BY LYNN UNGAR, MINISTER FOR LIFESPAN LEARNING, CHURCH OF THE LARGER FELLOWSHIP
It’s pretty common for people who are not Unitarian Universalists to ask about how we celebrate holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. “How can you celebrate Christmas,” they ask, “if you don’t believe that Jesus was the only Son of
God, that God took on human form in that little baby?” It’s a good question, really.
There’s something kind of creepy about sucking up religious holidays when you don’t really relate to much about the religion, or know what the holiday means, or how the holiday is traditionally celebrated. For instance, when I was a teenager I used to go to Christmas Eve services at a Unitarian Universalist church where they always lit the Chanukah menorah—always all eight candles, regardless of what night of Chanukah it was, or even if Chanukah was already over that year. It bugged me. It still bugs me when I see that kind of thing. If you can’t be bothered to find out the real meanings and traditions of a holiday, don’t just put it on for show.
Except…there isn’t anyone who has the exact right definition of what the real meaning and the real tradition of a holiday is. Take Chanukah, for instance. Maybe you know the story of Judah Maccabee leading the Jewish people in a revolt against the Syrian government, which had taken over their country and was forcing the Jews to practice the Syrian religion. It’s a good story, with exciting battles and the underdog appeal of a little band of rebels managing to strike a blow for religious freedom. But it’s not a story that’s even in the Hebrew Bible—the Book of Maccabees is kind of an add-on, one of the bits of religious text that didn’t make it into the official Hebrew Bible. (There are lots of bits of religious text that didn’t make it into the Christian Bible either.) And the really good part of the story, the part where the Jews come back to rebuild their Temple that has been destroyed, and find only a little bit of oil to light their sacred flame, but that oil burns for eight days until more oil can be produced to keep the sacred light burning? That part of the story isn’t even in the Book of Maccabees. That part came along quite a bit later, in the book of writings by important rabbis called the Talmud.
So what’s the real story? What’s the real holiday?
What’s the real story of Christmas? The story from the Book of Luke, with Mary and Joseph coming to Bethlehem, and Mary giving birth in the barn because there was no room at the inn, and the angels and the shepherds and everything—that story never says that Jesus was God in the form of a baby. The angels in the story tell the shepherds that the baby in the manger is a savior, that he is specially chosen to make things right for humanity, but there’s nothing in that story about Jesus being God in human form, or even Jesus being the son of God. Those ideas got added later.
And don’t get me started about the real way to celebrate the winter solstice, or Kwanzaa. The winter solstice is such an ancient celebration that no one knows how people honored it thousands of years ago, and Kwanzaa was invented start-to-finish by one man about 40 years ago. If Dr. Karenga can make up a holiday, why can’t you?
I guess what I’m saying is, it comes down to my favorite line from the Christmas story in Luke that I was talking about. After all the craziness with giving birth in a stable and angels making proclamations and shepherds coming to see the baby and everything—after all that the story says: “But Mary kept all these things, pondering them in her heart.” I think maybe that’s the key to the right way to celebrate a holiday. You have to be willing to keep it by pondering it in your heart.
Maybe, like mine, your family never manages to get through all eight evenings of lighting the Chanukah candles—but somewhere in there you get a moment to think about what it takes to stick up for what you believe is true in the face of people who want to tear you down. Maybe, like me, you find it hard to believe that angels came down from the skies to make announcements to shepherds—but somewhere in the season you think for a minute about how maybe God is in every baby, and that all babies deserve to have complete strangers come to admire them and hope that they will make the world a radically better place. Maybe, like me, you tend to forget to notice the exact day when the night is longest and the day shortest—but on some clear, cold night you take a second to look up at the stars and treasure the things you can only see when it’s dark. Maybe, this holiday season, you’ll take a minute or two to ponder these things in your heart.
It’s pretty common for people who are not Unitarian Universalists to ask about how we celebrate holidays, especially Christmas and Easter. “How can you celebrate Christmas,” they ask, “if you don’t believe that Jesus was the only Son of
Maybe, like mine, your family never manages to get through all eight evenings of lighting the Chanukah candles—but somewhere in there you get a moment to think about what it takes to stick up for what you believe is true in the face of people who want to tear you down. Maybe, like me, you find it hard to believe that angels came down from the skies to make announcements to shepherds—but somewhere in the season you think for a minute about how maybe God is in every baby, and that all babies deserve to have complete strangers come to admire them and hope that they will make the world a radically better place. Maybe, like me, you tend to forget to notice the exact day when the night is longest and the day shortest—but on some clear, cold night you take a second to look up at the stars and treasure the things you can only see when it’s dark. Maybe, this holiday season, you’ll take a minute or two to ponder these things in your heart.