Prelude Melodia Africana I by Ludovico Einaudi
Opening Words by Ant Howe
We join together now to worship as a beloved community.
Each individual brings to our gathering faith and ideas, but each of us also yearns to share fellowship one with the other.
May we look beyond any differences to the common bonds that unite us: Faith, hope, and love.
And may those divine qualities shine through our worship today.
Chalice Lighting (you may wish to light a candle in your own home at this point. I will be lighting my chalice for worship at 11.05 am on Sunday morning) words by Jane Blackall
May the light of this chalice be a reminder of the
shared values and principles around which we gather:
upholding the inherent worth and dignity of every person;
cherishing all those diverse creatures and habitats
with whom we share this Earth, our home;
seeking human liberation and flourishing;
serving the common good of all.
May this little light, and all it represents, make a home in our hearts;
where it will ever guide us back to our highest aspirations,
and help us be responsive, creative, just, and loving,
in this complex and ever-changing world.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
be with us as we gather for worship,
each in our own place.
Help us to feel a sense of community,
even though we are physically apart.
Help us to care for each other,
in this world in which the clouds
of war, poverty, and climate change hover,
and help us to make a difference,
starting where we are, with what we have.
May we keep in touch however we can,
and help each other, however we may.
May we be grateful for the freedoms we have
and respect the wishes of others.
May we hold in our hearts all those
who are grieving, lost, alone,
victims of violence and war,
suffering in any way,
Amen
Reading from The Surprise Meaning behind ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ lyrics by Ace Collins, from the crosswalk.com website
Originally a poem written by Catholic clerics, “The Twelve Days of Christmas” song was transformed into a carol at a time when celebrating the twelve days of Christmas was one of the most important holiday customs. By understanding the meaning the clerics chose the twelve days as wrapping for their poem, the full impact of the tradition of the twelve days of Christmas can be understood.
Teaching the Catholic faith was outlawed in sixteenth-century England. Those who instructed their children in Catholicism could be drawn and quartered. Thus, the church went underground. To hide the important and illegal elements of their teaching, clerics composed poems that seemed silly to most people. But these verses were veiled works that taught the church’s most important tenets. “The Twelve Days of Christmas” is said to be one of these teaching tools.
In ancient times, when most societies were rural, few people worked in the dead of winter. It was a time when many were spending long, dark days inside their homes, looking forward to winter’s chill giving way to the spring thaw. So devoting a dozen days to prayer, reflection, and attending church was not a huge undertaking. Yet with the coming of the Industrial Age and the regular year-round work schedules it brought, finding time to continue the activities that had been traditionally associated with the twelve days of Christmas became all but impossible for most people.
Alternative Lord’s Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love, here and everywhere,
May we be aware of your presence in our lives.
May our world be blessed.
May our daily needs be met,
And may our shortcomings be forgiven,
As we forgive those of others.
Give us the strength to resist wrong-doing,
The inspiration and guidance to do right,
And the wisdom to know the difference.
We are your hands in the world; help us to grow.
May we have compassion for all living beings,
And receive whatever life brings,
With courage and trust.
Amen
Reading from The Surprise Meaning behind ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ lyrics by Ace Collins, from the crosswalk.com website
On the first day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… a partridge in a pear tree.
The partridge in a pear tree represents Jesus, the Son of God, whose birthday we celebrate on the first day of Christmas. Christ is symbolically presented as a mother partridge, the only bird that will die to protect its young.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… two turtledoves.
These twin birds represent the Old and New Testaments. So in this gift, the singer finds the complete story of Judeo-Christian faith and God’s plan for the world. The doves are the biblical roadmap that is available to everyone.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… three French hens.
These birds represent faith, hope, and love. This gift hearkens back to 1 Corinthians 13, the love chapter written by the apostle Paul.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… four calling birds.
One of the easiest facets of the song’s code to figure out, these fowl are the four Gospels—Matthew, Mark, Luke, and John.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… five gold rings.
The gift of the rings represents the first five books of the Old Testament, known as the Torah or the Pentateuch.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… six geese a-laying.
These lyrics can be traced back to the first story found in the Bible. Each egg is a day in creation, a time when the world was “hatched” or formed by God.
Prayer by Tony McNeile
In prayer we look back at a year gone by.
There have been triumphs, sometimes disasters
and often periods of quietness and inertia.
We have gained and possibly lost.
We have promised and fulfilled, promised and not fulfilled.
We have known moments of joy and moments of sadness.
Our year has been better or worse than any other.
Let us retain the precious memories of the year and then move on to the coming year.
In the coming year may we be bold and adventurous in our thinking.
Look forward with enthusiasm, look forward with strength,
feel armed by the experiences of the past.
Make plans and set targets.
Feel the strength in your heart that faith brings.
Let us bless our families and our friends.
Let us bless this community we belong to.
