By the Rev. Melanie Morel-Ensminger
First Unitarian Universalist Church of New Orleans
Sunday, December 2, 2007
In many Christian churches, the traditional Christmas Eve liturgy is called “Lessons and Carols.” In this sense, a lesson is a reading from scripture. But it led me to think about what we religious liberals can learn from the different but related holidays of the season, and so, this service begins a series of 10 services for the winter holidays, lifting up some lessons to be learned. Next Sunday, we will look at Hanukkah and learn the story of how the Christmas tree came to be, and we’ll trim the church tree.
On Saturday, December 15, there will be a very special Saturday evening service shared with our UU sisters and brothers in GNOUU, the Greater New Orleans UUs, and our guest speaker will be none other than Charles Dickens himself, in the person of the Rev. Roger Brewin. Please invite your friends and family to join us for this Victorian celebration, and if you’re in the mood, feel free to dress in the style of the late 1800s. The next morning, December 16, we’ll learn some ways to cope with the holiday blues.
On December 23, in honor of Yule, the rebirth of the sun at the Winter Solstice, we will look at what can be learned from darkness, and we’ll also hold a dedication of infants and parents. Please contact me or the church office if you’d like your family to be a part of the dedication in that service, if your child has not yet been dedicated.
Then comes Monday, December 24th and we will celebrate Christmas Eve with 2 services: a 5:30 pm Unitarian Universalist Communion of Peace, and a 7 pm Family Service with a children’s nativity tableau and special music. Both services will end with a candle lighting ritual. In between, there will be an Open House with hot wassail and Christmas goodies. Bring your family and friends and show them how we UUs keep Christmas.
On December 30th, we will hold a Jazz Funeral for the Old Year with a brass band. 2007 has been quite a year, and this service will help us to enter the year with lighter hearts. The holiday series continues on January 6th with a service on the lessons of evolution, and will end on January 13th with a service on the journey of the Magi, after which we will enjoy kingcake at Coffeehour. (And you know what happens if you get the baby!)
This morning’s service looks at Advent. For Christians, it is a time of waiting and quiet reflection before Christmas; it symbolizes the long period of anticipation for the coming of the Christ. For many children, Advent is the countdown to the presents on Christmas, and there are lots of Advent calendars families can use to make waiting easier on little ones.
Waiting is the lesson of Advent, and like everything else in life, it has the potential to be either good or bad. Sometimes waiting can be positive. The old adage, “Good things come to those who wait” – said to many of us as impatient children by our grandparents or parents – became a common saying because it is often true. Some things can’t be rushed. No matter what you do or what you want, babies take 9 months, seedlings take 2-3 weeks, bread takes 45 minutes to rise, a turkey takes at least 3 hours to cook, and houses and churches take how long they take to be built or rebuilt – and it’s always longer than you hoped or wanted.
But other times waiting is the wrong thing to do. If your toddler is wandering off in a mall parking lot, for instance, or if your kitchen catches fire while you are preparing your holiday dinner, waiting would not be a good thing. In the classic story by Arnold Lobel, Toad glumly waits for a friendly letter to come in the mail – even though his best friend Frog is right there in front of him. In the story by UU minister Robert Fulghum, a young American woman sobs in the
Unitarian Universalism has always been a religion of action, not of words, not even of meditation and prayer, although of course many UUs do meditate or pray. Our historic watchword has long been, “Deeds, not creeds.” We UUs follow orthopraxy (right behavior), not orthodoxy (right thinking). Waiting is a form of inaction, and as such is not comfortable for most Unitarian Universalists. Waiting can even be harmful, especially when immediate action is called for.
The young woman in the Fulghum story had everything she needed to move on, but she didn’t know it. She was stuck, overcome with powerful negative emotions that glued her to her seat; she felt helpless and lost and confused and sad. So she sat and waited and sobbed and mourned her situation. If she had gotten up off her chair, she would have discovered that it was in her power to get where she wanted to go. No one was preventing her from getting there, she was stopping herself. She was sitting on her ticket.
