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Rev. Meg Barnhouse
December 24, 2018
First UU Church of Austin
4700 Grover Ave., Austin, TX 78756
austinuu.org
Readings and carols, candlelight on Christmas Eve. One of the church community’s favorite services of the year.
Introit: “In the Bleak Midwinter” (Harold Darke)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano
Chalice Lighting:
Love is the spirit of this church, and service is its law; this is our great covenant: to dwell together in peace, to seek the truth in love, and to help one another.
Opening Words
The Persian poet Rumi wrote,
God’s joy moves from unmarked box to unmarked box
From cell to cell. As rainwater, down into flowerbed.
As roses, up from ground.
Now it looks like a plate of rice and fish,
Now a cliff covered with vines,
Now a horse being saddled.
(God’s joy) hides within these,
Till one day it cracks them open.
Anthem: “Someday at Christmas” (Ron Miller and Bryan Wells)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano
Reading: “Come into Christmas” by Ellen Fay
It is the winter season of the year
Dark and chilly
Perhaps it is a winter season in your life.
Dark and chilly there, too
Come in to Christmas here,
Let the light and warmth of Christmas brighten our
lives and the world.
Let us find in the dark corners of our souls the
light of hope,
A vision of the extraordinary in the ordinary.
Let us find rest in the quiet of a holy moment to
find promise and renewal.
Let us find the child in each of us, the new hope,
the new light, born in us.
Then will Christmas come
Then will magic return to the world.
Reading: “The Shortest Day” by Susan Cooper
So the shortest day came, and the year died,
And everywhere down the centuries of the snow-white world
Came people singing, dancing,
To drive the dark away.
They lighted candles in the winter trees;
They hung their homes with evergreen;
They burned beseeching fires all night long
To keep the year alive,
And when the New year’s sunshine blazed awake
They shouted, reveling.
Through all the frosty ages you can hear them
Echoing behind us – Listen!!
All the long echoes sing the same delight,
This shortest day,
As promise wakens in the sleeping land:
They carol, fest, give thanks,
And dearly love their friends,
And hope for peace.
And so do we, here, now,
This year and every year.
Welcome Yule!
Reading: “On Angels” by Czeslaw Milosz
All was taken away from you: white dresses,
wings, even existence.
Yet I believe you,
messengers.
There, where the world is turned inside out,
a heavy fabric embroidered with stars and beasts,
you stroll, inspecting the trustworthy seams.
Short is your stay here:
now and then at a morning hour, if the sky is clear,
in a melody repeated by a bird,
or in the smell of apples at close of day
when the light makes the orchards magic.
They say somebody has invented you
but to me this does not sound convincing
for the humans invented themselves as well.
The voice – no doubt it is a valid proof,
as it can belong only to radiant creatures,
weightless and winged (after all, why not?),
girdled with the lightning.
I have heard that voice many a time when asleep
and, what is strange,
I understood more or less
an order or an appeal in an unearthly tongue:
day draws near
another one
do what you can.
Reading: Luke 2: 1-7
Reading: by Anthony F. Perrino
A gentle kind of Gladness
Comes with the end of December
A winter solstice spell, perhaps,
When people forget to remember –
The drab realities of fact,
The cherished hurt of ancient wrongs,
The lonely comfort of being deaf
To human sighs and angels’ songs.
Suddenly, they lose their minds
To hearts’ demands and beauty’s grace;
And deeds extravagant with love
Give glory to the commonplace.
Armies halt their marching,
Hatreds pause in strange regard
For the sweet and gentle madness born
when a winery sky was starred.
Reading: “Each Night A Child Is Born” by Sophia Lyon Fahs
For so the children come
and so they have been coming.
Always in the same way they came-
Born of the seed of man and woman.
No angels herald their beginnings.
No prophets predict their future courses.
no wise man see a star to show where to find
The babe that will save humankind.
Yet each night a child is born is a holy night.
Fathers and mothers
Sitting beside their children’s cribs-
Feel glory in the sight of a new beginning.
They ask “Where and how will this new life end?
Or will it ever end?”
Each night a child is horn is a holy night-
A time for singing-
A time for wondering
A time for worshipping.
Reading: Luke 2: 8-14
Reading: “In this Night” by Dorothee Solle
In this night the stars left their habitual places
And kindled wildfire tidings
that spread faster than sound.
In this night the shepherds left their posts
To shout the new slogans
into each other’s clogged ears.
In this night the foxes left their warm burrows
and the lion spoke with deliberation,
“This is the end revolution”
In this night roses fooled the earth
And began to bloom in snow.
Reading: Luke 2: 15-20
Reading: “The Camels Speak” by Lynn Ungar
Of course they never consulted us.
They were wise men, kings, star-readers,
and we merely transportation.
They simply loaded us with gifts
and turned us toward the star.
I ask you, what would a king know
of choosing presents for a child?
Had they ever even seen a baby
born to such simple folks,
so naked of pretension,
so open to the wind?
What would such a child care
for perfumes and gold? Far better
to have asked one born in the desert,
tested by wind and sand. We saw
what he would need: the gift
of perseverance, of continuing on the hard way,
making do with what there is,
living on what you have inside.
The gift of holding up under a burden,
of lifting another with grace, of kneeling
to accept the weight of what you must bear.
Our footsteps could have rocked him
with the rhythms of the road,
shown him comfort in a harsh land,
the dignity of continually moving forward.
But the wise men were not
wise enough to ask. They simply
left their trinkets and admired
the rustic view. Before you knew it
we were turned again toward home,
carrying men only half-willing
to be amazed. But never mind.
We saw the baby, felt him reach
for the bright tassels of our gear.
We desert amblers have our ways
of seeing what you chatterers must miss.
That child at heart knows something
about following a star. Our gifts are given.
Have no doubt. His life will bear
the print of who we are.
Anthem: “Still, Still, Still” (Austrian Folk Song)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano
Reading: “A Ritual of the Winter Solstice Fire,” by Rev. Meg Barnhouse
Let us take into our hands a Christmas candle, a Solstice candle
this is a night of ancient joy and ancient fear
those who have gone before us were fearful of what lurked
outside the ring of fire, of light and warmth.
As we light this fire we ask that the fullness of its flame
protect each of us from what we fear most
and guide us towards our perfect light and joy.
May we each be encircled by the fire and warmth of love
and by the flame of our friendship with one another.
On this night, it was the ancient custom to exchange gifts
of light, symbolic of the new light of the sun.
Therefore make ready for the light!
Light of star, light of candle,
Firelight, lamplight, love light
Let us share the gift of light.
Candle Lighting: “Payapang Daigdig” (Felipe Padilla de Leon)
Katrina Saporsantos, soprano
Reading: “The Work of Christmas” by Howard Thurman
When the song of angels is stilled,
When the star in the sky is gone,
When the kings and princes are home,
When shepherds are back with their flock,
The work of Christmas begins:
to find the lost,
to heal the broken,
to feed the hungry,
to release the prisoner,
to rebuild the nations,
to bring peace among the brothers,
to make music in the heart.
Carol: “We wish You a Merry Christmas”
Closing Words: “Kneeling in Bethlehem” by Ann Weems
It is not over, this birthing.
There are always newer skies
into which God can throw stars.
When we begin to think
that we can predict the Advent of God,
that we can box the Christ in a stable in Bethlehem,
that’s just the time that God will be born
in a place we can’t imagine and won’t believe.
Those who wait for God
watch with their hearts and not their eyes,
listening, always listening for angel words.
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