In the coming year, may we each be a beacon of peace and love
that gives hope to all. Amen
Reading from The Surprise Meaning behind ‘The Twelve Days of Christmas’ lyrics by Ace Collins, from the crosswalk.com website
On the seventh day of Christmas my true love gave to me… seven swans a-swimming.
It would take someone quite familiar with the Bible to identify this gift. Hidden in the code are the seven gifts of the Holy Spirit: prophecy, ministry, teaching, exhortation, giving, leading, and compassion. As swans are one of the most beautiful and graceful creatures on earth, they would seem to be a perfect symbol for spiritual gifts.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… eight maids a-milking.
As Christ came to save even the lowest of the low, this gift represents the ones who would receive his word and accept his grace. Being a milkmaid was about the worst job one could have in England during this period; this code conveyed that Jesus cared as much about servants as he did those of royal blood. The eight who were blessed included the poor in spirit, those who mourn, the meek, those who hunger and thirst for righteousness, the merciful, the pure in heart, the peacemakers, and those who are persecuted for righteousness’ sake.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… nine ladies dancing.
These nine dancers were really the gifts known as the fruits of the Spirit. The fruits are love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, generosity, faithfulness, gentleness, and self-control.
On the tenth day of Christmas my true love gave to me… ten lords a-leaping.
This is probably the easiest gift to understand. As lords were judges and in charge of the law, this code for the Ten Commandments was fairly straightforward to Catholics.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… eleven pipers piping.
This is almost a trick question, as most think of the disciples in terms of a dozen. But when Judas betrayed Jesus and committed suicide, there were only eleven men who carried out the gospel message.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love gave to me… twelve drummers drumming.
The final gift is tied directly to the Catholic Church. The drummers are the twelve points of doctrine in the Apostles’ Creed. “I believe in God, the Father almighty, creator of heaven and earth. I believe in Jesus Christ, his only Son, our Lord. He was conceived by the power of the Holy Spirit and born of the Virgin Mary. He suffered under Pontius Pilate, was crucified, died, and was buried. He descended into hell. On the third day he rose again. He ascended into heaven and is seated at the right hand of the Father. He will come again to judge the living and the dead. I believe in the Holy Spirit, the holy catholic Church, the communion of saints, the forgiveness of sins, the resurrection of the body, and life everlasting.”
Time of Stillness and Reflection words by Yvonne Aburrow
I invite you to close your eyes, and to choose something –
a place, a concept, an object, a person – that you regard as sacred.
What is the quality in it that evokes the sacred for you?
What values or virtues does it represent?
Are they values or virtues that find an echo within you?
Is the sacredness an inherent quality of it?
Or does it shine through it, as if its source is elsewhere?
Just focus for a while on your sacred place, concept, thing or person.
Allow its virtue to shine for you; hear its inner music, smell its perfume.
[silence]
Now let the place, concept, thing or person fade from your mind and just focus on the virtue itself, and recognise its reflection in your own heart.
Musical Interlude I Giorni by Ludovico Einaudi
Address The Twelve Days of Christmas
Today is the fourth day of the Twelve Days of Christmas, which begin on Christmas Day, and finish on the 5th of January. That carol is one of my favourites, and I had no idea it was originally written as a secret Catholic primer (although the meanings apply also to most mainstream Christian teaching).
But most Unitarians do not believe that Jesus was the unique son of God, nor in the tenets of the Apostles’ Creed. So I thought it might be fun to assign a value shared by most of us to each of the twelve days, which we might perhaps use as an aide-memoire in the year to come.
On the first day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, freedom of belief. This is one of the most sacred tenets of Unitarianism – the belief that everyone has the right to seek truth and meaning for themselves. We can find this not only in Christian scriptures, but also in the sacred words of other faiths, and in our own life experiences. We do not have a creed, which everyone is required to agree with. Perhaps Alfred Hall said it best: ours is “the Religion of the Larger Affirmation.” We are held together by shared values and a shared approach to religion and spirituality.
On the second day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, reason. Our use of reason to discern what is important to us is perhaps one of the most distinctive aspects of our Unitarian faith. In the past, we were sometimes known as Rational Dissenters. And James Martineau proclaimed the “primacy of conscience”. We have a thoughtful, critical approach to religion and spirituality, and use our reason to take in what our conscience proclaims to be true. However, most of us now admit that there are certain matters that are beyond reason, such as grace and miracles.
On the third day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, tolerance (or respect, which does not include the negative connotations of ‘tolerance’). It encompasses an openness to new thoughts, new ideas, new people, so that we can have an informed view, rather than basing our ideas on social media sound-bites; it is “loving in spite of human imperfection” (Joyce Grenfell); and it is accepting that others do not share our beliefs and that their beliefs are just as valid to them as ours are to us. However, we all agree that there must be limits to tolerance: we must not tolerate beliefs or behaviour which harm others.