Waiting. Right now, this very minute, approximately 12,000 homeless New Orleanians wait under I-10 on Claiborne Avenue, in the large encampment in front of City Hall in Duncan Plaza, and who knows where else in the city, waiting for decent basic homes to live in. Every single homeless shelter in the metro area is full, overfull, turning away people every day. Most public housing is closed and slated for demolition. Many of the homeless have jobs, but cannot afford the higher rents post-Katrina; many more of them worked before the storm but cannot in their present situation find employment. The weather will eventually turn colder, and city officials speak publicly of “getting rid” of the homeless, and “cleaning up”
Many important matters are still unattended in our city including the perplexing problem of homelessness. Somebody might ask why these problems remain unsolved.… It’s all a matter of deploying ourselves and our institutions, public and private, to address the need. When you think of the homeless in our great city, think this: they’re waiting on you. [Times-Picayune, 11/07]
Waiting. In our congregational situation, waiting would also be wrong. There is so much to be done in our church and in our city that it is easy to feel overwhelmed and over-powered, and not get started. But start we must. With a task this enormous, I am reminded of the old joke about how to eat a whale – one bite at a time.
There is important work to be done right now in our church, and there is no rea-son to wait. The faithful, faith-filled work of coming together as a congregation cannot wait, and must be done now. We can’t wait for our building to be finished before we resume fellowship and social justice work. We must knit our community together, and not just through shared worries and fears and long To Do lists, but also with fun and food, like true New Orleanians. We must gather more regularly for meals and game nights; we need to have more fun together. We must restart small groups who will meet regularly, to share our beliefs and dreams and what gives our lives meaning. All the myriad things that must be done for our building can be broken down into small, manageable tasks that we can accomplish together. We must find or develop the kinds of social justice activities that engage the hearts and energies of our congregation. With so much to be done, and fewer people than the church has had in a long time, it can be very hard to get ourselves in gear. But we must not succumb to the temptation to “sit on our ticket.” Some decisions will be made in their own time and cannot be rushed, but we already have everything we need to move ahead on some things right now. Waiting would be wrong.
In every UU church I have served in 15 years of ministry, there are always 1 or 2 or 3 individuals whose commitment to the church is undeniable and admirable, but whose interpersonal behavior is problematic, either because they are too territorial about their area of church work, or because their tempers are unpredictable and explosive. Many times, lay leaders won’t address the situation. They wait – hoping someone else will say something, hoping the problem will go away on its own. (Hint: this almost never happens.) By waiting, leaders seem to condone the behavior. New folks get their feelings hurt or feel shut out, and leave the church. Waiting is not usually a good leadership strategy.
On my way to church this morning, WWOZ played a gospel version of the old reggae ballad, “Sitting Here in Limbo.” For Christians, Advent can feel like limbo, a 4-week period of not-Christmas. For New Orleanians, where we are right now is like limbo – not-Katrina, but not-recovery either. We can take comfort and strength form the words of the song: “Meanwhile, they’re putting up resistance, but I know that my faith will lead me on.”
Several years ago, in the newsletter of the Church of the Larger Fellowship, then-seminarian Eliza Blanchard wrote a short Advent meditation:
For Christians, [Advent] calls for reflection as well as joyful anticipation, since the infant they await represents redemption, salvation in the hereafter.
For those of us focused on bringing about salvation in the here and now, the season offers us the opportunity to ask: What are we waiting for? There is no one anticipated event that we expect will save the world.…
During this season, we may rest for a while in the glow of holiday lights, but we do not wait. We will not stop working for all to share life’s blessings. We light our lights, pick an avenue for change, and work in the world, knowing we have the power to make it a better place.
You know those holiday commercials that urge you to buy right now, saying: “Don’t delay! Operators are standing by!” Well, don’t pay any attention to the commercial materially, but let’s take those words to heart spiritually. Act now! We already have the power. We don’t have to wait – there is work to be done in our city and in our church and in our lives, and there is no reason to wait. There is no one anticipated event that we expect will come to save the day or the church or the city or the world. It’s up to you, to us. Your family needs you, the church needs you, the city needs you, the world needs you. They are waiting on you and me. So don’t delay! Get up off your ticket! So might this be! AMEN – ASHE – SHALOM – SALAAM – NAMASTE – BLESSED BE!
