Part 1: Changing the Words
INTRODUCTION
I was introduced to Garrison Keillor in grad school back in Indiana and have listened to his show, Prairie Home Companion, off and on for several decades. I enjoy his storytelling, but like many of you, find his assaults on Unitarian Universalism extend beyond humor to snarkiness. Just last week, Keillor wrote a syndicated column called “Don’t mess with Christmas”, in which he ranted for a good bit about Unitarian Universalism:
“Unitarians listen to the Inner Voice and so they have no creed that they all stand up and recite in unison, and that's their perfect right, but it is wrong, wrong, wrong to rewrite "Silent Night." If you don't believe Jesus was God, OK, go write your own damn "Silent Night" and leave ours alone.”[1]Then he goes on to complain about “all those lousy holiday songs written by Jewish guys that trash up the malls every year, Rudolph and the chestnuts and the rest of the dreck.”
And I thought I had issues with Christmas!
OUR PART IN CHRISTMAS
I don’t want to take time tonite to respond to the “Christmas is for Christians” crowd. Let me just note that our Unitarian and Universalist forebears had significant influence in making Christmas the popular holiday it is today.[2] Christmas had been in fact outlawed in Puritan Massachusetts in 1659.[3] First the Universalists, and then the Unitarians pushed for the celebration of Christmas as a public holiday around 1800.[4] Maybe we should be careful what we wish for! In any event, we have a long history with the Christmas holiday, and I do not think we should cede that to others.
CHANGING HYMNS
I do want to address Garrison’s rant about changing the words in hymns. As UUs we have been changing the words of hymns for a very long time. Jason Shelton, a UU minister and choir director, notes, “almost from the beginning, Unitarians and Universalists were disparaged for changing the words of hymns to suit their particular needs.”[5] But we loved to write and rewrite hymns. Sheldon continues, “In the nineteenth century, Unitarians and Universalists produced more than fifty hymnbooks – far more than any other single denomination.”
Our changing the words sometime catches people by surprise, especially with Christmas Carols. Some of us wish the words were changed even more, others want to hold onto traditional words. I noticed, for example, that some previous Christmas Eve services had the quote-traditional-unquote words for the Carols printed in the Order of Service. We have a gut reaction to the words. I suspect it reaches back to what we experienced as children: if we learned those hymns and carols one way, then, by God, that’s the proper way they should be sung!
Maybe we shouldn’t focus so much on the fact that we change the words, but that we carefully consider what the words mean; the message behind them. Old words or new words: can we make meaning from them?
Part 2: Changing the Message
Traditionally these Christmas Eve services are organized around lessons, readings about the birth of Jesus, drawn from the books of Matthew and Luke, and some perhaps commentary that connects those readings to the world today. This is combined with a few carols and it’s all wrapped up with a candlelighting ritual.
THE MYSTERY PLAY
Today, lets do something different: let’s take a step back and look at another story in the book of Luke. This is the story of the Annunciation, which is a pretty significant story for Catholic and Eastern Orthodox Christians. Moreover, this story is significant for Muslims, too. The Quran has a version of the Annunciation: Sura 3, verses 45 to 47 reads:
45Behold! the angels said: "O Mary! Allah gives you glad tidings of a Word from him: his name will be Christ Jesus, the son of Mary, held in honor in this world and the Hereafter and [among] those nearest to Allah: 46"He shall speak to the people in childhood and in maturity. And he shall be [among] the righteous."
47She said: "O my Lord! How shall I have a son when no man has touched me?" He said: "Even so: Allah creates what he wills: When he has decreed a plan, he but says to it, 'Be,' and it is! [6]
We heard a version of the Annunciation as part of the Mystery Play a few moments ago. In medieval Europe, these plays were one of the primary ways of educating the peasant folk, who were largely illiterate. The plays depicted key stories from the Bible, and were presented outdoors, on a certain feast day in late spring. The whole cycle of plays would start before dawn and run until dusk. The plays would be presented on large wagons used as stages.
The play we excerpted today was likely written by monks in York sometime in the 14th or 15th century. [7] It was performed outdoors by the Spicers, one the various guilds of craftsmen assigned the plays. So the Plasterers performed the Creation, the Fishers were assigned the story of Noah’s Ark and the Flood, the Tile Thatchers did the Nativity, and the Pinner’s got the Crucifixion. I like the assignment of particular crafts to the stories: Fishers and Pinners?
THE ANNUNCIATION
Of course, these stories were told ‘straight up,’, they stayed close to the Scriptural text. Any embellishment supported the dominant theology of the Church. As we heard in this excerpt, Mary is hailed for accepting her place in things, bearing the Savior, creating a way for the world to be saved from the damnation brought to it by Eve. The dominant theological story is the same, both for individual humans or for all of humanity: we are sinful, we are damned, unless and until we are redeemed by the Savior. Stay with me on this.
