Prelude Roots and Wings by Elizabeth Harley
Opening Words
In this time of continuing insecurity and social upheaval,
When most of us are unable to meet in person,
I invite you into this time of online worship.
For this short space of time,
Let us put our worldly cares aside,
Close our eyes and imagine ourselves
To be in our places of worship,
Surrounded by members of our beloved community,
And be together, if only virtually,
For this one hour.
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 11.00 am on Sunday morning) words by Cliff Reed
We light this chalice
to bring light to our minds,
wisdom to our souls, and
warmth to our hearts:
light to show us the Way,
wisdom to walk it truly,
warmth to enfold our fellow
pilgrims with compassion.
Opening Prayer
Spirit of Life and Love,
Be with us as we gather for worship,
each in their 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 difficult time of lockdown,
keeping in touch however we can,
and helping each other,
however we may.
We hold in our hearts
the brave and dedicated staff of the NHS,
and other key workers,
who are carrying on in impossible conditions,
and all those
whose lives have been touched,
in whatever way,
by painful events, in their lives,
and in the wider world,
of which we are all a part.
Amen
Reading from The Flaming Chalice: Unitarian symbol by Art Lester, quoted in The Unitarian Life, edited by Stephen Lingwood
The symbol of the chalice flame may be… understood as a metaphor for the lives of human beings, both as individuals and in community. A cup is a familiar object made to be held and passed around – for sharing. A flame, by contrast, is not an object. It cannot be weighed or measured. It is no static thing, but a dynamic, changing process.
The flame needs three elements. The first of these is fuel. Fuel is material – like the human body, like the treasured buildings and books, money and documents of a church community. If a fire lacks fuel, it is said to be “burning low” like a candle in its final moments. The flame shrinks until it is just a feeble glow. Unitarians are not ascetic or “other-worldly” but try to take a realistic and rational view of life. Unitarians readily accept that, like kindling for a fire, people in their private lives and collectively need the fuel of physical things.
The second element is heat. Think of the heat of life itself, distinguishing the living from the dead; the spark of intelligence, the warmth of human encounter, even the friction of disagreement. If a fire lacks heat, as when you dampen a flame with water, it is said to be guttering. To develop as human beings, people also need heat. The vitality of congregational life, activities which animate and engross, thought-provoking moments that challenge are signs of a healthy liberal religious community. Unitarians believe that society is sustained by the warmth that functioning and supportive communities can provide.
The third element is air. Spirit has always been compared with air, or wind – by Greeks and Hebrews alike. If a fire lacks air, we say that it is smouldering. There is much heat and thick black smoke, but little or no light. Modern life is too often like this. Unitarians are open to the importance of personal religious experience, whether in chapel on a Sunday, on a mountain-top, or in everyday moments during the working week. To develop, people need air – or spirit: the inspiration, or breathing in, of that invisible yet vital element; the deep moments of the self in prayer or meditation; the shared movement of the heart when the spirit is felt.
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 Wise Wealth: Thought for Today 31st December 2020
| There are many words for which we have forgotten the meaning – love is one such word, and wealth is another. When we hear or use the word wealth today we immediately conjure images of huge cheques, large properties, five star holidays and the very best in everything. In fact, it is this limited form of wealth, measured and defined essentially by money which blocks the realisation and manifestation of true wealth. Every human being is wealthy beyond imagination. But not in their bank accounts.
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| Real wealth is completely intangible, invisible and deeply internal. Every human being is a unique individual spiritual entity. And as such, a source of the most precious energy in the universe. Love is the gold of the soul. We are each that gold at the core of our being. But few of us are aware of it, let alone consciously tapping it and expressing it. No one teaches us that love is what we are, that our purpose in life is to know it, and give it, and that when we do, all other energies, including the material stuff, will come back to us.
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| We are taught instead that love is dead, love is daft, love is for softies, love is sex, loving is losing not winning, love is indulgence, love is about doing deals in our relationships. No wonder we are stressed out. We have a totally distorted view of wealth and an inherited belief system which clouds our view and access to the riches we contain within our heart. No wonder there is spiritual poverty amidst affluence, no wonder the destitute wander streets paved with the riches of their neighbours. No wonder the children in the villages of India have a smile that lights up your soul, while the kids in ‘material land’ are always miserable with their lot! Are you wealthy, or are you Wealthy? |
Prayer by Sue Woolley
Spirit of Life and Love,
We are here this morning
To celebrate the gifts of life:
The gifts with which we can nurture ourselves,
The gifts which we can share with our loved ones,
And the gifts which we could offer the wider world,
If we just thought about it some more.
May we concentrate on the wealth which money cannot buy,
And live our lives in a spirit of faith, hope and love.
