UU Society of Cleveland

December 24, 2007

Christmas Homily

by Rev. Colin Bossen

In our kitchen Sara and I have the "Autonomedia Calendar of Jubilee Saints" which proudly proclaims "Every Day a Holiday!" Each day is married to a jubilee saint for whom the calendar offers a pithy description. The jubilee saint for Christmas is, as is only natural, Jesus and the calendar describes him as "persecuted leader of an underground liberation movement, jubilator, social radical, martyr, son of God." The description is a bit cheeky but for a fourteen word biography I do not think it a bad one.

Tonight's service is about Jesus. We are here to celebrate the birth of Jesus. That almost seems like an incongruous statement for a Unitarian Universalist congregation. While many of us do not consider ourselves Christian this evening is the time we come closest to our Christian roots. Each year at this time we tell and re-tell the story of the birth of the Jewish rabbi and carpenter who many people believe to be the Messiah.

It is a story that we are all familiar with. A young mother-to-be, pregnant out of wedlock, travels to Bethlehem with her new husband so that he may pay a war tax to Rome. When they reach Bethlehem Mary starts labor and Joseph, her husband, is unable find his family housing anywhere but in a stable. Mary gives birth to the baby Jesus and as she does so there is a cosmic cacophony, a brilliant and nonseasonal star shines, angels appear and the heavenly host proclaims the birth of the Messiah. Jesus and his family receive unexpected visitors--shepherds and wise men--and everyone announces that the kid has a really bright future.

The story is undoubtedly a myth. The earliest Gospel, the book of Mark, makes no mention of Jesus' birth. Its' only references to his family seem to indicate that he was estranged from them. The writings of the apostle Paul, the earliest texts in the Christian New Testament, likewise offer little about the birth story and early life of Jesus. What Paul does have to say about the matter seems at the least to be ambiguous and at the most to directly contradict the story of Mary's virgin birth.

What's more Christmas itself is a holiday that did not come about until at least two centuries after the death of Jesus. In fact, the holiday we celebrate is the result of the grafting of Christian theology onto older pagan traditions. The choice of December 25th as the birth of Jesus comes from the Roman holiday of Dies Natalis Solis Invicti or birth of the unconquered sun, a pagan solstice celebration that was held on that date. When the Roman state switched from pagan to Christian it simply transformed a previously pagan holiday into a Christian one. Many cultures have solstice celebrations around this time of year, there appears to be an almost primal need to celebrate the return of the sun after the shortest day of the year, and some aspects of our Christmas celebrations find their origins among pagan practices. Christmas trees, for instance, have their roots among the pre-Christian Germanic tribes.

The pagan origins of the Christmas holiday have not escaped the notice of some Christians. Oliver Cromwell in Puritan England actually went so far as to ban the holiday. For the Puritans in Massachusetts it was a crime to observe Christmas for about twenty years between the late 1650s and the early 1680s. Even today a few Christian sects such as the Jehovah Witnesses either frown upon and do not celebrate Christmas or celebrate it in a greatly reduced form without Christmas trees or Santa Claus.

All of this begs the question: What are we doing here tonight? We have gathered for the celebration of the birth of the primary figure of a religion many of us do not identify with, on a day that was almost certainly not his birthday and in manner which he might not have approved of, Jesus was somewhat dismissive of religious ritual. Basically, I see our celebration of Christmas as having three different, not necessarily contradictory, elements. First, we have gathered because like much of humanity we have an innate need to mark the end of the sun's diminishing. Christmas, with it's tree lights, candles and yuletide fires, takes place when the nights are longest and the sun is the dimmest. At such a time it is good to break nature's gloom with warmth, laughter and light.

Second, we are here because Unitarian Universalism is a post-Christian Protestant tradition. With our rich heritage in the heretical Christian movements of Unitarianism and Universalism is unthinkable that we not mark the holiday. Many of the members of our community come from a background other than Unitarian Universalist and there is a need to have a place to come with familiar traditions and rituals at this time of year even if those rituals and traditions are regarded as cultural rather than religious.

Third, we are here to celebrate Jesus, one of history's most perplexing and inspiring figures. Jesus is a man of whom we know almost nothing about. The four canonical gospels--Mark, Matthew, Luke and John--were all written at least a generation after his death and offer us scant real biographical information. The few things we do know we with relative certainty about him can probably be summed up in a paragraph. Jesus was a religious and social radical. He was a great teacher whose beliefs and actions ran counter to those of the prevailing Jewish and Roman authorities of his day. He affiliated with people of all classes, be they prostitute or rich merchant. He died when he was only in his early thirties and had very short career as a public figure. He was executed by the Roman authorities as a political dissident. Pretty much anything else that someone might claim to know about Jesus is largely a matter of speculation.

The core of Jesus's teachings, as far as I can discern them, remain as radical today as they did in his own time. We are to treat our neighbors as ourselves, forgive those who wrong us, practice non-violence and work to build the Kingdom of God on earth. That last part is just a fancy way of saying that we should try to create a world in which there is justice and peace for all of humanity. Jesus believed that we could create such a world today in our hearts when he said "for behold, the kingdom of God is within you."

And so we have gathered in fellowship on this convoluted and complicated holiday to celebrate the return of the sun, relish rituals and traditions and lift up one of humanity's great moralists. It is time now to prepare the way for another Christmas. It is time to celebrate with family and friends. May the light of the season enter into your hearts and help you kindle a flame for another year.

Merry Christmas.