On the fourth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, faith. In spite of the wide spectrum of beliefs in the Unitarian movement, most of us (I believe) have faith in something greater than ourselves. Whether that something is a personal God, or humankind, or a benevolent universe. We still meet for worship every week, and to outsiders, our services are barely distinguishable from “church”. We refer to ourselves as “a faith without a creed”, and until the 1960s, that meant Liberal Christianity, in which we have our roots. Others of us today believe we are largely a post-Christian spiritual community, but being a member of such a movement does not mean that faith no longer has a role to play.
On the fifth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, hope. This is the second of Paul’s three “abiding” virtues. Most Unitarians tend towards the hopeful end of the human spectrum, rather than the despairing, cynical one. This in spite of all the terrible things going on in the world today. Most of us still believe that something can be done to make things better, somehow, starting where we are, with the gifts we have.
On the sixth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, love (or compassion). Unitarians have a huge capacity for love, and care deeply about and for many things. I am not a mystic, but once, I had a vision of the truth, which I can only believe came from God. A few years ago, I bought myself a Celtic-style silver cross, which I wear every day, with my Unitarian chalice. One morning, I was applying some moisturiser to my face, using a magnifying mirror, when the mirror slipped, canting to a different angle. And I noticed the cross around my neck and realised that instead of a circle at the centre, it had a heart.
This hit me with the force of a revelation. I saw, understood for the first time, that God was Love at the centre of everything. For the first time, I was able to fully accept God’s love for me, and to realise that my job, all our jobs, in the world was to love others in that same wholehearted way, living in the spirit of compassion.
On the seventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, diversity and inclusivity. We take the words of Peter Galbraith’s hymn, All Are Welcome Here, seriously, and strive not to discriminate against anyone on the basis of their race, gender, sexual orientation, age, or neurodiversity. At least, that is our aim. In reality, we are not as diverse or inclusive as we could be – most congregations are still largely populated by educated, White, middle-aged or older people. Going on a Pride March once a year is not enough; we need to embrace our commitment to diversity and inclusivity all the year round.
On the eighth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, equality. This value is closely related to inclusivity and diversity. Everyone should have equal access to opportunities, and the massive inequalities in the world (and in our country) are a source of grief to us. Inclusion and equality are valued highly as ideals, and many Unitarians strive to put them into practice, both in their personal lives and in their church and chapel communities. Yet at the same time, as we saw on Day 3, most of us also believe that there need to be limits to our welcome – we do not welcome those with extreme beliefs, who might harm others.
On the ninth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, care for the earth. Most Unitarians recognise that human beings are not at some kind of pinnacle of creation, but have the duty to be responsible stewards of our precious blue-green planet. Many of us love nature, and believe it is our duty to leave the earth better than we found it. To that end, there is a strong pressure group at work: Unitarians for Climate Justice, which does much good in the wider world. And many individuals and congregations also have firm commitments to care for our planet and its myriad inhabitants, not only people and animals, but also plants.
On the tenth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, peace. We live in a world that is riven with conflict, which has terrible repercussions for the people caught up in it. One respondent to my 2017 survey wrote, “We can both preach and practise alternatives to fighting such as peacemaking, active listening, and non-violent non-cooperation with evil. We can preach and practise kindness, empathy, emotional intelligence, respect / tolerance, and other peaceable virtues.” All these things are vital, if we hope to live in a more peaceful world in the future.
On the eleventh day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, unity. This can seem a problematic value for Unitarians, having, as we do, such a wide variety of beliefs and approaches to our spiritual lives. Yet, as one respondent wrote in my survey, “There is an overall idea of the power of one-ness, whether it is one God, one people, one planet, one universal home, and the belief that the more we integrate ourselves within a vision of this one-ness, the better existence will be (not just ours, but the life of the planet.” I couldn’t agree more.
On the twelfth day of Christmas, my true love sent to me, interdependence. All of us are part of many communities: our families, our friends, our congregations and so on. And none of us can survive without each other. There is also a deep interdependence between humankind and the rest of the planet. Which the Unitarian Universalists call “the interdependent web of life”. There is also interdependence between followers of all the diverse faiths which flourish on the earth, which is why the promotion of inter-faith understanding is so important. We are strongest when we live in community, exchanging ideas, supporting one another, reaching out to help those who are in a worse position, and so on.
Freedom of belief, reason and conscience, tolerance or respect, faith, hope, love, inclusivity and diversity, equality, care for the earth, peace, unity and interdependence: these twelve qualities sum up the complexity of our Unitarian communities. May we strive to live up to them in the year ahead. Amen
Closing Words
Spirit of Life and Love,
May we strive to live up to
our Unitarian values in the year ahead.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
may we share the love we feel,
may we look out for each other,
and may we keep up our hearts,
now and in the days to come.
Amen
Postlude Stella del Mattino by Ludovico Einaudi