason you may be feeling down or less than joyful, you are not alone. This is a reality for many of us here.

These personal losses and struggles that we face can be a source of heart ache. And, we know, too, that we live in a troubled world and we yearn for a time when these troubles might pass.

Choir member sings from choir loft:
O come, you Splendor very bright, as joy that never yields to might.
O come, and turn all hearts to peace, that greed and war at last shall cease.

This yearning for the end of greed and war and the triumph of justice and righteousness has always been a part of the human story.
The tradition of Hanukkah, as we heard in our story for all ages, was born in ancient Judea in a time of revolt against religious oppression. And, about two hundred years later, Jesus of Nazareth was born into poverty and into a world where the struggle for religious and political power continued.

The struggles in that region of the world continue today as we have been reminded by the most recent fighting in Israel and Palestine and the escalation of violence throughout Syria.

On an environmental level, global climate change threatens vulnerable human populations across the globe as well as the interdependent web of creation. Meanwhile, the Exxon Mobil corporation reported a quarterly profit of nearly 16 billion dollars at the end of July, the highest quarterly profit ever recorded for a U.S. corporation.

This figure can be difficult to stomach while many of us are feeling the daily effects of the economic downturn and while we witness the increasingly regular evidence of climate negligence all around us.

It is no wonder we might be searching for and anticipating those signs of justice and righteousness and peace. Signs of that joy that never yields to might.

Yet, as troubled as our times may be there resides in each of us a vision of new possibilities and new futures for ourselves and for the world.

Choir member sings from choir loft:
O come, you Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by your presence here.
And dawn in every broken soul as vision that can see the whole.

A vision of how to get through the darkness may not be altogether clear. In a training I participated in once, we were asked to write our vision on a piece of paper the size of a matchbox. Not an easy task. Our vision of these new possibilities and new futures may not yet be clear enough to fit on a matchbox.

Yet, there are visionaries in this room I am certain. And, there are visionaries all around us.

Some of you may have found inspiration in the vision of the Occupy movement as I have. That movement is built on the vision that change begins from the bottom up and that massive wealth inequality undermines democracy. “We are the 99%” is a rallying cry I’m sure many of you have become familiar with. And the Occupy movement continues to stand with those hardest hit by economic disparities. Occupiers are out there distributing food and water and helping to clean up the homes of those left without sufficient resources in the wake of Hurricane Sandy. Occupiers are out there on the picket lines protesting against Wal-Mart for better working conditions and wages. This is a vision that can see the whole.

Our religious community, Unitarian Universalism, is part of a visionary move towards collaboration with the United Church of Christ for greater justice-making efforts. Some of you may have read about this recently in the UU World magazine. Leaders of both these faith movements recently met in Boston to discuss ways that our two religious traditions might become partners in justice. One step the United Church of Christ is taking is to join in our “30 Days of Love” initiative. From Martin Luther King day through Valentine’s Day, Unitarian Universalists and now members of the United Church of Christ will participate in actions that stand on the side of marriage equality, anti-discrimination, and immigrant rights.

These are just two examples of people working together towards a vision that takes in the whole picture of the injustice in the world now and where we can be headed.

In this season of waiting and anticipation, we might see the dawning of that vision even in our broken souls. And the good news for us is not that a savior will be born who alone will make this vision into reality, but that we ourselves can help create these new possibilities and these new futures.

As Unitarian Universalist minister Victoria Safford writes,

we already possess all the gifts we need;
we've already received our presents:
ears to hear music,
eyes to behold lights,
hands to build true peace on earth
and to hold each other tight in love.

We have these gifts inside ourselves. And, through our knowledge and our actions, we usher in the hope that there is light at the end of this darkness.

Choir member sings from choir loft:
O come, you Wisdom from on high, from depths that hide within a sigh,
to temper knowledge with our care, to render every act a prayer.
Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel shall come within as Hope to dwell.

So, in the end, I believe that this season of Advent is about preparing ourselves, our own lives. We can do this even amidst the hustle and bustle of the holiday season.

In high school, I ran track and field. In the lead up to a meet, we would practice all week pushing ourselves towards faster and faster times. But there was always a day of rest. A day of waiting and preparation to rebuild our strength.

We need the spiritual fortitude to continue waiting for new possibilities to emerge in our own lives and also to take on the work of bringing forth peace and justice.

However we can do it, I encourage us to make that space to tend our spirits. To nurture the best of ourselves.

We are and can be shining examples of love, truth, light and hope.

As we hold each other and ourselves a little more gently, we shine love.
As we put mutual understanding ahead of self-righteousness, we shine truth.
As we take joy in the small blessings of each day, we shine light.
And, as we use our hands in service to the broader community, we shine hope.

We are a people on the way.

Let us make ourselves ready.

Listen to a podcast of this sermon.