Creating Our Own Christmas – 11/12/22
Opening Music: played by Peter Crockford
Opening Words & Chalice Lighting: for the third Sunday in Advent
This morning marks the third Sunday in the Season of Advent. In the Christian tradition, Advent is the beginning of the church year, recognizing the transforming power of God in the world and looking forward toward the birth of Jesus and celebration of spiritual light.
Each week until Christmas, we’re lighting a new candle on the Advent wreath. When so much asks for our attention, the lighting of one candle after another reminds us that this season must pass in its own time; birth cannot be rushed. We have the choice to be awakened and fully inhabit the present moment. The light of Advent grows brighter and brighter as we celebrate our coming together as a community.
This morning we light the third candle. We light this candle as a symbol of joy—not just any simple cheer, but the experience of joy that cannot be contained. Advent asks us to proclaim our gladness as a gift to the world even when sorrow and uncertainty abound. May we share our hearts through our words, our music, and the way we live our lives. Let the fullness of our joy lead to more freedom.
Words of Welcome:
Good morning everybody and welcome to this Sunday’s Unitarian gathering here in Kensington, where London’s heretics and dissenters have been worshipping since the 1800s. Ours is a faith that does not claim to hold the one and only truth. Our faith respects the faith of others and respects people’s right to find their own paths in life.
Our Unitarian chalice flame is shining brightly along with our Advent candles.
The symbol of the chalice, the cup, is an ancient one. But the chalice flame of Unitarian and Unitarian Universalist communities stems only from the Second World War when the Unitarian Services Committee helping rescue refugees fleeing war-torn Europe, chose this chalice flame as a welcoming symbol for people of all faiths and none. Its light beckons warmly, its cup contains all, just as this warm, calm worship space contains us today.
And you are all welcome here, be you here in person or joining us on Zoom – I hope we’ll all find something of worth for us today, some helpful realisation or insight. Our service theme today explores the idea of creating our own Christmas in a way that has meaning for us, refreshing the symbols of old so we don’t take them for granted or simply dismiss them as no longer relevant. I invite you to use this next hour if you wish to explore the qualities that would make this Christmas and midwinter a time of nourishment for you, a time when your spirit both gives and receives that which will strengthen you in times of darkness, that which will soften our hearts. May the stresses and strains of our everyday lives drop away now and leave us free to explore deeper mysteries and deeper truths, open to inspiration and the power of love.
Hymn: Hills of the North, Rejoice
Hills of the North, rejoice;
River and mountain spring,
Hark to the advent voice;
Valley and lowland, sing;
Though absent long, your Lord is nigh;
He judgment brings and victory.
Isles of the southern seas,
Deep in your coral caves
Carry on every breeze
Hope of a world’s new birth
In love shall all be made anew,
This peace is sure, its promise true.
Lands of the East, awake,
Soon shall you all be free;
The sleep of ages break,
And rise to liberty.
On your far hills, so misty grey,
Has dawned the everlasting day.
Shores of the utmost West,
Lands of the setting sun,
Welcome the heavenly guest
In whom the dawn has come:
Love brings a never-ending light
That triumphed o’er our darkest night.
Shout, as we journey on,
Songs be in every mouth,
Lo, from the North we come,
From East and West and South:
In love shall all now find their rest,
all creatures of the earth are blest.
Candles of Joy and Concern:
Each week when we gather together, we share a simple ritual of candles of joy and concern, an opportunity to light a candle and share something that is in our heart with the community. So we’ve an opportunity now, for anyone who would like to do so, to light a candle and say a few words about what it represents. We’re going to go to the people in the building first, and take all of those in one go, and then I’ll call on the people on Zoom to come forward.
So I invite some of you here in person to come and light a candle and then if you wish to tell us briefly who or what you light your candle for. We’re asking people to keep their masks on for this candle lighting – please keep your masks on – if you use the hand-held microphone, get it really close to your mask, and SPEAK UP, people should be able to hear what you’re saying. I really want to emphasise this – the people at home really want to hear what you’re saying – and if you don’t hold the microphone really close they can’t hear you. So point it directly at your face and keep it right up against your mask and that should work well. Thank you.
