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After The Holidays A Sermon by Rev. David Bryce |
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Good Morning! And happy New Year. The ancient cities of Sumer are sometimes called the “First Cities”, because they are believed to be the earliest settlements that can be called by that name. They first existed about 5,000 years ago. In Sumerian mythology, the Gods created order out of chaos. In Sumer and in later Mesopotamian mythologies, a God (by one name or another) slew a great serpent (by one name or another), and created the world from the body of the serpent. That serpent shows up in several places in the Bible as Leviathan. The serpent, though defeated and slain, is not permanently killed, and it returns again and again, threatening to destroy order and restore the original chaos of the world. It is not only the serpent that threatens to bring back chaos, but so do men’s “sins”. (A serpent and men’s sins—does anyone detect a familiar theme?) The annual New Year festival was for the Sumerians and later Mesopotamian cultures a ritual of renewal and regeneration. In Old Babylonian, the festival was called “A-Ki-Til”, “Power making the world again”. If the annual ritual is successful, divine energy flows upon the earth. As a result, the serpent is driven back and sins are cleansed. By 1700 BC, the Babylonian New Year had become a 12 day festival. Chaos “wins” on the first day. Later, there is a ritual battle and then a ritual sexual union between the king and a Goddess, and finally, there is the Determination Of Destinies by the Gods. That is, the recreation of the world occurs, and events for the next twelve months are detemined. So the general themes of the celebration are the renewal and rebirth of the world AND the renewal and rebirth of US, of people. In our modern celebrations these themes, dating back to ancient Sumer, continue. At Rosh Hashanah, the world is recreated and we with it; at both Rosh Hashanah and New Year’s we are able to cleanse ourselves of sin and able to remake ourselves. During the New Year celebration this is done through the making of resolutions, of the things we intend to do differently or the things we do not wish to take into the new year with us. It shows again in the Christian doctrine of being cleansed of sins, of being “born again”. The old idea that the God’s determine fate for the coming year is expressed in the Yom Kippur service as the closing of the Book Of Life. The end result of the ancient festival, and of our modern versions, is that chaos is pushed back, the world is born anew and we with it, and all begins again. That is where we stand today: in the fourth day of a new year. The world is reborn and we with it. Now what? The holidays are over, we a re refreshed and renewed, the whole world is reborn, so, “What next?”. Well, I cannot speak for you, but in my life, when the rituals and celebrations and big events are over, when I have been spiritually cleansed and renewed, “what’s next” is that it is time to do the dishes. It is time to get back to the daily routines of life, and I tend to do that with some sense of relief. But, wait a minute! Is that it? Is that all there is? We are reborn and all that gets us is that now we go back to the “same old same old”? There are two parallel themes here, two parallel responses to that question. The first is: Yes, that’s right; we go back to the same old same old. Think back to the early festivals of Sumer—this was a struggle between chaos and order, between destruction and stability. If stability succeeds, that simply enables us to go on with life as it was. That is the great goal, the great achievement: life as it was. The other theme, the parallel response, is: No, it is not a matter of returning to things exactly as they were, because, if the celebration of the New Year, the ritual of renewal, has been successful, then we are different, we are changed. The first change is that our eyes are open to what it is wee almost lost. That makes everything different. A barren tree is just a barren tree, but not if we thought we would never again see a tree. In the movie “It’s A Wonderful Life” , the Jimmy Stewart character finds that after his revelatory experience, even the broken newel on the banister, the one that gave him so much frustration and irritation earlier, even THAT now fills him with ecstatic pleasure. He has been renewed, his eyes are open, and so the mundane, run of the mill boring life that he had so desperately wanted to flee he now saw with eyes of gratitude and happiness. And so for ancient Sumerians and Babylonians, and so for us, there exists the possibility that, having been renewed, we will see with new eyes the bounty and beauty that exists in everyday life. And so we are different in how we see the same old same old. But we can be different in other ways as well. For we moderns, the same old same old is full of possibility for change. Unlike the ancient Sumerian subsistence farmer, wee can change our lives, chart a new course in life. What will I do for employment in thecoming year? What will I do with my retirement? Yes, I am back to the daily routine, but how do I want to change it? There is another change that has happened, of course. Each time there is an annual ritual of renewal, I am another year older, and so I am changed from what I was last year. I have now experienced over 50 annual renewals. My visual acuity is not what it was 30 years ago, nor is my auditory ability. Four years ago, when I purchased a new car, I moved up from a small sedan to a mid-sized sedan because my body no longer had the flexibility to allow easy entry and exit from a small car. Today, four years later, I am finding it less easy to get in and out of my mid-sized car. Just a few days ago, my knee got stuck under the steering wheel. I wondered whether the seat was all the way back; it was. Put in those terms, my annual ritual of renewal seems to have me on a downward spiral, with less and less ability each year.
If I do that to myself, if I focus on the gifts that are gone or are in decline, then each New Year celebration offers a golden opportunity to fall into a deep depression. And since each year is just chock full of New Year’s celebrations (New Year’s, birthdays—mine and others’—the start of things in Autumn, etc.) why I have a full calendar of depressing events. But part of my annual ritual should be recognizing the positive changes in myself, as well. If my vision and hearing are not what they were 30 years ago, I am improved in other ways. I have more knowledge, more experience of life and people, and—I hope—greater emotional maturity. On a more general level, though the world is renewed, some things do continue. We are still a nation at war; our country is still on Orange Alert. Poverty, homelessness and hunger still stalk our streets. But one message of the New Year’s festival is that these, too, like all else, are temporary if we make them so. What are these things if not chaos breaking in to order? What is war if not chaos? What are poverty, hunger and homelessness if not chaos? The New Year ritual is not a “once and done” event. The serpent continually strives to return. Order must continually be reestablished. The celebrations are over; let us now do the work of Hannukah, of Christmas, of Kwanzaa of world renewal: to bring justice for all. So let it be.
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