B Christmas Eve BFC
2014
December 24, 2014
We light
candles. Every Sunday we light candles
on our table to remember that our ancestors in faith lit candles in the
catacombs, the places of death, to avoid persecution. We light candles as a way of remembering our
Jewish ancestry.
For our
Jewish sisters and brothers, tonight the observance and celebration of
Channukah comes to a close only to be observed and celebrated late in
2015. And late in 2016. And then again in 2017. On and on the practice goes, to remind the
Jewish people of their story. It begins
with the re-dedication of the ancient Holy Temple in Jerusalem. The Holy of Holies had been desecrated by the
imperial ruler, Antiochus Epiphanes, Epiphanes meaning, “God revealed.”
The Holy
Temple was a symbol of the liminal, a threshold, where the spark of God was to
burst into flame within every Jewish person.
No longer was that flame found on an obscure mountain, but in a place of
pilgrimage and accessibility. And
Antiochus Epiphanes desecrated the Temple and left it in rubble and desolation.
Each year
the Jewish people remember that when there was no longer oil for the lamps to
rebuild the Temple, the flame continued to burn. God was active and in their midst—even as
they struggled to rebuild over and against violence, warfare, and
occupation. Amidst the rubble and desolation
and desecration, after a clearing away, light and life could be found. Lighting the menorah is a way to remember
that God moves in this way. Each night
another candle is lit. As each night
grows longer in this hemisphere, the light from the menorah grows
brighter.
As the
Children of Israel walked in the wilderness, God asked them to make a holy
dwelling place so that the people might know that God was a pilgrim walking
with them and accessible to them. That
holy dwelling place, however, was not only meant to be a place where the
political and public operated but also to remind them of the Temple of their
Souls.
Spiritual
teacher Rabbi Shefa Gold writes,
[Jewish] [s]piritual practice is about making our
lives into a Mishkan, a dwelling place
for Divine Presence. About one third of the Book of Exodus consists of the
detailed instructions for building the Mishkan,
(the portable sanctuary that we carry through our wilderness journeys). The
purpose of the Mishkan is to send us
to the space within where we can receive the Mystery of Presence. Just as a
great poem points us towards a truth that is beyond mere words, so the beauty
that shines from the Mishkan of our
lives illuminates the beyond that is within us.
As Judaism evolves, the function of the Mishkan (the place of connection with God) is
represented by the Holy Temple in Jerusalem. When the Temple is destroyed, the
place of our connection to God moves inside.
The story of Chanukah reminds us that even the holiest
place within us can become desecrated. We must enter the darkness of our own
wounded hearts, survey the damage, clear away the rubble, and then light a
candle to rededicate ourselves to holiness, to our own wholeness and connection
to the cosmos. It is truly miraculous that a single spark of hope can ignite
the radiant fires of passion that illuminate our way forward, even on the
darkest night.[1]
We light candles. In a few minutes, you all will light single
sparks of hope that are both a public and political and private and personal
sign that God is on the move again. It
is reminder that we can enter the darkness and rubble of the world and the
darkness and rubble of our own hearts and find that Divine Spark to know that
we were created as the Children of God.
“Make for me
a holy place so that I can dwell inside of you,” God pleads. As Rabbi Gold states, “When we make a place
for God to dwell in our lives, then we will never be caught in the illusion of
separateness. God will be available and accessible to us in the innermost
chamber of the heart and in the inner dimension of all Creation.”[2]
It is
accessible to all of us and that is the very public and political statement
that needs to be shouted from every rooftop and town square, every city hall
and shopping mall. How often is it that
we hear Antiochus or Caesar or those of means tell us that the light of light is
only theirs? Tonight we say that is a
lie. God is on the move.
I share
often that it was after Christ’s death and resurrection that people looked at
his life and said, “This was, this is, the Light of the World.” But when he was alive. Ah, when he was alive, he looked at the tax
collectors and the chronic
inebriate,
the prostitute and the Family Promise family, the excluded and the
Tumbleweed youth, the oppressed and the tortured prisoner, the lame and the
leper, a migrant family running for their lives, those considered sinners and
broken by life and said, “You! You are
the light of the world. You are the city
set upon the hill for all to see. You
are the salt of the earth!” Jesus
democratized the Divine, gave it over to all these people who could not imagine
that the Divine spark was at work within them.
Tonight we
reenact that scene. Regardless of the
rubble, desolation, or desecration in our lives, tonight we clear it away so
that you might unmistakably see the flame that is given to you as Children of
God. We let go of the illusion of our
separateness from God.
We light
candles as a public way of acknowledging that light in all of us. And then, we blow the candles out to
acknowledge that this same light now moves within the innermost chambers of our
heart.
Night
comes. No matter. It is only the darkness of the womb which
will now give birth to the light in each one of us.
We light
candles. “[W]e bring the healing light
of compassion into hidden crevices of shame or fear.” [3]
You! You! You
are the holy dwelling place. You, are
the light of the world. Praise God! Amen.
[1]
Rabbi Shefa Gold, “The Inner Practice of
Channukah,” Kol ALEPH: The Voice of the Alliance for Jewish Renewal,
December 14, 2014. http://kolaleph.org/2014/12/14/the-inner-practice-of-chanukah-by-rabbi-shefa-gold/
[2]
Ibid.
[3]
Ibid.
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