December 10, 2006, Rev. Arthur Lavoie

CALL TO WORSHIP

We gather in the chill of winter solstice,

finding warmth from each other,

nourishing hope where reason fails.

Grateful for small miracles,

we rejoice in the wonder of light and darkness

and the daring of hope.

            Holy One of Blessing

            Your Presence fills creation.

You made us holy with your commandments

and called us to kindle the Hanukkah lights.

You performed miracles for our ancestors

in the days of old at this season.

            Holy One of Blessing

            Your Presence fills creation.

You have kept us alive

You have sustained us

You have brought us to this moment.              Congregation Beth El, Sudbury, MA

READING

            Come down from the hills

            Declare the fighting done.

            Be bold – declare victory,

            even when the temple is wrecked

            and the tyrants have not retreated,

            only coiled back like a snake

            prepared to strike again.

Come down.  Try to remember

a life gentled by daily acts

of domestic faith – the pot

set to boil, the bed made up,

the table set in calm expectation

that when the sun sets

we will still be here.

Come down and settle.

Unlearn the years of hiding.

Light fires that can be seen for miles,

that dance and spark and warm

the frozen marrow.  Set lamps

in the window.  Declare your presence,

your loyalties, the truths

for which you do not expect to have to die.

It would take a miracle you say,

to carve such a solid life

out of the shell of fear.

I say you are the stuff

from which miracles are made.

                                    Lynn Ungar

SERMON

Christmas carols, holiday lights, sale signs in store windows, parties galore; it is so easy to get caught up in the holiday madness, so easy to spend too much, eat and drink too much, sleep too little and completely lose the meaning of what we are doing, feeling empty and hopeless at the end of it all.

Much of our culture tries to seduce us, not only at this time of year, but at almost any time with things that may conflict with our values, greed and power, the accumulation of more and more stuff, fears that keep us apart from each other and isolated in our own little sphere of existence, workplaces that don’t seem to value people or right practices, economic systems that think only of the bottom line and not of the efforts of the people who actually do the work.

It is often not clear where we stand, how much we buy into the culture around us, and where our religious values and practices call us to be.  It is so easy to lose track of the “daily acts of domestic faith” that Lynn Ungar mentions in our reading, those simple things that give our lives consistency and meaning, “the pot set to boil, the bed made up, the table set in calm expectation.”

And then there are the personal trials and struggles that lay claim to our lives.  As someone in our Building Your Own Theology class mentioned this week, many psychologists tell us that we are constantly replaying the same psychodramas throughout our lives.  We take those early primal relationships with family members and constantly repeat those roles in our relationships with friends, co-workers and other church members until we figure out how to give ourselves the love, support, and validation that we need.

It sometimes takes great courage to put our values first, to fully claim who we are, and what we stand for, to differentiate ourselves from all of the issues and influences that oppress us.

There were similar, but much more dire dilemmas that faced the people of Israel in the last few centuries before the common era.  In the fourth century B.C.E. the Greek ruler, Alexander the Great, and his armies conquered most of the area around the Mediterranean Sea.

For the people of Israel, conquest was nothing new.  Their location at the eastern end of the Mediterranean put them at the crossroads of all of the trade routes, prime real estate that everyone wanted to acquire so they could control and tax all the goods and services that passed through the area.

Some of the previous conquerors had pretty much left people to their own indigenous culture and practices.  But the Greeks were different.  In his book, “Ancient Israel,” Hershel Shanks writes:

“The Greeks were interested not only in military victories,

political expansion and economic gain; they were also committed to disseminating their way of life, their institutions, norms and ideas,

to the world of barbarians (as they called non-Greeks).” 

                                                                        Hershel Shanks, ed, Ancient Israel, pg 177

And so it began, slowly at first. Greek cities were founded next to existing communities or conquered cities were reconstituted, introducing Greek language, and Hellinistic values, education, entertainment, goods and practices that were very seductive and offered people a chance to belong to the dominant culture.  This continued for a couple of centuries until everyone in Palestine spoke Greek since it was the language of commerce and government and Greek practices had infiltrated most segments of Hebrew society.

In 167 B.C.E. the Seleucid king Antiochus IV banned many of the religious practices of the Hebrew religion and set up statues to Greek deities in the holy temple in Jerusalem and other Hebrew holy sites. 

This was more than many people could handle for this would bring the final destruction of Hebrew culture.  And so the resistance began, led we are told, by the priest Mattathias and his five sons, the most famous of whom was Judas Maccabees.

The story is told that when a Greek soldier brought the new edict and a statue of a Greek god to their village, Mattathias killed the soldier rather than submit to worshipping the Greek deity and then took his family and other followers into the hills to hide.  They started a guerrilla war and soon attracted more and more followers to their cause.

