On Sunday, I am service leader at my UU fellowship, working with the minister on a service about Solstice and Christmas. I have long wanted to talk about Christmas and the traditional Nativity story in the context of my UU'ism so for my part of the service, I am offering the following reflection. The reflection in our service is an opportunity for the service leader to offer their own thoughts on the theme of the service. It is generally shorter than a sermon (maybe 5 minutes). This is a draft (in fact, I even did mild tweaking as I posted it on here) but pretty close to where I want to go with it. Given my propensity for preaching off the cuff and going off script, the final product will likely be different and I may post an updated version if it changes substantially.

We open by lighting the Chalice, symbol of the UU faith:

We light this flame

To break through the darkness

Of the longest night

To bring Hope for Peace and Love Into the world

Amen

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The traditional Christian Christmas story, The Nativity, is read in many ways.

It can be about God being incarnated in the world.

It can be about "The Word made flesh"; God's Will given form in a human life

It can be about the birth of a Saviour who will free the world from sin's tyranny

It can be about a Messiah, anointed by God to lead His people to liberation

It can be about the birth of a great prophet, come to lead people back to God's way

It all depends on your beliefs, your theology; how you understand God and our place in the world.

I have come, over years of celebrating and thinking about the story, to see it as a powerful myth about Hope coming into the world.

That we celebrate it at Solstice time, when other traditions also celebrate Hope and Light returning in various ways and forms only reinforces that message even if there is no evidence the events described originally happened at, or had anything to do with, Solstice.

In The Nativity, that Hope is symbolized in the Christ Child, but is really a sign of the Hope that comes into the world with each new birth; each new generation.

Hope that we will finally achieve the angel's wish for "Peace on Earth, Goodwill among people"

Hope that a (any) child may grow up to make the world a better place; a "Kingdom of God" in Christian terms.

Hope for whatever we understand by "salvation" whether it is being saved from Sin or from fear or just from the greed and injustice that lurks in the world (which is, indeed, what I would think of as "Sin").

Why birth as the symbol of Hope coming into the world?

The birth of a child engenders Hope on many levels.

For the parents and family, the birth offers the Hope that the family will go on for another generation, maybe prosper and have a better life.

For the community, the birth offers the hope that the new generation will take their parents' place in building, maintaining, and growing the community; the hope that the next generation can make it a better place to live

For the species, the birth offers the hope that evolution goes on; that a new generation may bring new adaptations and opportunities

Birth offers and inspires hope in so many ways that it is really a natural symbol for the coming of Hope into the world

Now, our theme this month, however, is not just Hope, but Courage. Hope and Courage are linked, perhaps inextricably,and this plays a part in the story of The Nativity.

Hope and Courage inspire one another.

Seeing Courage in action can inspire Hope

Having Hope can inspire us to Courage

In the Christmas story, the coming of Hope represented by the birth of the Christ child inspires Courage in many places

Mary, a young woman confronted with an unexpected pre-marital pregnancy, gains Courage from the promise of the Hope her child will bring to the world.

Joseph, her husband-to-be, dealing with his own doubts at the news, gains similar Courage from his own angelic vision of Hope

The shepherds in Luke, though frightened by their own angelic vision, take Courage from the angel's message promising that The Messiah, the long watched for Hope of the Jewish people, has been born, and seek out the promised child.

The wise men in Matthew's version of the story courageously refuse Herod's directive to tell him of the location of the child, instead slipping away home to leave the king enraged at their. They could not let the Hope fall to Herod's jealousy.

Finally, Mary & Joseph take their newborn to a strange land in order to protect him. In an age when few other than soldiers, merchants, and Imperial officials ever left their hometown, let alone their homeland, a sudden, unplanned flight to a foreign land, however close by, would have taken immense courage.

It is, of course, all a story. I do not, for one minute, believe that very many of the details in either Gospel account of the Nativity are literally true. It seems likely that, if Jesus existed (and I believe he did), Jesus' parents were named Joseph and Mary. Perhaps he was even born in Bethlehem, though it is equally likely he was born in Nazareth, his probable hometown.

The rest, to my eye, is myth-making. It is using traditional symbols (angelic visions, stars as omens of special events, and others) to make some points about Jesus and how the gospel writers saw his place in the world. It is not, then, a literal, biographical account of a birth, but a powerful story of Hope coming into the world, symbolized in the birth of Christ; which inspires Courage in those who are part of or a witness to that coming of Hope.

Of course, there are countless stories throughout time of how Hope and Courage work together. We have just seen the end of the one of the best such stories: that of Nelson Mandela.

Mandela's courage in confronting injustice;

In keeping the flame alive, and even growing in his vision, through 27 years as a prisoner of that injustice;

In emerging from that prison ready to take his country into a new era;

Inspired Hope, not just in the anti-apartheid movement, but in their supporters worldwide and in similar movements in other lands around the world.

That Hope, in turn, inspired Courage in those who witnessed it helping lead to a new South Africa and to renewed courage in other liberation movements.

And that Hope and Courage did not die with Nelson Mandela. They live on as others learn and take heart, take courage, take hope from his story.

At Christmas time, then, I do not see the celebration as being about the birth of one child in one land in 4 or 6 or whatever BCE.

I see a celebration of the birth of how Hope is born into a dark and sometimes hopeless world; Hope that comes with each birth; Hope given form as the mythological Christ Child who is born to fulfill the dreams and aspirations of the world.

But it is also time to see, and to celebrate, the Courage that the coming of Hope into our lives and our world inspires. We see this in the courage shown by the parents and the various visitors as they respond to the vision of Hope. We see this time and time again in lives like that of Mandela or Mahatma Gandhi, or Martin Luther King Jr.

Without both Hope and Courage, it seems unlikely to me that we will ever see the world of the angel song in Luke’s account of the First Christmas.

"Peace on Earth; Goodwill among humanity; With whom The Divine is pleased"

Amen