A Faith We Are Always Arriving At
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- Created on Sunday, 05 December 2010 00:00
- Written by Jenny M. Rankin
{player 2010-12-05-9am-sermon.mp3}
Every year a member of our congregation lights the menorah, chants the blessing. As Dana did today.
I look forward to this blessing. I wait for the words, the singing, and the silence. Most of all the silence. The stillness in this room. The hush that comes.
To me, this moment is an encounter with Mystery. It is a glimpse of the holy. And I realize I wait for it each year here in these first days of December
Hanukkah was not the religious tradition in which I was raised. It was Advent, those four weeks of spiritual preparation before the celebration of Jesus’ birth.
So on our kitchen table, it wasn’t a menorah we had but an Advent wreath, Advent calendars to open, things we did to mark the days.
It was kitchen table liturgy at its comic best, or worst,
Trying to light the candles at dinner with kids who were cranky and tired and loud.
Trying to find that still center in the midst of family life that ricocheted around like one of those super bouncy balls.
Perhaps some of you know what I mean.
But over the years, as a Unitarian Universalist minister, I have come to know the story of Hanukkah.
Alexander the Great who swept through the Middle East in 367, bringing the Greek gods as a way to unify, to quell dissent
King Antiochus who came to power, who made sure to attack the Temple on the Sabbath because that was the one day the Jews would not fight.
Antiochus sweeping everything out that was sacred to the Jews
Slaughtering forbidden animals on the altar
Putting up the statues of Zeus and the other gods and ordering the Jews to bow down.
But they refused.
They headed for the hills, living in caves, until Judah Maccabee and his small band of men rose up. Swooping down in a series of surprise attacks, amazingly enough, they prevailed.
And so, the story goes, when they returned to the Temple
Picking through the destruction and the rubble
They found a small jar of oil,
Enough to burn for one night
And to their amazement it lasted for eight.
We may know the Hanukkah story but sometimes I think we forget
What that Temple symbolized for the Jews.
It was the absolute center of their culture, their national identity, their religion
But it was more than that.
It pointed back to a foundational moment for them as a religious people.
It pointed back to that core story of Moses going up on Mt. Sinai to talk with God
And when he came down, he brought the two stone tablets with the Ten Commandments but more than that
When he came back down, his face was shining,
So much so that the people literally could not look directly at them
They had to turn away
Moses had to put on a veil to hide the shining of his face so he could talk to his people.
The shining on Moses’ face - That was the power of the human encounter with the divine
That was what the Temple stood for—it pointed back to that particular real human moment.
It reminded the Jews that an encounter with the divine was possible
An encounter with Mystery, with a Presence they could not see or name or define
It had happened to Moses. It could happen to them.
So I’m thinking of the Hanukkah story and Moses’ face shining as we walk into this month of December, this month with its business, and preparations, wikkiliiks, Afghanistan, news that pours in and us trying to make sense of it all, trying to find meaning, go deeper, just keep up with the pace of our lives and the sometimes scattered nature of our days.
I’m thinking of that image of Moses and his face shining
And I’m wondering what will be the moments in this month that will make your face shine? That will make mine? If we could catch a glimpse of one another in those moments, what would we see and might that be a glimpse of holiness
Whether we celebrate Advent like I did or Hanukkah or the solstice or all of them, we need these holy days because there can be a dissonance between the activity out there and what is inside here (point to heart).
Carl Scovel writes about that in a reflection on the yearly Christmas pageant. "Why didn’t you warn me, a colleague asks.
“Why indeed? What can you say about these pageants? What should you say? Is it fair to warn a fledgling minister?
“Planning a pageant is pleasant enough. You sit at your desk and write a script. You block out the action…sketch costumes…select players, choose music and imagine a scene of calm and peace, moving in time and synchronicity like a flowing river.
“Then comes the first rehearsal. The river is suddenly a raging torrent. Chaos. Confusion. Misery.
The children arrive late, hungry, tired, distracted.
The parents are cross, the choir director exasperated, the janitor furious.
The wise men get into a fight with the shepherds—cardboard boxes of “myrrh” clashing with foil-wrapped staffs.
Mary slips on the chancel steps and hurts her ankle.
Joseph forgets to turn on the tape recorder in the cradle.
And may God help you if in a fit of sentimentality you chose live animals to be at the crèche.