THE MEANING OF THE ANNUNCIATION – NOT
The story of the Annunciation offered earlier would have us believe that Mary bore Jesus as a virgin, that there was no human father involved. This virginal birth became important as later Christian theology developed. This theology suggested that all humanity was fallen, damned because of the actions of Eve consuming the fruit, and this damnation was passed through the generations. The virginal birth, along with the idea of Immaculate Conception, provided a way for Christianity to unlink a pure Jesus with his pure mother, from this stain of sin. We hear this theology clearly in the carol, "Nova Nova, Ave fit ex Eva", which suggests that the world is saved from the sin of Eve by the fruit of Mary.
Now this is a most unsatisfying theology to most of us, including UU Christians! It’s enough to make us want to discard the Christmas stories entirely, and some of us do. But these stories are deeply embedded in our culture. We hear them every year. They have archetypal elements. And discarding these stories would rob us of the opportunity to offer alternative interpretations; to stand against those who would offer narrow, divisive and damning theology.
We need to find a way to reinterpret the story, to change the message. We need a way to see health and wholeness and hope in Christmas.
A NOTE ON HISTORICITY
Now, I need to take a brief diversion and talk about the historical evidence and not the theology. We know that there is only thin historical evidence for the life of Jesus. None of the events around his birth, such as a large-scale census by Caesar Augustus or Herod’s slaughter of male babies, is mentioned in any Roman or Jewish historical text. Careful study of the three synoptic Gospels -- Matt, Mark, and Luke -- the books that attempt to portray Jesus life, show that these too have many historically suspect passages. Especially suspect are the birth stories. In fact, the birth stories are totally absent in Mark, the oldest and most historically trustworthy of these three books.
So we face the strong probability that the birth stories are mythical -- that the stories are older, and the words are changed. Can we still find meaning in any of these mythical stories? Can we distill some fundamental wisdom from these ancient stories?
THE MEANING OF THE ANNUNCIATION – REINTERPRETED
How might we reinterpret the Annunciation? Could this be a story of questionable fatherhood. Stephen Mitchell, in his lovely book, The Gospel According to Jesus, tells us ‘the first thing we ought to realize about Jesus’ life is that he grew up as an illegitimate child’.[8] In that ancient culture, for a woman to have an illegitimate child was scandalous, and such a child would live a life of shame and rejection. The visit from Gabriel didn’t help. Remember, the angel appeared only to Mary, not to the others in the village, and appeared to Joseph almost as an afterthought, when Joseph was prepared to reject Mary.
So we begin to piece together the true story of Jesus birth. He was most likely illegitimate, born to a teenage mother, a woman maybe 12 or 14 years old. She was almost certainly illiterate; a peasant; at the bottom of the socioeconomic scale; in an occupied country.
This is the miracle of the Christmas story. The miracle of the story is not about angels, or wisemen, or a star. The miracle story is that a person coming from such a hopeless, lowly, miserable situation could become a wisdom teacher, a spiritual leader, an agitator for change and a founder of a religious movement.
A friend in ministry, Ruth MacKenzie, tells me there is a term, Theotokos, which means ‘God bearer’.[9] It was used to describe Mary by the early church. Theotokos represents the other part of the Christmas story. Mary bears the infant; she gives birth to new life, and to new hope. In a time of darkness and cold, this hope is what we crave.
When we bear hope, we too become Theotokos – god bearers. We ignite that spark of divine possibility that is in each of us. We create possibility for change, for a new world, for an era where the light of peace, and the warmth of human connection return again.
In the words of Richard Gilbert, “may hope find its way into our hearts even when our minds tell us there is no hope; may charity speak to us even when we have nothing to give: may loving kindness be with us when our store of love is exhausted.
Let it be so, for a time, for a season. And perhaps that season will linger and linger and take hold of us, never to let us go.” [10]
Notes:
[1] http://www.salon.com/news/opinion/garrison_keillor/2009/12/15/cambridge/index.html
[2] See Steven Nissbaum, The Battle for Christmas, 1997.
[3] Ibid. p. 14.
[4] Ibid. p. 45.
[5] Jason Shelton, "Changing the Words: An Historical Introduction to Unitarian Universalist Hymnody", http://meadville.edu/journal/2003_shelton_4_1.pdf p. 2
[6] Abdullah Yusufali, The Meanings Of The Holy Qur'an, http://www.islam101.com/quran/yusufAli/QURAN/3.htm (archaic grammar updated)
[7] “York Mystery Plays”, http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/York_Mystery_Plays
[8] Stephen Mitchell, The Gospel According to Jesus, 1991, p. 19.
[9] Ruth Mackenzie, "Theotokos", http://www.stjoan.com/homilies/mackenzie11.30.08.htm
[10] Richard S. Gilbert, in Celebrating Christmas, Carl Seaburg ed., p. 107
