Sermon by Reverend Cecilia Kingman Miller

“Giving Birth to the Sacred Within”

The Reverend Cecilia Kingman Miller, Interim Minister

Edmonds Unitarian Universalist Church

December 9, 2007

Readings

“Waking” by David Whyte

Get up from your bed,
go out from your house,
follow the path you know so well,
so well that you now see nothing
and hear nothing
unless something can cry loudly to you,
and for you it seems
even then
no cry is louder than yours
and in your own darkness
cries have gone unheard
as long as you can remember.

These are hard paths we tread
but they are green
and lined with leaf mould
and we must love their contours
as we love the body branching
with its veins and tunnels of dark earth.

I know that sometimes
your body is hard like a stone
on a path that storms break over,
embedded deeply
into that something that you think is you,
and you will not move
while the voice all around
tears the air
and fills the sky with jagged light.

But sometimes unawares
those sounds seem to descend
as if kneeling down into you
and you listen strangely caught
as the terrible voice moving closer
halts,
and in the silence
now arriving
whispers

Get up, I depend
on you utterly.
Everything you need
you had
the moment before
you were born.

Sermon

We are in the midst of the Advent season now. If we look up Advent in the dictionary, I’m pretty sure it will say “the shopping countdown to Christmas.”  But the season is more than that.  As you know, we are fast approaching the birthday of a deity.  December 25, while shepherds kept their watch there was born to a Virgin a God of Light. 

The name of this newly born God?  Mithra, God of the Sun and the central figure of Zoroastrianism. 

Zoroastrianism was a popular religion among the Roman soldiers during the time of Jesus. After Jesus’ death, legends grew up which were mingled with the ancient story of Mithra.¹

But miraculous births are not limited to these two figures. According to the website englishatheist.org:

“’The gods have lived on earth in the likeness of men’ was a common saying among ancient pagans, and supernatural events were believed in as explanations of the god's arrival upon earth in human guise.

About two thousand years before the Christian era Mut-em-ua, the virgin Queen of Egypt, was said to have given birth to the Pharaoh Amenkept (or Amenophis) III, who built the temple of Luxor, on the walls of which were represented [the following images]:

1. The Annunciation: the god Taht announcing to the virgin Queen that she is about to become a mother.
2. The Immaculate Conception: the god Kneph (the Holy Spirit) mystically impregnating the virgin by holding a cross, the symbol of life, to her mouth.
3. The Birth of the Man-god.
4. The Adoration of the newly born infant by gods and men, including three kings, who are offering him gifts.

In Egypt we also find that Apis, the sacred bull of Memphis, was believed to have been begotten by a deity descending as a ray of moonlight on the cow which was to become the mother of the sacred beast; hence he was regarded as the son of the god.²

The birth of prophets, wise ones, and saints are typically surrounded by legends: miracles such as virgin births, visitations of heavenly or regal beings, and the early recognition of special gifts or knowledge in the child. The Buddha, Siddartha Gautama, never asserted any miracles about his own birth; nevertheless, legends sprung up about his divine origins.  Here is the most common telling of his nativity story:

Queen Maya and King Suddhodhana did not have children for twenty years into their marriage. One day however, Queen Maya dreamt of a white elephant entering her side and became pregnant. According to Buddhist tradition, the Buddha-to-be was residing as a Bodhisattva in heaven and decided to be reborn, for the last time, on Earth.

The pregnancy lasted ten lunar months. Following custom, the Queen returned to her own home for the birth. On the way, she stopped to have a walk in the beautiful flower garden of Lumbini Park.   She was delighted by the park, and she reached for a branch to take a rest. Suddenly Prince Siddhartha emerged from her right side and was born.³

These are ancient legends and may seem superstitious to us, or unnecessary.  Yet these myths touch something primal in us, as well.  These stories are of divinity cloaked in human form, of power fleshed in innocence, of wisdom arising in commonness. There is much here for us to ponder in our own hearts.

What might we learn from the waiting and watching that is Advent? Advent, which means “coming,” is a season of anticipation and longing for salvation from harm.  The traditional readings for this time are from the Hebrew prophets who proclaimed hope in a time of great evil.  At the mercy of a powerful empire, the Israelites longed for their release.

“O come Emmanuel,” the original text reads, “and ransom captive Israel.”  Advent is the cry of those who wait in anguish, who have experienced the tyranny of injustice and yet still hope for deliverance!

The Advent story is a tale of hope from unexpected quarters.  It is a story from the underside of tyranny.

Dennis Bratcher writes: “It is truly a humbling experience to read back through the Old Testament and see how frail and imperfect all the ‘heroes’ actually are. Abraham, the coward who cannot believe the promise.  Jacob, the cheat who struggles with everybody. Moses, the impatient murderer who cannot wait for God. Samson, the womanizing drunk. David, the power abusing adulterer.  And finally, a very young Jewish girl from a small village in a remote corner of a great empire.”

And yet she answered, “I am your handmaiden.”

In the Advent story, Mary is full with the new life that will be born as Jesus.  I envision her like any new mother, anxious about the future and hopeful about this new life.  Perhaps she sensed something extraordinary about this life growing in her.  Perhaps like any mother she was simply full of hopes and dreams for her unborn child.  As the days passed and she grew more full of belly, her expectancy grew.

