HomeReading: Henry Wadsworth Longfellow, Wood in Winter
Good Morning.
COMMENTS ON THE “CHRISTMAS WARS” (SERMON BEGINS BELOW)
(Singing together)
“Happy holidays!
Happy holidays!
All the merry bells keep ringing,
happy holidays to you.”
Imagine with me if you will that you are a jolly person who likes to spread good cheer. I know that will be difficult for some, but just imagine it. Now, at the place you work there is a lunch room or cafeteria. You walk in there one day and you notice that everyone seems to be eating oranges, so being the merry person you are, you shout out, ”I hope you are all enjoying your oranges!” Everyone smiles, some people wave, and all are happy.
The next day you walk into the cafeteria and you yell the same thing, and people smile and wave.
Then, on the third day, you walk into the cafeteria and you notice that there are about 100 people there and only about, oh, say 65 of them are eating oranges. You notice that some people are eating cherries, and some are eating apples and some are eating mangos and some are eating pineapples. So this time you call out, “I hope you are all enjoying your fruit!”. And then one of the orange eaters rises up in righteous wrath and says, “It’s not a “fruit”, it’s an “orange”. And if you call it a “fruit” you are attacking me, and you are attacking every orange eater in this room. And if you don’t say ‘orange’ you are attempting to ban oranges“.
Now, that simply isn’t true; you are not attempting to “ban” oranges. You are merely using a generic term that includes everyone.
And yet, there are some who claim that saying “Happy Holidays”, which includes Christmas, is an attack upon Christmas. And so the song we sang a few moments ago, “Happy Holidays”, that song that dates back to the thirties or forties, that is an attack upon Christmas, I suppose
This insistence on particularity, this insistence that I be named, that my holiday be specifically named, I believe, is an insistence on predominance. It is tied to the false claims that we are and always have been a Christian country.
Nothing is taken away from anyone by the phrase “Happy Holidays”.
But what about the Holiday Tree/Christmas Tree issue? Christmas trees are Christmas trees and always have been, isn’t that the case?
Well, it is not clear that it is.
If you type into your internet search engine the words “Tannenbaum” and “Solstice”, you will find a large number of websites that indicate that ancient Teutonic celebrations of the solstice included decorating evergreen trees. Now, these sites fall into four different categories. The first are Pagan websites which absolutely state that the Ancient Teutons did decorate trees, but they provide no documentation to that effect and they have an investment in claiming the holiday as their own to validate themselves, so I set them aside.
Then there are Humanist websites—adamant Humanists—that say the same thing, but they have an investment in proving that all things Christian are false or are borrowed from other religions—as many of them were—in order to dismiss Christianity as a fraud, and I have no desire to go along with that. They also do not provide anything in the way of documentation; they simply make the claim. So I set them aside. Then there are fundamentalist Christian websites which aver absolutely that the Christmas tree is Pagan, but they have investment in claiming that anything that is not in the Bible is Pagan and therefore does not belong in Christianity, so I set them aside.
That leaves a small number of websites that take a more historical or scholarly view of things. And these are a bit more hesitant about their claims. There are some indications, some hints, that the tree may have been used in Teutonic solstice festivals. The tree was certainly important in ancient northern Europe. There are rituals involving what are called St. John’s Day trees at the summer solstice, though these are often wooden pyramids. The Maypole is a tree stripped of bark and branches. In Sweden there was a practice of cutting down a pine tree, stripping off its bark and branches and leaning it against the house at the solstice.
And then, there are early Christian writings that provide possible hints. So, in the early few centuries after the birth of Jesus, Tertullian says to Christians about their Pagan neighbors, “let them hang garlands and ornaments on their houses, you who are the true garland of God; let them light candles, they for whom the eternal flames wait…” and he goes on in that vein for a while and then he says to Christians, “you who are the tree that is ever green”. But he doesn’t say that the Pagans cut down trees and decorate them. This is all merely hints and indications. And so it may or may not be that the Christmas tree is actually a Solstice tree. We cannot know for sure though it seems likely.
For me, I call my tree a Christmas Tree. I don’t care whether you call yours a Christmas Tree, a Holiday Tree a Solstice Tree or a Hanukkah Bush; I will call it whatever you want me to.
I am, however, a strong believer in the wall of separation between Religion and State.
And that is it; that is my salvo in the Christmas Wars. Now on to today’s sermon:
SERMON
As we approach the winter solstice, just a few days away now, we are in the least lighted time of year; at least, the least sun-lighted time.
The darkness descends now around us. It is the season of the year when many of us arise in darkness, arrive back home in darkness, walk on cold streets often with snow crunching beneath our feet. Sometimes, even on snowless days, we still hear when we walk the crunch of leaves or even of the earth itself, frozen into hard fragility.