Here we have a small band of people, untrained, not well armed, standing up to the enormous well-trained and well-armed Greek army.  What were they thinking?  There was no realistic possibility of success. Or was there?

I would suggest that this small band of rebels trying to hold onto their cultural identity had two critically important things in their favor.  They had a deep, abiding faith in Yahweh; the God whom they believed had freed them from slavery in Egypt and had given them all the blessings of life and community.  This faith led them to a commitment to their religious and cultural values and practices, values and practices that they were not willing to have taken away from them, that they were, in fact, willing to die for. 

And they had hope, hope that their God would not abandon them, hope that the meaning they found in their religious tradition would give them the courage and strength to resist oppression, and hope that their way of life could continue and be passed on to future generations.  And so they fought hard and within a few years they were able to recapture Jerusalem and liberate the holy Temple. 

Now, the Temple in Jerusalem was no ordinary place of worship.  In the Hebrew tradition, not only had Yahweh liberated them from slavery in Egypt, but God had chosen to dwell among them. 

So they built this magnificent temple to be the dwelling place of God and the place people would go to make sacrificial offerings, the highest form of worship. 

The Temple was also the seat of all civic and political authority.  For the Hebrew people, the Temple in Jerusalem was the symbol of everything that identified them as a people and made them who they were.

Once the Temple was liberated and cleansed of all Greek worship and influence, the people held an eight day celebration to re-dedicate the Temple and rededicate their lives to Yahweh their God whom they believed had saved them once again.

The story about the miracle of the lamp oil, the single day’s supply of oil lasting for eight days, is not based in the Bible.  It appeared some centuries later in the writings of the rabbis after the Roman destruction of the Temple in Jerusalem.  It was probably written to give Hanukkah a more miraculous appearance. 

I also think the story appeared to give this holiday a new symbol as the Hebrew community dispersed throughout the world after the destruction of the Temple.  In the nine-branch candle holder was a symbol, a part of the story and a part of the temple that people could carry with them.  Here was something that could always remind them of their faith, their hope and their courage in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds.

So we celebrate Hanukkah today because the Hebrew people are our religious ancestors and the Hebrew traditions form the basis for all western religion that followed.  And, our celebration is not only our commemoration of these events.  In our celebration of Hanukkah, we rededicate our own lives to what we believe to be most sacred and holy, and we recommit to our religious values in the face of all that might try to seduce and oppress us.

How do you wish to rededicate your lives at this sacred time of the year?

What are the values that you hold to be most important, most sacred, the ones that you should never be asked to give up, the ones that you should never be asked to die for?

Where does your hope and faith take you, sometimes in the face of seemingly insurmountable odds, and what stories and symbols do you have of the triumph of your faith and your hope?

In difficult times hope is our sustenance.  We thrive on it.  And faith is our guide as we navigate challenging waters.

Our hope comes to us in a couple of different ways.  We need the hope in God, in the sacred, the transcendent spirit that comes down and fills us with inspiration and blessing.  And we need the embodied hope, the hope of our own spirits, that gives us courage and calls us to rise up and face our struggles and oppressions.

It is our faith and our hope that liberate us in hard times and give us the strength to continue.  It is our faith and our hope, rooted in the bedrock values on which we stand, that give us a vision of the world that can be, that give us a vision of who we can become.

For the final outcome of this story and our own stories of hope and liberation, the miracles of this holiday season, and the miracles of our own lives measure only in the ways that we are transformed.  Any struggle, any triumph over adversity, any resistance to the forces that might seduce and consume us are life changing. 

So let us all invite this holy season to come in, so that its traditions and stories may touch us in the deepest places in our lives, inspire our faith and hope, call us to renew our values, and transform us into the people we most need to become.

“It would take a miracle you say,” writes Lynn Ungar

“to carve such a solid life out of the shell of fear.

I say you are the stuff from which miracles are made.”

Blessed Be

BENEDICTION

The miracle is not that the oil lasts,

but that our hope lasts, despite disappointment.

Barukh atah, tiqvah!  Blest are you, hope!

The miracle is not that fire illumines,

but that we grow brighter.

Barukh atah, zohar!  Blest are you, brightness!

The miracle is not that people tell ancient stories,

but that people dare to live their own stories.

Barukh atah, midrashim!  Blest are you, stories!

The miracle is not that tyranny is resisted,

but that resistance recreates us into new beings.

Barukh atah, khadash!  Blest are you, new being!

The miracle is not that courage exists,

but that courage, does not, every time,

have to ball itself into a fist . . .

Barukh atah, khayil!  Blest are you, courage!

                                                            Rev. Mark Belletini