Sermon

INTRODUCTION: In the late 1970s, while living and working in Pasadena, California, I began attending Neighborhood Unitarian Universalist Church. While there, I met a very caring and compassionate psychiatrist. He related a story that I want to share with you.

It seems that he was reared in the northern part of California, with its beautiful forests and statuesque trees. He said that one day when he was about 12, his father and he were out walking in the forests, when they stopped, and his father began to carve his initials on a tree. When he finished, he then carved his son’s. Afterwards, he remarked, “Someday, you can bring your son here and carve his initials.”

Sure enough, many years later, the psychiatrist and his son were in the same area. Only now he was the father, and he had his own 12-year-old son with him. He determined to try and find the exact tree on which he and his father had carved their initials so many years before.

He looked and looked without success. But when he was almost ready to give up, he found it. He put his hand on his son’s shoulder, and with some pride and emotion, he recalled the day that he and his own father had stood there carving their initials on that very tree.

As the psychiatrist related it, he said his son didn’t seem that impressed. Nonetheless, they proceeded to carve the son’s initials. Still, there was no response.

But as they were walking away, he said it happened. All on his own, his 12 year old said, “Dad, when I get married and have a son, I’m going to bring him up here. And I’ll carve his initials just like we did.”

The psychiatrist said tears came down his face when he realized that his son had gotten it. That whatever special connectedness there was about that event, it had in fact been passed on.

Some stories like that have a capacity to trigger very deep and very real emotions…especially when they tap into the primordial, ancient, and vestigial. The hope is that when they are passed on and retold to the present generation or future generations, they, too, will carry an insight much like my psychiatrist friend and his son experienced: We will have “got it.”

And that’s what we’re about here today, to “get it,” to remember the past, the past of Hanukkah, of which the annual observance starts this coming Tuesday evening, and lasts for eight days. It recalls a time almost 2,200 years ago, when our ancestors in faith, the Jews of ancient Israel, were occupied by Antiochus Epiphanes IV, whose great grand father was one of the four successors to Alexander the Great.

As you know, Alexander’s mission some 400 years before Jesus had not been simply to conquer the world militarily. Rather, he sought to bring Greek wisdom, Greek culture, Greek art, and Greek religion to the places he conquered. He felt he was a missionary for an enlightened understanding in the primitive worlds he invaded, a missionary for the holiness of beauty. He always carried Homer with him, and was taught personally by the great Aristotle.

And in the 200 or so years since Alexander had marched through Palestine, there had been a gradual accommodation by the Jews to the Greek way of doing things, and an assimilation of things Greek. Even the Torah, the document which contained all their rites and laws – what we know as Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy, the first five books of the King James bible – had been translated from the Hebrew into Greek, because so many Jews now, not only spoke, but read Greek.

But there was still a substantive core of Jews, who felt strongly that their identity and their uniqueness were tied into their system of traditional Jewish worship. Without it, they felt, they were no different than all the other Semitic tribes in the area. For example:

n Instead of worshipping many gods, who were related to crops and weather and certain kinds of fortune or misfortune, the ancient Jews worshipped only one god.

n Whereas other tribes erected images of their gods, the Jews said, God has no body or form. God is everywhere.

n When they came to the temple, they sacrificed their finest to their god. (That was not so primitive, if viewed from the perspective of Christians today who include the principle of blood sacrifice in their worship, by labeling Jesus as “the lamb slain from the foundation of the world.” It continues in the practice of Holy Communion in which the wine and bread are the real presence or representative of the blood and body sacrifice of Jesus.)

When conflict broke out between those supporting the Greek Jewish way and the traditional Jewish way, Antiochus Epiphanes IV sided with those favoring the Greek way and war ensued. As a finishing and insulting touch, he had his armies march into the sacred confines of the Holy of Holies in the Jewish temple in Jerusalem, and smear pig wastes and pig grease on the sacred altar – the most despicable act possible.

A rural priest named Judas Maccabee said, “That’s it. We’ve had enough.” And though he was only one man and one family, the Maccabees, he and his sons began to foment a revolution. Soon the entire nation was involved in a bloody battle with the far superior forces of Syria. Though hard to believe, Israel was victorious. The powerful Syrians relented. And tiny Israel reclaimed its religious ways and practices.

One of their most sacred tasks now was to cleanse the temple that had been defiled. In the neglect that had occurred, all of the candles with their cruises of kosher oil had been burned up and not replaced – except for one candle that was still burning. But it did not have enough oil to last more than a day, and it took eight days to make kosher oil. Nonetheless, they went about their tasks of purifying and cleansing the temple. And when they came back the second day, expecting the temple to be dark and dim, miraculously, that one little candle was still burning. The third day, the same thing. The next day, again. The candle lasted eight days – the exact time it took to make new, kosher oil.

And that miracle – the miracle of the candle that kept on burning – combined with the incredible victory of the Maccabees over the army of King Antiochus Epiphanes IV, became the story of Hanukkah, which we join in commemorating on this Sunday before Hanukkah begins, this coming Tuesday evening.