How welcome in such circumstances it is to see a light shining through our own window as we return from journeys short or long.
And it is in this season of darkness that the candles and lights of advent wreath and Christmas tree, or menorah and kinara, of holiday decorations on houses and bushes, glow with a special warmth and cheer. These lights that would be unseen on brighter days shine with glorious beauty within the darkness of this time.
This is the season of lights; lights of stars in the sky, lights of candles and decorations, lights in the eyes and faces of small children, and of even some of the crustiest and most curmudgeonly adults.
Science tells us that at one time all matter was balled up in a gigantic tiny sphere. There was total darkness. Then there was a spark, a glow, a flash of light, a bright expanding, and the universe was born. That flash of light, the Big Bang, was the creation of the Cosmos.
One theory in physics is that the before the Big Bang the Universe was condensed into a single black hole; that black hole become unsteady, blowing apart and spewing forth all that now exists. Some think that pattern repeats itself, that the universe will sink back into itself and become again a single, gigantic tiny sphere waiting for its moment of rebirth.
Did the Big Bang happen because the Laws of Physics demanded it? Perhaps. It may be that many universes exist and that in this one--or this time around in this one--the Laws of Physics required the Big Bang and required the universe that is. Except that it is believed the Laws of Physics break down or are not in being at some point as our knowledge moves backwards towards the Big Bang.
Could it be, then, that it was the Word of God; that God said, “let there be light, and there was light”, and the Cosmos was born?
Then all that exists does so by Divine will. Galaxies and comets, the earth and the sun, you and I; it is Divine will that we be here.
If the universe does, indeed, come into existence then collapse upon itself and then burst into being again, perhaps it is that the Hindu tradition is correct, that Brahma opens his eyes, eyes bright with light, and the universe is created once again. And then, after however many billions of years, he closes his eyes and the universe sinks into itself and into darkness once more.
The message of each of these stories is that light can arise in the midst of nothing. Even if there is no sign of it, it can yet come into being.
In human life the same is true. In the darkness of suffering or sorrow, of pain or despair, the light of a small kindness or a warm presence, small and often unnoticed against the greater light of well-being, can erupt in majestic brilliance in a time of pain.
Should we ever ask ourselves whether an act of generosity on our part is too meager, too meaningless, even too little to bother with, may we remember that in the deepest darkness the tiniest of embers shines more brightly and illumines more surely than the strongest strobe lights at midday.
May we come to recognize that in the darkest human soul is some small spark of goodness and kindness; in the heart of whomever we would call a monster there is a tiny bit of light. Or if not, there can be, since light can come into being out of nothing if the laws of physics require it, or if God wills it, or if Brahma opens his eyes.
In our personal lives the shadows of pain haunt even the happiest life. We all, individually, face death--the extinction of our own lightglow. And yet it may be that there is more to come, if God wills it or if Brahma opens his eyes upon us once more.
The smallest light can create a world of hope and promise. In the most dire of circumstances, a small spark of hope yet exists. And if shadows of pain haunt the light of joy, it is also true that, like a photographic negative, shadows of joy haunt the deepest pain.
So if we find ourselves filled with sorrow or sadness may we know, whatever that sorrow may be, no matter how fully it may burden us or bear us down, there is a faint glimmer of hope within. That hope can grow and flame into joy and celebration. If we cannot bring that into being ourselves, others will often do it for us. But even if we are too weak and even if others are gone, it can still rise into full glory if God so wills, or if Brahma shines his eyes upon us.
And so we celebrate the light; we celebrate the rebirth of the sun that comes this season and the rebirth of hope and promise that is at the heart of all of the mid winter festivals.
And yet, in the midst of that celebration, let us not forget that in darkness is growth.
It is only out of the deepest darkness that a new universe can come into being.
It is the darkness of the womb that life is protected and nurtured. It is in the darkness of the earth that bulbs and tubers sleep and feed, preparing for their annual burst of radiant splendor.
May we also remember that it is in facing and grappling with the shadow side of ourselves that we come to know fully who it is that we are.
Once again, the words of Henry Wadsworth Longfellow:
Night
Into the darkness and the hush of night
Slowly the landscape sinks, and fades away,
And with it fade the phantoms of the day,
the ghosts of men and things, that haunt the light.
The crowd, the clamor, the pursuit, the flight,
The unprofitable splendor and display,
The agitations, and the cares that prey
Upon our hearts, all vanish out of sight.
The better life begins; the world no more
Molests us; all its records we erase
From the dull commonplace book of our lives,
That like a palimpsest is written o’er
With trivial incidents of time and place,
And lo! The ideal, hidden beneath, revives.
May darkness and light each give us their strength. May we see hope everywhere. And may we each come to know about ourselves, as Buddha said, “You are the light of the world”.
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