(in person candles)
And if that’s everyone in the room we’ll go over to the people on Zoom next – you might like to switch to gallery view at this stage – just unmute yourselves when you are ready and speak out – and we should be able to hear you and see you up on the big screen here in the church.
(zoom candles)
And I’m going to light one more candle, as we often do, to represent all those joys and concerns that we hold in our hearts this day, but which we don’t feel able to speak out loud. (light candle)
Time of Reflection and Prayer (with thanks for words and images from Tess Ward)
And let’s take the warmth and care of our ritual into our reflective time of prayer now as I call on the divine spirit of life and of love to be with us now and to bless this time we spend together.
Let us pray for the needs of all those across this small planet home of ours,
those who are in great need this day, and especially those who suffer because of the winter weather,
all who suffer because they experience the cruel winter of war,
of all those who suffer the cold winds of oppression and violence,
May all who suffer this day experience your compassion great spirit
through the care we show to one another.
May this morning prayer awaken us
to turn the needs of all who ask us for help this day
into our personal needs and into the needs of the spirit here on earth.
May we this day be granted the wisdom to see God in all we meet this day.
For with that sacred vision
our prayer will have no end, for it becomes our life.
Blessed and beautiful are you great spirit.
May your light be our sun this winter day.
Help us great spirit to loosen the cords of habits and routines from time to time so that we might be refreshed in our perceptions and opened once more to new possibilities in life.
May we sing old songs as if for the first time, greet old companions as new and wondrous beings in whose presence we are both delighted and curious.
Let us take nothing for granted, that even something as the rising of the sun on a winter’s dawn should encourage us to kneel in awe and wonder and gratitude for this miracle that it is to be alive.
May we who gather here this day,
by our lives and service, by our prayers and love,
call forth from one another the light and the love
that is hidden in every heart, now and always.
Amen.
Reading: ‘Let Us Be That Stable’ by Patrick Murfin
Interesting recently announced census results from 2021 – reduction in religious affiliation, under 50% of people describing themselves as Christian. Don’t listen to Nigella Far-Age’s ghastly misinterpreting of figures – so easily done to get confused by statistics but I think he does it deliberately. The reading we’re going to hear now read by Juliet Edwards is called ‘let us be that stable’ and it takes one of the symbols from the story of Jesus’ birth – the lowly stable – and invites us all to be as welcoming as that stable was to Mary and Joseph in their time of need. And that need is clearly as relevant today in the 21st century UK as it was two thousand years ago in a seemingly far away land. I wonder which of these images speaks particularly to you this morning.
Today, let us be that stable
Let us be the place
that welcomes at last
the weary and rejected,
the pilgrim stranger,
the coming life.
Let not the (frigid) biting winds that pierce
our inadequate walls,
or our mildewed hay,
or the fetid leavings of our cattle
shame us from our beckoning.
Let our outstretched arms
be a manger
so that the infant hope,
swaddled in love,
may have a place to lie.
Let a cold beacon
shine down upon us
from a solstice sky
to guide to us
the seekers who will come.
Let the lowly Shepherd
and all who abide
in the fields of their labours
lay down their crooks
and come to us.
Let the seers, sages, and potentates
of every land
traverse the shifting dunes
the rushing rivers,
and the stony crags
to seek our rude frame.
Let herdsmen and high lords
kneel together
under our thatched roof
to lay their gifts
before Wonder.
Today, let us be that stable.
Hymn 82 (HfL): ‘People Look East’
An interesting next hymn with words written by poet Eleanor Farjeon and though it’s regarded as an Advent hymn yet its imagery is not particularly Christian – it seems more to be based on the mystical roots that can be found in most religions. See what you think and if it interests you do look up the actual poem online as I think this version misses some beautiful lines from it.
People look east! the time is near
Of the crowning of the year.
Make your house fair as you are able,
Trim the hearth and set the table.
People, look east, and sing today:
Love, the guest, is on the way.
Furrows be glad! Though earth is bare,
One more seed is planted there:
Give up your strength the seed to nourish,
That, in course, the flower may flourish.
People look east, and sing today:
Love, the rose, is on the way.
