|
Winter Festival – A Celebration Of The Sun A Sermon by Rev. David Bryce |
|
Good Morning! Today we celebrate the Winter Solstice, the day of the metaphorical “rebirth” of the sun, which this year happens tomorrow at 2:04 am. In cultures around the world, from the time of the ancient cities of Ur and Sumer right up to today, this has been a time of awe, of fear, of ritual and of joy. At least, that has been true in those parts of the northern hemisphere where seasons exist. Since the sun brings light and life, it is those aspects of the suns gifts that are most often celebrated at this time of the year, often with light of some kind. Ancient bonfires, flaming arrows shot into the sky, torch lit ceremonies, all were means of either celebrating the return of the sun or of striving to bring the sun back. Today, the lighting of lamps at Divali, of menorahs candles at Hanukkah, of advent wreaths and of candles on the tree at Christmas, of kinaras at Kwanzaa, and now, of electric lights on tree and home, all trace back to those ancient practices and festivals. Many myths cluster around this time of year, some very familiar, some less so. A few quick examples will suffice: In old Sumer, the Goddess Inanna entered the underworld and was held captive there by her sister, Ereshkigal, ruler of the underworld. Inanna was later known as Ishtar and Astarte. Ultimately, she escapes; but the tension of the story is that the outcome remains unknown right until the very end. That same story is paralleled in the Persephone, Proserpine stories of Greece and Rome. In Japan, the sun goddess Amaterasu, insulted by the storm god, withdraws into a cave until she is convinced to come out by music and dance, that is, by celebration in the midst of the darkness. There are numerous other examples. All of these stories are etiological, that is, they are explanatory; they explain how and why things are as they are. In this case, they explain how the seasons came to be. They also give a hint at the emotions that accompany the celestial events of this time of year. The “given” is that the sun--the source of light and life--is “fading” and sinking. Will it return? If not, then our world will sink into eternal darkness and cold. And that will happen now, in the next few weeks or months. Our very survival hinges upon the outcome of the great struggle described in the myths. Cosmologists of today tell us that if the Universe is expanding, and does not have enough matter in it to cause it to collapse back upon itself, then at some point in time, hundreds, perhaps thousands of billions of years from now, a few remnant stars, sadly drifting like lonely sentinels in a vast, empty darkness, and so far apart that they are not aware of one another’s existence, will one by one, flicker out, fade away, and the life they feed will perish, perhaps with a bang if their star goes nova, but in that dark expanse, with none to see or hear, it will be the equivalent of a whimper. That is the ending that ancient peoples feared, not as some event in the far distant future, a future too far off to care about, but as an occurrence of immediacy, of “momentariness”. The fear and awe of these days, then was intense. The conflict was in doubt right up until the moment that the sun actually turned and began to rise again. By the time of civilization, by the time of settled life, of villages and cities, people generally knew that the sun would regain its strength. Still, we may assume that emotions were high, that feelings were raw, that the days were, in fact, infused with fear, even terror, and then relief and joy.
In some of these stories, human beings are bystanders, mere witnesses of events. They can only wait and hope that the battle of the gods or of the elements would end in a manner amicable to human continuance. What is astonishing is the number of rituals and ceremonies in which human beings take part in the struggle. What is surprising is how often human participation is required by the gods of goodness and light in order for them to be successful. What arrogance! Isn’t that arrogance: to think that God, the Goddess or the Cosmos needs our help? We are but the creatures, created beings like puppets or figurines in a nativity. Compared to the gods, we are as nothing; how can they possibly need our help? It is we who need theirs. And yet, across the extent of the world, in place after place, in culture after culture, there is the claim that the Gods need our help, our support, our actions in order to succeed. Fascinating. In a modern literary trilogy, now a movie trilogy playing in a theater near you, some of the most important players in the story are hobbits. Now hobbits are little creatures, short, mild, happiest when eating. If you wanted a hero, you would not choose one of them. And yet, precisely because they are not powerful or heroic, they are the only beings that can do one particular job that needs to be done. The lesson that applies is that even the meekest, shiest, most fear-filled people not only are needed in the grand clash of good and evil, but they have unique abilities of their own, strengths which only they possess. And, of course, in a struggle that is in balance, a struggle between nearly equal beings, no matter how powerful those beings are, the smallest addition to one side or the other can make the difference between success or failure on the part of goodness, on the part of creativity and order. There are always a multitude of lessons or meanings to be drawn from any myth. In this case one of those lessons is that we can be assured that tomorrow will come, that life and society—and we—will go on. But there is something else here in these myths, something that is the real focus of my thoughts today. And that is that we—we human beings--are called upon to be co-creators and co-maintainers of the Universe. We are called upon to help decide whether the Cosmos will survive or not and whether it will be better or worse, will tilt towards the good or towards the evil. We are not meant to be passive observers, and we are not relegated to being passive observers. The message is that we are not trapped in the universe as it is but can help to determine what the universe will be. The course of events in the Cosmos is not predetermined, and we are not mere puppets whose actions are decided by some greater power, nor are we mere clay to be molded by circumstances beyond us. And if that is true on the cosmic level, is it not also true of here on this planet? If we can be called upon to help create and recreate the Cosmos, the Universe, or at least, our little portion of it, our solar system, then surely we are also called upon to partake in the ongoing creation of this planet. We, we as a people, decide whether we will suffer from global warming, driven there by inexorable economic forces, or will take control over those forces, bend them to the service of humanity and the environment. We, we as a people, can decide the course of human society. Will there be greater justice and human rights, or will gender, gender identity, religion, race and sexual orientation continue to name categories of oppressed people? Will even those nations and societies that have begun to respect at least some human rights throw them away in the name of safety and national security? We decide that, not political leaders over whom we have no control, but us; we decide. We have that power. Does that seem like more of a burden than a power? It is not. We can choose to do nothing and let those powers operate without us; just know that it IS a choice. On a more personal level, rather than being passive observers of our own lives, rather than being mere recipients and witnesses of the parameters of our lives, we are called upon to be co-creators of ourselves, to determine the paths of our own futures from this point on. As in the struggles over the future of the world and of society, we can choose to sit back and let things happen to us. That IS an option. But these myths tell us that we need not be buffeted by the whims of chance and fate, we can choose to determine our own fates, or AT LEAST to take part in the struggle to determine our own fates. And it is not only our own fates, our own futures, but it is our inner lives as well that we can struggle to influence. We can break out of categories of thinking that bind us to old ways of doing things. We can break out of old behavior patterns, old ways of reacting that no longer serve our needs or our wants. We can break out of old ways of feeling that impose limits upon ourselves. We can choose to work to feel better about ourselves, to overcome the inner voices that hold us back from being what we could be. Who are you? Who do you want to be? You have the power to engage in the struggle to decide just that. We are co-creators of the universe, of the world and of ourselves. No matter how powerful the gods or forces arrayed against or in favor of us, we can engage in the struggle, we can participate in deciding what tomorrow will be. As we celebrate the Solstice, this great Mid-Winter Festival in all of its manifold forms, may we celebrate too, ourselves, our own power to help restore the sun to all its wondrous glory and all of the levels of meaning behind that metaphor. Because we can do that, because we can help revive the sun, we can do anything, succeed at any task, face any problem and rise triumphant. And so, my friends, arise, engage in the world, and celebrate; the Gods need you! The Gods need YOU.
|
Return to
Return to Sermons Index |
