Mything the Holidays
A Sermon By The Rev. Susan Manker-Seale
December 18, 2005
“We consider bibles and religions divine—I do not say they are not divine; I say they have all grown out of you, and may grow out of you still; It is not they who give the life—it is you who give the life.”
-- Walt Whitman (659, Singing the Living Tradition)
Last night the entire western sky blazed with orange in one of those incredible sunsets Arizona is known for. We watched it from the top of our parking lot here, standing around the bonfire to celebrate the solstice. It wasn’t December 21, but Saturday nights are easier for many of us to gather with our children in this busy holiday season, and December 17 is, for several reasons, an appropriate day to remember our place in the universe, or rather, the solar system.
December 17 is when the ancient Romans began a wild party they called the “Saturnalia,” which lasted seven days. They celebrated it in honor of Saturn, who was the god of agriculture. Many of our Christmas traditions date back to this solstice party, traditions such as the giving of presents, Christmas candles, decorating with greenery, and coins in Christmas puddings.
If you haven’t read about the origins of Christmas, it’s a fun and fascinating journey and there are lots of books out there to enlighten you. I used The Christmas Almanac (1992, Oxford University Press) this year to find out more about the myths of Christmas and its origins in ancient solstice celebrations. For Christmas is a palimpsest of myth and tradition which calls us to peel back each layer to those which lie beneath as we search for deeper meanings than we can find in the malls or the many commercials on television, or even in the stories which have come down to us from our Christian heritage. Christmas still has meaning for those of us who no longer believe in virgin births or guiding stars.
The opening reading today, entitled “Why Not a Star?,” was written by Peg Gooding who was my Religious Education Director in the Phoenix church when I was growing up. (621, Singing the Living Tradition) She talks about how as a child she believed in the miracle of the star, and then, as she got older, the explanation of a supernova was easier to believe. But that didn’t take away the mystery and meaning of the star as a symbol to her, a symbol of the potential of every birth and every child to be as “uncommon” as that of Jesus or Buddha. As a Unitarian Universalist, she was able to live with both reason and myth, science and miracle, and allow the evolution of the meaning of this ancient tradition of Christmas.
It was on December 17, 1603, that the star was explained for those who wished to look deeper. It was the Imperial Mathematician and Astronomer Royale of the Holy Roman Empire, Johannes Kepler, who figured out the mystery – and it serves as another example of the Catholic church sponsoring scientific exploration. On December 17, the day the ancient Romans began to celebrate the god Saturn, Kepler observed the planet Saturn come together with Jupiter in a conjunction that appeared as one very bright star. He realized that this might be what the stories said the Magi had seen, and in doing further research, his astronomical calculations showed that there was a conjunction in 6 BC, the year Jesus is said to have more likely been born since that and the year 7 BC were when the Jewish historian, Josephus, had recorded the census happening which is mentioned in Luke. In more recent times, researchers believe the year was 7 BC, and a great conjunction did take place that year as well. (pp. 12-13, Almanac)
The supernova theory, which Peg mentioned, has been pretty much disproved since the only two references which could be supernovas occurred in 134 BC and AD 173. (p. 14, Almanac)
So, does the star still have meaning for you? Can we put the star on the top of the Christmas tree and appreciate its history and importance through the ages as a mystical, mythical symbol? Walt Whitman said, “All music is what awakes from you when you are reminded by the instruments.” (659) What does the star awake from you when you are reminded by its brilliance?
Another interesting thing about the conjunction of Saturn and Jupiter is that, to the Jewish astrologers of the day, Saturn was considered the protector of Israel, and Jupiter heralded the coming of the messiah. (p. 14) What fun to explore these meanings and events!
December 17 also marks the day Christmas was pretty much saved by a Unitarian. The Christmas Almanac describes Charles Dickens as “the man who made Christmas.” (p. 62) In 1843, after only two months of writing, A Christmas Carol was published on December 17. Almost two hundred years earlier, Christmas had been banned in England in 1644 by the Puritans, who, when they arrived in the New World, also passed a law in 1659 declaring “whosoever shall be found observing any such day as Christmas…shall pay 5 shillings as a fine.” The Puritans clearly saw the pagan roots of Christmas and rejected everything to do with it.
The banning of Christmas was actually short-lived, but due to the changing nature of society at the time and the increasing industrialization and condition of workers in the cities, the effects lasted almost two centuries—until Charles Dickens put his mind to the issue and wrote a story of social concern, a particularly Unitarian view of the holiday.
It was also Unitarian ministers such as Edmund Hamilton Sears who first wrote hymns uplifting a social message for Christmas. When my father was minister in the Wayland Unitarian church in Massachusetts, Rev. Sears’ descendents found in their attic the original score from 1849 for the beloved hymn we sang earlier, “It Came upon the Midnight Clear.” (244) So in the mid-nineteenth century, “Peace on the earth, to all good will” became the message of Christmas, a message to “hush the noise of battle strife, and hear the angels sing” paired with the hope that one day “the whole world [might] give back the song which now the angels sing.”