May this year be a generous year,
Full of open-handed, open-hearted giving.
Amen
Reading Faith, Hope, Love by Richard S. Gilbert
Faith, hope, love, these three
I offer you this season.
Faith that living affirms,
Hope that caring illumines,
Love that matters more than anything.
Faith, hope, love, these three
Not as gifts I offer them
For they are not mine to give.
They are yours and mine to share,
Humbly, with one another.
Fumbling, we hold their promise in our hands,
Faintly, we speak the trembling words,
Faith, hope, love, these three
I offer you this season.
Time of Stillness and Reflection The Chalice of our Being by Richard S. Gilbert
Each morning we hold out our chalice of being
To be filled with the graces of life that abound—
Air to breathe, food to eat, companions to love,
Beauty to behold, art to cherish, causes to serve.
They come in ritual procession, these gifts of life.
Whether we deserve them we cannot know or say,
For they are poured out for us.
Our task is to hold steady the chalice of our being.
We carry the chalice with us as we go,
Either meandering aimlessly,
Or with destination in our eye.
We share its abundance if we have any sense,
Reminding others as we remind ourselves
Of the contents of the chalice we don’t deserve.
Water from living streams fills it
If only we hold it out faithfully.
We give back, if we can, something of ourselves—
Some love, some beauty, some grace, some gift.
We give back in gratitude if we can
Something like what is poured into our chalice of being—
For those who abide with us and will follow. [silence]
Each morning we hold out the chalice of our being,
To receive, to carry, to give back.
Musical Interlude A Welsh Wedding by Elizabeth Harley
Address The Power of Three
I was planning to do a service about Epiphany this week, the Christian festival that commemorates the coming of the three kings to Bethlehem, to give their gifts to the infant Jesus. Then for some reason, I started to think about the significance of the fact that there were three kings – not four, not two, but three. And I began to realise that the number three is deeply meaningful for human beings. And I think that this has been true for thousands of years.
Wikipedia explains it like this, “The rule of three is a… principle that suggests that a trio of events or characters is more humorous, satisfying, or effective than other numbers. The audience of this form of text is also thereby more likely to remember the information conveyed because having three entities combines both brevity and rhythm with having the smallest amount of information to create a pattern. It makes the author or speaker appear knowledgeable while being both simple and catchy.”
And when I started to look, it was everywhere – from fairy tales (Goldilocks and the Three Bears, The Three Billygoats Gruff, The Three Little Pigs, the three fairies in Sleeping Beauty), through every story I’ve ever read where the (usually youngest) of three brothers is the one who will succeed when the others fail (perhaps the origin of the saying, “If at first you don’t succeed, try, try and try again”) to more lofty trios such as the Christian doctrine of the Trinity, St Paul’s ‘faith, hope and love’, the three principle gods of Hinduism and the three tenets of Unitarianism – freedom, reason and tolerance.
Even human beings, like Art Lester’s chalice flame in our first reading, are made up of three elements – body, mind and spirit. If any of those three are not cared for or nourished, we will not feel ‘right’ in ourselves. If we mortify our bodies, starving ourselves of the nutrients we need, they will begin to shut down. Conversely, if we overfeed them, or feed them the wrong things, they will begin to complain, in the form of various ailments and illnesses.
Our minds, those marvellous, intangible parts of each of us, which we can neither see nor touch, but which enable us to think and learn and discover, can also suffer from lack of care or nourishment. If we have closed minds, and do not allow any new thoughts and ideas to come into them, we will become narrow and bigoted. However, if we take in everything we see and read, uncritically, without measuring them by using our reason and conscience, we will get intellectual indigestion, and may end up not knowing what to believe, because we see and read so many contradictory ideas. Or we may become cynical, believing in nothing, because we’ve “seen it all before.”
Our spirits are those parts of ourselves which have the ability to respond to the world with awe and wonder and love. As Art Lester wrote, “Unitarians are open to the importance of personal religious experience, whether in chapel on a Sunday, on a mountain-top, or in everyday moments during the working week. To develop, people need air – or spirit: the inspiration, or breathing in, of that invisible yet vital element; the deep moments of the self in prayer or meditation; the shared movement of the heart when the spirit is felt.”
There is a beautiful Unitarian Universalist chalice lighting, written by Elizabeth M. Strong, which brings together the core values of Unitarians and Universalists:
“Our Unitarian heritage bids us light our chalice
In the name of freedom,
In the light of reason,
In actions of tolerance.
We gather in community to celebrate a heritage of freedom, reason, and tolerance.
Our Universalist heritage bids us light our chalice
In the name of faith,
In the light of hope,
In actions of love.