And then the legend tells us that she and Joseph must go to Bethlehem to be counted.  What an extra burden this must have been for the young mother, so late in her pregnancy—to ride and walk such a distance. 

I always imagine Mary wrapped against the cold desert wind, sheltering her belly as though the baby too would get chilled.  I picture her in that deep weariness that comes when a woman is nine months pregnant.  Her feet ached, her back ached, and still she walked.

She must have worried.  The roads were dangerous for travelers then.  One man and a pregnant woman would have been an easy mark for thieves.  She might have been afraid under the vast dark sky with only Joseph to break the landscape’s emptiness. 

Perhaps Joseph, that gentle man, did his best to provide some comfort—a steady hand, a tender response.  And yet all images of the gentle and patient mother of Christ aside, I imagine that Mary, being human, cried, complained, perhaps argued a little with Joseph.  Anyone who’s been pregnant knows what I mean!

And yet she walked onward.  Mary must have scanned the horizon anxiously for any sign of the town.  And when finally the outline of Bethlehem appeared, she must have been relieved.  At last she would be able to lie down and rest.

But when the young couple arrives in Bethlehem, all they find are indifferent strangers on crowded streets.  Not unlike the streets of our own cities and towns.  When finally the stay in the stable is offered, I can hear Mary saying, “Fine. Anywhere.  Just let me lie down!”

And so she does, in the stable with the animals.  You know the rest of the story, the Christmas story.  A story of light and wonder.  Of newborn hope.

But we are not yet at Christmas.  We are now in the Advent season.  We are in the walk toward Bethlehem, the long, dark, weary walk.  Unlike Mary, we do not carry the newly forming body of Jesus inside us.  But we do carry something of equal miraculousness.

As Unitarian Universalists, we believe that Mary was as human as you or I.  A real, normal person.  We believe this about Jesus, too, but that’s next week’s sermon.
And just as Jesus grew within Mary, carrying the still-veiled promise, so we carry an unrevealed promise.  Within each of us is the possibility of new life, of the Sacred’s desires for the world. 

We carry the hope of the world, just as Mary did, the hope of deliverance from evil, the hope of peace on earth.  We carry the promise of what Christians call the kingdom of God—what we might call the reign of goodness.  We walk the long road to Bethlehem, and as we walk, this promise gestates within us. 

This is one meaning of Advent—that each person is the hope of the world.  We are the unexpected quarter from whence hope may come.

And so, today I ask you: What is inside of you waiting to be born?  This is the opportunity of Advent, to ponder in the quiet and the dark what is going to break forth.  Take these weeks before the noise of Christmas and reflect on this question: What is the divine spark in you?  What gifts do you offer a weary world?

Like Mary, we may not fully understand that which is yet unborn in us.  But we are pulled toward that Christmas night, toward that labor and birth of the promise, just as surely as Mary was on that road to Bethlehem. 

The gifts that dwell within us are sacred, made to bless the world.  And yet, like any seed, they need the darkness in order to grow into fullness.  As that darkness closes in, as we grow every more weary, there is a temptation to move too quickly to the gladness of Christmas.  We want to leap into those “holly, jolly days,” to flee out of the darkness and into the bright, shining morning.

But if we light the winter prematurely, we will damage the small life growing silently in the dark.  We must dwell in the unknown before we can give birth.  As Meister Eckhart wrote, “The ground of the soul is dark… This word is a hidden word and comes in darkness of the night.” 

We must wait in this Advent season, and pray for the Sacred to come near.  We must listen in stillness for the first notes of the new age.

We must remember in these dark hours that hope springs from the most unexpected of places.  Wisdom chooses, over and over again, to reveal herself in the most unlikely of servants.

Anne Frank, the small Jewish girl.

Oscar Romero, a priest from a poor village.

Vaclav Havel, only a playwright.

Ghandi, a small Indian man.

And Mary, a poor, unwed, teenage mother living in a remote corner of a vast empire.

The road towards Bethlehem, towards the unfurling hope and birthing promise--that road may be dark and dangerous.  It may be cold and lonely. But do not be afraid on that road or in that birthing, for all that is most sacred, what some call God or the Spirit of Life, or simply Love—all of that promise and possibility is with you.  The Source of all wisdom and love walks the dark road with us.

And, as with Mary, God is waiting IN us, too.  God is gestating—hope and fullness and possibility lie within our own souls, even as we are wandering in the cold and dark toward an unknown place.  Even as we are turned away from warmth and light and must find shelter wherever we can—God is filling us, and God is waiting for us to give birth to the Holy.

All the power and glory and promise of the God Who Is Love is carried in each of us.  The God who is in all things stands waiting to witness God’s own birth.   God is the darkness in which we travel. God is the donkey who tenderly carries us. God is the labor, the sweat of our brow. God is the waiting animals and the shepherds and the glorious stars. 

God is the wisdom older than the stars.  God is the womb which carries the baby.  God is the child, born of love, who carries the hope of the world. 

May it be so, my friends.

AMEN.