Stars, keep the watch! when night is dim,
One more light the bowl shall brim,
Shining beyond the frosty weather,
Bright as sun and moon together.
People, look east, and sing today:
Love, the star, is on the way.
Reading: ‘When Merry Meets Mess’ by Erika A Hewitt
This reading from American UU Minister Erika Hewitt starts by explaining how her life took several difficult turns – when a relationship came to an upsetting end and she was then diagnosed with cancer. It was an understandably tough time for her and yet as Christmas approached she found her spirits lifting just a bit. She goes on to explain:
So I haven’t soured on the holidays, however—and I will not give up on Christmas—for two reasons.
First: long before my heart was broken and I lost my hair to chemo, I learned to shape the holidays to fit into whatever-shaped hole is in my heart.
At times, this has required ingenuity and vigilance. The holidays, laden as they are with traditions and sacred cows, can pull us into programmed ruts rather than genuine wonder. To ask, What do I truly need? and How can I claim my longing for joy? can happen only when we allow ourselves to practice vulnerability and take mindful pauses.
The other reason I won’t give up on Christmas is its central message: the Holy will never give up on us, her people. In fact, from Hanukkah to Solstice, that’s the message of most winter holy days: the Holy—call it God, call it The Force, call it Love’s Impulse—will never give up on us, even when we feel like curling up in a dark room and revoking our membership in the human family.
If I believe that your love will never let us go, I imagine saying to the Great All That Is, the least I can do is be your spy on the ground. I’ll keep watch for love, for compassion, for magic, for awe; and I’ll report back regularly, just to feel close to you.
Every one of you, Sugar Plums, has a story about the holiday blues: crisis, loneliness, wanting to give up. Telling our stories helps restore our wholeness. Tell yours. While you’re at it, form a plan for the coming weeks so that on the other side of this winter, you can look back and say, “Here’s how I made it gentler on myself, and here’s where I remembered that love will show itself, again and again.”
Her reading ends with this short prayer: ‘You reveal yourself to us in myriad ways, O Gentlest of Ways, and at this time of the year you remind us that you’ll never turn away from us. Whether our hearts are merry or miserable, may our longing keep turning us toward you, and toward the presence of your Love among us.
Music for Meditation played by Peter Crockford
Words for Meditation: ‘For Joy’ by Jan Richardson
Let’s settle ourselves now for a few meditative minutes. This short poem is written by someone called Jan Richardson, a Methodist minister in the States who combines her love of art and poetry in a really excellent, deeply spiritual blog. I so appreciate people who put their creative offerings online for the rest of us to find. In this piece she’s talking about the kind of joy in life that arrives and takes us by surprise – it’s not a joy we can prepare for, or protect ourselves from. I think of it as the joy of love – arriving without conditions, without expectations – the love that doesn’t ask anything of us and yet it asks everything for our hearts must open and we must become vulnerable. Let’s prepare ourselves for a quiet time – we’ll hold a couple of minutes in silence together after this short reading, so let’s get comfy, maybe soften our gaze or close our eyes, take one of those lovely calming breaths deep into our being and releasing some of life’s tensions as we breathe out, enjoying the feeling of resting upon the earth, aware of feet upon the floor and bodies in chairs or resting on sofas at home. It’s good to rest in company one with another.
Jan Richardson writes thus about joy:
You can prepare
but still
it will come to you
by surprise
crossing through your doorway
calling your name in greeting…
it will astonish you
how wide your heart
will open
in welcome
for the joy
that finds you
so ready
and still so
unprepared.
—Jan Richardson, in “For Joy”
Let us be together in silence.
Silence: Silence ending with a chime from our bell.
Address: ‘What’s Needed Now’ by Rev. Sarah Tinker
It feels a bit daft to be standing here about to tell you how to create your own Christmas – because you’ll already be well used to doing that I imagine. But sometimes being reminded can be helpful – I hope that’s the case for you this morning – and if not –well why not just ignore me and think your own happy thoughts – return to some favourite memories.