“If the first rehearsal was chaos, the second is mayhem—Mary on crutches, the shepherds on the wise men, the choir director on hold, and the janitor on something stronger than herb tea. You survive but realize what you’ve been through is closer to the Battle of Borodino than the mythical calm at the manger.”
There can be a dissonance about what we are imagining this month will bring, and what actually does happen.
Whether it is the early darkness this time of year, the New England cold—or something more profound—the month of December is one when emotions can be heightened.
“Some of us may think there is no getting ready at all this year,” wrote Rev. Charles Forman. “Perhaps there have been too many dark or anxious hours, perhaps certainty has given way to questions that gnaw at the edges of our minds and hearts, perhaps our faith has been overtaken just now by troublesome doubts.”
I don’t know about you but I want to start my Advent journey with a faith I can hold in my hand like an elegantly wrapped gift, all green and gold and shining.
I want to start my journey with faith like a cloak of velvet that swings and swirls around me. A cloak I can pull about me, snuggle my chin into, Something I can count on to keep me warm, which will shield me against all uncertainty and any possibility of loss.
That is the faith I want. Or think I want. That is the faith I envy if I think I glimpse it in another person.
But that’s not the kind of faith I have.
And as I’ve gotten older, I realize that faith isn’t a thing at all. It is not something I either have or I don’t, like a wrapped present or a cloak.
In Hebrew and Greek, the word for “faith” is a verb, an action, and the same is true in Pali, the language of the original Buddhist texts.
Faith is not something I have; it’s something I do. Or try to do.
Faith is getting up in the night with a sick child and staying with them when you are longing in every fiber of your being to go back to bed.
Faith is hanging in there with a sibling who is angry or a parent who needs just one more thing.
Faith is living with cancer and walking forward into whatever the next new day is bringing you.
Faith is having a miscarriage and getting up out of bed the next day and keeping on going.
This December, My faith is not a package wrapped in green or gold. It is not a velvet cloak I snuggle into.
It’s more of a quest. It’s more of an action.
It’s more of a walking forward into the days, trying to show up, be present, and be awake.
William James, the founder of psychology and pragmatist, who died 100 years ago this year, said if you want to feel brave, act brave. If you want to feel calm, act calm. Act as if.
Sometimes our faith is “acting as if.” Faking it till we make it.
“Advent is for all of us,” Charles Forman writes, “whatever sort of condition; believers, once upon a time believers, or those who wait and hope for faith’s return. We don’t start with faith; it is something we are always arriving at.”
There is something in those words that accepts me as I am, accepts us as we are, however we find ourselves today.
Out there the pressure is towards perfection, in our houses, families, especially this time of year—
We walk in these doors and reconnect with ancient spiritual traditions which give us nearly an opposite wisdom.
We sit here in the music and quiet and prayer and remember that perfection is neither asked for nor expected.
That perfection is a kind of spiritual arrogance. A hubris.
That in the eyes of the holy, in the eyes of our own deepest selves, it is our humanity that is the gauge, not a kind of non-human perfectionism.
It is our ability to bring ourselves, with all our ragged edges, into the light, that counts. Not walling away the parts of ourselves we don’t particularly like or are ashamed of.
Our hunger and hollowness, our flaws and failings as much a part of the gift of ourselves we offer as any fullness with which we have been blessed this year.
Advent, Hanukkah, the Solstice, whatever festival of light is meaningful to you, we affirm our faith as something that is not handed to us whole, but as something we arrive at along the way.
Something we stitch together from all the ragged edges and snippets of our days. Something that we do.
So this month, remember Moses and his shining face, be alert,
Watch the people you love, watch their faces and their eyes. Watch the person on the street, in the supermarket, in the drug store.
Watch for eyes that gleam and faces that shine
It just might be a glimpse of the holy you are having. It just might be a brush with Mystery.
“Even this late it happens,” writes the poet Mark Strand.
The coming of love, the coming of light.
You wake and the candles are lit as if by themselves,
Stars gather, dreams pour into your pillows,
Sending up warm bouquets of air.
Even this late the bones of the body shine
And tomorrow's dust flares into breath.”
This month,
May we look up at the stars that gather
May we search for the dreams that pour onto our pillows
May we search for that shining look on the faces around us
“Even this late the bones of the body shine
And tomorrow’s dust flares into breath”