The Unitarian minister Theodore Chickering Williams, who served the Unitarian Church of All Souls in New York City in the late nineteenth century, wrote a hymn to acknowledge the transitions we were going through in understanding the Christmas stories not as truth but as metaphor. He wrote the hymn “In the Lonely Midnight,” my favorite hymn I think because my father chose it every Christmas and I learned to play it on the piano. Williams talks about angels singing “peace, good will” – again the evolving Unitarian influence on Christmas to uplift Jesus’ teachings rather than the stories created about him. But he goes on to acknowledge that though the “angels sing no more, love makes angel music on earth’s farthest shore,” and “though no heavenly glory meet your wondering eyes, love can make your dwelling bright as paradise.” Williams was telling his Unitarian parishioners, and the world, that in our changing understanding of the mythology of the Christian story, meaning still endured, and love was the message now. No angels, no heaven, but love sufficed to serve the world in the celebration of Christmas and in all days. Though there was no babe in the cradle, in other words, no longer a belief in the virgin birth and the nativity, “love will reign forever, though the proud world scorn,” and that “if you truly seek peace, Christ for you is born.” Like Whitman, who lived in those same days, the Christmas message becomes what awakes in you, whether by the music, the star, or the story. For many, that message is love.
It was also a Unitarian who brought back the shaman image of Santa Claus. Thomas Nast, who illustrated Clement C. Moore’s “The Night Before Christmas,” drew from his memories growing up in the Bavarian alps of a pagan winter holiday figure. Tony van Renterghem writes about When Santa Was a Shaman (1995), describing Santa Claus as a combination of this ancient pagan figure and the Christian St. Nicholas. But what is really amazing to me is that our image of Santa Claus, the one who sits in the mall and holds our children on his lap every year, was actually created in 1931 by Coca Cola for their advertising campaign to reach out to children—after they had removed the coke from the cola, of course! (p. 52)
I also discovered that one of the most popular songs of today’s Christmas, “Rudolph the Red-nosed Reindeer,” was a commercial creation as well. In 1939, Robert May wrote the poem for Montgomery Ward to give to children free; they gave away 2.4 million copies. Then in 1944, Gene Autry put the poem to music and the record was the second biggest-seller of all time, with over 300 versions and 80 million sold. (p. 102, Almanac)
So we celebrate a Coca Cola Santa and a Montgomery Ward Reindeer, ancient solstice practices of greens and fire, Roman gift-giving, and Christian stories of guiding stars and Jesus in the manger with “angels bending near the earth to touch their harps of gold” and where do we end up? We end up with what awakens within us, whether that be the messages of peace on earth or of love or of charity or some other of the many profound teachings just floating upon the earth waiting for us to reach out and bring them close. Like stars in the night, they hover, shining, waiting to guide us on this journey of life.
These messages and teachings, like stars, twinkle within the branches of the Christmas trees, and call to us within the carols and bells, but, you know, they aren’t really out there. They’re in here, in our own hearts, waiting to be awakened, if we listen, and appreciate the mystery and miracle that this ancient and ever-changing tradition holds, beneath layers of wrapping and tinsel, of family tradition and religious story, of years and years of evolution of a human society which cherishes myths and rituals and just plain fun.
Christmas has the power to heal us if we let it, in the same way that the meaning of these days comes from within. Healing is considered part of the Christmas tradition. When you enter a home and stand under a sprig of mistletoe, you are participating in that tradition. Mistletoe was called “omnia sanitatem” by the Druids, or “that which heals all.” It was used as a medicine, but also to heal hearts. Enemies were not allowed to fight if they encountered each other under a tree bearing mistletoe. And homes decorated with mistletoe would provide shelter and protection to anyone entering. Again, we have a pagan tradition which continues in our practices today. (Almanac, p. 5)
Of course, much of the reason Christmas is filled with pagan practices is that the Catholic church could not overcome the ingrained nature-oriented religious practices of the people they were hoping to convert, so the tactic was taken to overlay Christianity upon those ancient traditions, from the Saturnalia and the date the Church chose to celebrate Jesus’ birth, December 25, to the revelry and holly and fires and candles and gifts and Santa/shamans riding through the sky. Even the virgin birth has roots in earlier pagan stories.
I didn’t even talk about the Christmas Tree yet. It’s the ancient World Tree, the Tree of Life. Van Renterghem proposes that the tradition goes back 100,000 years to the making of fire, or even 800,000 years to the discovery of fire from trees struck by lightning, and the sacrifices early humans made to appease the gods for that discovery and power. (p. 9) He makes ritual connections between lightning, burning trees, burning logs, holy candles and great bonfires. It was believed that the tree contained the spirit of life which was released in the form of fire when it was hit by lightning. (p. 42) Another version of this image is Moses’ Burning Bush. (p. 4)
The Christmas tree in my living room holds much more mystery and meaning for me now as I sit and contemplate its ancient origins, and the colored lights are no longer just colored lights to enjoy, but reminders of the importance of fire to life and human evolution. They also twinkle like stars and remind me that hope is everywhere, and in here. Love is everywhere, and in here. When we embrace our heritage and open ourselves to the music that surrounds us, we can be healed. May your Christmas be merry. May your solstice be joyous. May you find what you seek, whether in your heart, or even in the farthest twinkling star, for, in reality, those are the same place, the place of love, the place of peace.
Unitarian Universalist Congregation of Northwest Tucson