The key message of today’s service is that it’s ok for us to create the kind of winter time we want. We can ignore Christmas or put on the biggest display of lights ever seen in the streets where we live. We can plan a fine feast or eat beans on toast. We can enjoy singing carols or mutter bah humbug. We can buy marvellous or frugal gifts for others or ourselves – or not. It’s good to take some time to ask ourselves – what is it that we need now?
Some of us may find deep meaning in the Nativity story of the birth of Jesus – others prefer to mark the changing of the seasons on the winter solstice – the longest night, midwinter.
It’s ok for us in our Unitarian communities to make up our own minds about the Nativity, just as it’s ok for us to make up our own minds about every other aspect of our spiritual and religious lives. You’ll find such a wide range of diverse beliefs in a congregation like this. For some of us the story of a vulnerable baby born in adverse circumstances being recognised by shepherds, angels and wise ones as the child of God is a very important aspect of our faith. Others may not have any conventional belief in God at all. Some of us find our strongest expressions of spiritual connection in the natural world of our planet earth home. It takes allsorts to be a Unitarian doesn’t it.
I remember as a teenager studying Religious Education for A level – being delighted by our teacher who pointed out that it really was alright to question the historical truth of the birth of Jesus. She knew that the birth narratives that feel so familiar to us from the Gospels were written down a long time after the event and were embellished at various times. We have before us here today my knitted Nativity scene – a gift from a fellow minister who felt sorry for me here in Kensington where we haven’t had a Nativity scene on display in recent years. So they asked a congregation member to knit it for me and it arrived in the post early one December, in this marvellous bag – complete with other knitted Christmas symbols. Us ministers do occasionally suffer from congregation envy but I never dared tell them that the donkey and cattle are a medieval addition. Nor that the entire Nativity narrative only appears around 300 years after baby Jesus’ alleged birth.
So for me the birth story is mythic rather than historical – which takes nothing away from it, so far as I’m concerned. It remains far too powerful a story, in which strength and fragility are inverted. And its imagery of a poor family seeking shelter in a stable and avoiding a tyrannical ruler – that echoes the stories of refugees to this day doesn’t it.
So we are free I reckon to interpret this mythic story in our own way and we are equally free to create the whole season in a way that is meaningful for us.
On your hymn sheet, (and at the end of this script) there are ten questions that might guide us in designing this so-called festive season as a time that can enrich rather than crush us. Do take these away with you to think about later. We used these questions in a course called Step into Christmas some years ago with Kensington Unitarians – and what surprised us then was just how strongly some people felt about Christmas traditions. ‘This is how we always do it’ etc etc. Some people were happy with how they’d already created their own Christmas but others were ready for a change.
One person I remember decided they did not want to do anything about Christmas that year and managed to ignore it altogether – to their great satisfaction. They were fed up with advertisers showing perfect families, all happy and joyful. That didn’t ring true for that person. They were fed up with feeling obliged to give and receive presents when they had all they needed but didn’t want to add to the stuff that many of us are surrounded by.
Others in the group had suffered life’s inevitable losses of partners, friends, family or neighbours – and doesn’t a time like Christmas bring back memories of happier times. Sometimes really painfully. These losses need acknowledging and honouring before we can perhaps take a step beyond, knowing that life is forever changing. Nothing can stay the same.
And most of all, this work of examining Christmas and deciding what matters most to us, allows us space to create a time that is meaningful for us – to sing the old songs and carols that speak to our hearts, to treasure precious memories, to seek out the people or the places that will help warm our hearts, to do what feels right for us. Then we have touched a deeper part of life way beyond consumerism’s frenzied messages. Then we’ll truly have discovered what’s needed now.
Hymn 117 (HfL): ‘Joyful, Joyful, we Adore Thee’
Today’s closing hymn is sung to a tune you’ll probably recognise as Beethoven’s Ode to Joy and indeed these hymn words speak of joy – the kind of joy that arrives sometimes despite everything – the joy of a kindly stranger’s intervention, or a card received unexpectedly – reminding us someone is thinking of us; the joy of a bird song on a cold day or the scampering of a squirrel. Let’s sing if we so wish and think of our sources of winter joy.
Joyful, joyful, we adore thee,
God of glory, God of love;
Hearts unfold like flowers before thee,
Hail thee as the sun above!