Our task here in remembering this extra-biblical event is much like that of my psychiatrist friend and his son. It is to go back and experience that time, with the hope and expectation that we will get it…that we will understand some of what was at stake in that ancient struggle.

Of course I’m aware as I retell this story to Unitarian Universalists, most will probably think: Huh! I don’t believe it. Didn’t happen! A one day candle supply doesn’t last eight days.

It’s like my son, Brett. When he was six or so, I took him to the circus. One of the acts featured some highly trained bears, doing phenomenal things. I said to him, “Hey, Brett, those are pretty awesome bears, aren’t they?” My cynical little son said, “They aren’t real. See that hair sticking up on their back. That’s the zipper for their costume.” I never did persuade him otherwise.

I wonder sometime if it’s not too easy to yield to a view of life and consciousness that is rooted in the dialectical materialism of the 19^th century. We conclude there is a box into which all known phenomena fit. Cause produces effect. Logic can ultimately explain everything. And anything not explainable will one day be explained.

And as a result, we have closed the door to spiritual resources such as prayer and meditation. We have closed the door to intuition and synchronicity. We have closed the door to the extraordinary power of faith.

But what if? What if there is more to existence, to consciousness, to awareness, than we have ever dreamed? What if we can dream dreams and see visions? What if we can catch falling stars and put them in our pockets? What if we have the capacity to hope when others are hopeless, to believe when others have given up believing, to have faith when others are consumed by doubt? What if little candles, with only enough oil for one day can keep on burning? Is it possible for us as persons of faith to break out of the box that believes only what we can see and touch and feel, and enter in to the world of intuition and wonder?

And when I say that, I am not proposing a Christian or Jewish consciousness. I’m not advocating Islam or a given religion. I’m saying quite the opposite, namely, that life and living do not fit into pat formulas and explanations. They do not yield to simple easy reductions. For example:

We’re very fortunate today to have Joan Marshall here today to sing her beautiful music. What if someone who was not here today asks you later, “What was Joan like today?” and you answered with your best guess of her height, weight, hair color, and the clothes and shoes she had on? Most probably, your questioner would respond, “Oh, I didn’t mean that. What was her performance like? How was the music?”

In other words, they weren’t asking about facticity or vital statistics; rather, they wanted to know, did she sing as beautifully as she always does? Was there a special song that she gave her own inimitable interpretation to? What was it like to hear the gifts that Joan always brings to her performances?

So when we speak of Hanukkah, we don’t think dates and places and historical criticism, not two plus two equal four, and black is black and white is white. But think lessons like these:

1. Don’t give up on your dreams, your hopes, your wishes – even though logically, everything says you should.

I read of one study that was done in which it was shown that people who forced their facial muscles to express happiness, began to be happy. In other words, people who acted happy became happy. People who smile and laugh and love become smiling, laughing, loving people. So put a smile on and act happy regardless! And dreams can come true…even impossible dreams.

What is most valuable comes from the heart. It’s courage…it’s faith…it’s hope. It’s the ability to fall down and get back up – all in one step. Not one step of falling and another of getting up. No, one step: fall down and get up. We can do that because of the dynamics of faith which we possess. Within each of us are elements not yet put on the charts…components not yet counted. It’s the marvelous ability to believe…to see the rainbows after the storms…sunshine along with the clouds. And it’s all within our grasp.

…towards those who tackle armies that far outnumber them…who take on tasks far too big for them…who make predictions no one else believes.

Hanukkah means that we possess resources that we don’t even know about. Life is always changing. Life’s possibilities are always more than. So live life to the fullest. Take risks. Bet on the possibilities of goodness and righteousness and truth…of faith, hope and love.

So back to Hanukkah: A slight business acquaintance I once encountered shared this story of Gisela Egner, the former Office Manager at the Shire Lane UU congregation, which I also wrote about in this month’s newsletter, Connections.

As everyone who knew Gisela would agree, she “did not suffer fools gladly.” It seems that my acquaintance and her husband, John, invited Gisela and her husband, Steve, over for dinner. Another couple was invited as well. Once the dinner started, the other male guest told a story that diminished African Americans. Gisela’s response was, “I can’t believe you told that.”

Whereupon, clueless, the man proceeded to tell a second story, doing the same thing. Even though the dinner was hardly half over, Gisela threw her napkin in her plate, stood up and said to her husband Steve, “That’s it. We’re going home.” Which they did.

It’s possible that Gisela’s memory of the horror which racism created in her native Germany conditioned her to a strong response. But I like to think it was more.

That more is what Hanukkah is about, namely, there are some things too precious, and too sacred, for people of faith to allow to be defiled. There are some things of such value that we must resist their diminishment with all we have. That’s the story of Hanukkah:

[1] Presented on December 18, 2011 at the All Faiths Unitarian Congregation (UUA), located at 2756 McGregor Boulevard, Ft. Myers, FL, by the Rev. Dr. Wayne Robinson, minister.