We gather in community to celebrate a heritage of faith, hope, and love.”
Freedom, reason and tolerance. Faith, hope and love. Two trios of values which shape the lives of most Unitarians. I love the way she has divided each trio into “the name of” (what is important to us), “the light of” (why it is important) and “the actions of” (what we are going to do as a result).
I believe that freedom, reason and tolerance are the values that underlie British Unitarianism, the principles and standards that make the rest possible. As Cliff Reed writes in Unitarian? What’s That? “shared values and a shared religious approach are a surer basis for unity than theological propositions.”
So what does “freedom” mean to Unitarians? The first thing to realise is that it doesn’t mean “freedom to believe whatever I like”. It is not capricious – it doesn’t mean that Unitarians are free to believe that the moon is made of green cheese, for example. To quote Alfred Hall, author of Beliefs of a Unitarian, “It means the right to believe what the voices of reason and conscience proclaim to be true and good; the right to listen to and trust what God speaks to the mind, heart and soul of man; the right to follow Truth and to accept what is made known to us in our human experience.”
Reason, our second tenet, is strongly and fundamentally linked to freedom of religious belief – freedom requires responsibility, and responsibility requires reason. Humankind must accept responsibility for their choices and their acts. Every time we come across a new person, or a new situation, or a new way of thinking, we find that some things are better and others worse, by trial and error, by measurements of happiness and welfare, by comparison and reflection. This is how we cultivate responsible behaviour – by using reason as our guide. Although it is not infallible – there will always be matters beyond reason which we need to take on faith.
The process is like this: find out what commends itself to your reason as truth and then accept that as your authority. If you work at it faithfully, your whole life long, with help from fellow pilgrims, you might become a better, wiser and more loving human being. If enough of us do the same, and put our beliefs into action, it might even lead to a better, wiser and more loving world.
“Freedom” and “Reason” are two of the keystones of Unitarian thought; the third is “Tolerance”. Outsiders may find it difficult to understand how the Unitarian movement holds together, placing, as it does, so much importance on the freedom of individual belief based on reason and conscience. But tolerance, this openness to new thoughts and ideas is a key concept in Unitarianism; indeed it is what has kept it green and growing down the centuries. Our movement has been underpinned by a process of continuous and continuing revelation. At different times and in different countries, different ideas have been considered to be most important. Tolerance also means a tigerish determination to fight for the right of others to enjoy the same freedom to worship in whatever way they choose, so long as it doesn’t harm anyone else. Our “fellowship in diversity” (happy phrase) aims to be tolerant towards others. As Joyce Grenfell beautifully puts it, we believe in “loving in spite of human imperfection.”
Faith, hope and love rely on each other in a similar way. We have faith in something, or someone, that faith gives us hope, and as a result of that hope, we act in love. As Richard S. Gilbert wrote so beautifully in our final reading, “Faith that living affirms, Hope that caring illumines, Love that matters more than anything. Faith, hope, love, these three. Not as gifts I offer them, for they are not mine to give. They are yours and mine to share, humbly, with one another.”
There’s no getting round it, the power of three is everywhere. And it is the beginning of another year, a time during which we reflect on our core values, whether these are freedom, reason and tolerance, faith, hope and love, or simplicity, integrity and compassion (my own three). What matters is that we know what they are for us, as unique human beings, and are prepared to live our lives around them.
Perhaps it is time to formulate the traditional three wishes for the coming year. The traditional ones are for “health, wealth and happiness”, but as we saw from my second reading, there are different kinds of wealth – material wealth, and the spiritual wealth that no amount of money can buy. “Real wealth is completely intangible, invisible and deeply internal. Every human being is a unique individual spiritual entity. And as such, a source of the most precious energy in the universe. Love is the gold of the soul. We are each that gold at the core of our being.”
As Richard S. Gilbert points out in the words of our Time of Stillness and Reflection, we are graced by precious gifts, if we are aware enough to realise it,
“Each morning we hold out our chalice of being
To be filled with the graces of life that abound—
Air to breathe, food to eat, companions to love,
Beauty to behold, art to cherish, causes to serve.
They come in ritual procession, these gifts of life.
Whether we deserve them we cannot know or say,
For they are poured out for us.
Our task is to hold steady the chalice of our being.”
My three wishes? May the chalice of our being be held steady, may we live out our values, and may our wishes for 2021 come true.
Closing Words
Our time together is drawing to a close.
May we return to our everyday world refreshed,
May we share the love we feel,
And do the work that is ours to do,
In consonance with our core values.
May we look out for each other,
And may we keep up our hearts,
Now and in the days to come,
Amen
Postlude Lady of Lewesdon Hill by Elizabeth Harley