Field and forest, vale and mountain,
Blooming meadow, flashing sea,
Chanting bird and flowing fountain
Call us to rejoice in thee.
Thou art giving and forgiving,
Ever blessing, ever blest,
Well-spring of the joy of living,
Ocean depth of happy rest!
Thou our Parent, Christ our Brother,
All who live in love are thine;
Teach us how to love each other,
Lift us to the joy divine.
Mortals join the mighty chorus,
Which the morning stars recall;
Parent love is reigning o’er us,
Kindred love binds each to all.
Ever singing, march we onward,
Victors in the midst of strife;
Joyful music lifts us sunward
In the triumph song of life.
Announcements:
Thanks to Ramona and Jeannene for tech-hosting and Charlotte for co-hosting. Thanks to Juliet for reading and to Peter Crockford for playing for us. For those of you who are at church in-person, we’ll be serving warm drinks and biscuits after the service, if you want to stay and chat. We would really appreciate having more hands on deck with these and other volunteering tasks so please do have a word if you might be able to help us out in the coming months. There will be virtual coffee on Zoom with Charlotte too so do hang around for a chat.
We have various small group activities for people to meet up in the days and weeks ahead. Coffee morning is online at 10.30am Wednesday. You’re welcome to join Jane’s Heart and Soul gatherings (online Sunday/Friday at 7pm) and this week’s theme is ‘Creativity’. Details of these activities and all our events are on the back of the order of service and also in the Friday email.
Looking further ahead – our main Christmas carol service will be on Sunday 18th December – and we’ll have a quartet of singers on that day – so do feel free to bring friends who’d like a singalong. That Sunday will be a bit of a festival of singing as Margaret’s singing class will be straight after the service at noon and then Marilisa’s ‘Many Voices’ singing group are on from 1.30pm. There’ll also be our traditional candlelit carol service at 5pm on Christmas Eve – let Jane Blackall know if you’re planning to be there so they can get the chairs out – and Heidi has kindly offered to organise dinner at the Mall Tavern, the pub across the road, after that service for anyone who’d like to join her – so please do get in touch with Heidi ASAP so she can book up. The West London Green Spirit group are holding their annual Winter Solstice gathering on Wednesday 21st December – this is an afternoon gathering – meeting at 1pm for a shared lunch and the group running from 2-4pm – get in touch if you want to join us.
Jane is offering a workshop on New Year’s Eve – an online mini-retreat from 2-5pm – where you can reflect on the turning of the year. Drop her an email if you want to sign up for that. All are welcome so tell your friends.
The congregation very much has a life beyond Sunday mornings; we encourage you to keep in touch, look out for each other, and do what you can to nurture supportive connections.
Let’s ready ourselves now for our closing words and closing music now.
Closing Blessing: ‘The work of Christmas … to make music in the heart’ by Howard Thurman
‘When the song of the angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When the shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
To find the lost,
To heal the broken,
To feed the hungry,
To release the prisoner,
To rebuild the nations,
To bring peace to our world,
To make music in the heart.’
— from The Mood of Christmas by Howard Thurman
Amen, go well everyone in the weeks ahead and blessed be.
Closing Music: played by Peter Crockford
Additional Resource: ‘Ten Steps to a Better Christmas’ (based on work by Don Southworth)
- Decide what elements need to be there for this Christmas to have genuine meaning for you.
- Clarify the religious / spiritual significance of this season for you.
- Return to, or establish, some simple traditions that have meaning for you.
- Avoid doing anything out of a sense of duty or that is tinged with resentment, or that you would just rather not do.
- Acknowledge all your feelings and allow them to be. In particular, create space to grieve and to acknowledge loss or change in your life
- Give other people the right to their own feelings that may be different from yours.
- Be aware of your regrets from the past and yearnings for the future and then allow yourself to be in the present moment as much as you can.
- Monitor your expectations, especially the unfulfilled ones. Let go of past disappointments and allow the new, and unknown, to emerge.
- Ask for what you want or get it yourself if you can.
- Do something for others and do something with others.
Rev. Sarah Tinker
11th December 2022
