Category Archives: Thursday worship

11/18/10

The Fifth Day of Thanksgiving – Remembrance Thursday

Cornucopia Vital to the full vision of Thanksgiving, as we remember that good things come to our lives through meetings, is the risk involved in such meetings.

Human beings need to mix and mingle — not only to make life worth living, but also to grow and adapt to our changing environment.  Still, this exchange is not without the potential for danger, as the sad fate of the Wampanoag after the first Thanksgiving demonstrates.

The meeting of worlds can end in epidemic, misunderstanding, hostility, and even warfare.  The history of America, and indeed the entire world, is written in the twin pens of strife and cooperation.

And, for Reform Unitarians, it is important to recognize the harsh realities of life before celebrating the wondrous potentials, which is why we observe a solemn Remembrance Thursday one week before the Feast of Thanksgiving on Harvest Thursday.

05/27/10

Battle Hymn of the Unitarian

This year’s Ultimate Thursday of the 12 Days of Thorns falls on the birthday of Julia Ward Howe, a Unitarian best known for writing the lyrics to The Battle Hymn of the Republic, a march calling the righteous abolitionist to war. 

And, the spirit of militant abolitionism — which finally crushed the slave economy after decades of impotent pacifist abolitionism satisfied its own sentimentality while the slaves suffered in bondage — is perfectly congruous with the lesson of this dozenal.  There can be no moral success, no advance of justice, without trial and tribulation.

Those seeking the easy way out of injustice will usually instead find no way out.

Unfortunately, after the War of Liberation, Ms. Howe reverted to the pacifism that had for so long shackled abolitionism, and kept generations of African Americans shackled along with it.  Even so, the words of her Hymn still ring true for those who seek justice, truth, and freedom with open eyes. Continue reading →

05/13/10

Ascension Thursday

AscensionThe Twelve Days of Commission conclude today in the Ascension of Jesus. This feast day is one of the Four Great Thursdays of AUR, the other three being Garden Thursday, Declaration Thursday, and Harvest Thursday.

Ascension commemorates the return of Jesus to Heaven between two angels. This imagery places a final seal on the importance of reconciled, complementary virtues to Christian morality by closing Jesus’ time on Earth with symbolism that echoes a consistent theme throughout religion, both Christian and otherwise.

For example, in the book of Numbers, we read that the Word of God came to the Jews from between the two angels on the “Reconciler,” a device which sat atop the Ark of the Covenant.

Medieval Jewish theologian Moses Maimonides explained that these two angels on the Ark represented the punitive and beneficent aspects of God, reconciled in God’s Unity.

This moral message of reconciled virtues can also be seen symbolically in the prophecy of Isaiah that the Anointed returns when the wolf and the lamb, the leopard and the kid, and the lion and the calf lie down together.

In the Christian idiom are repeated lessons in reconciled, complementary virtues: Law and Wisdom reconciled in true religion, Faith and Hope reconciled in Divine Love, the shrewdness of serpents and the innocence of doves reconciled in the attitude of a true Christian.

Justice and mercy, strength and kindness, the arrow and the olive branch: these are the yin and yang of the Abrahamic idiom.  Only together and reconciled are these virtues; apart and partisan, they become the vices of Beast and Babylon, rage and lust, violence and libertinism, authoritarianism and anarchy.

The Reconciling Word of God, manifest in Jesus of Nazareth, returned to Heaven between two angels representing the benevolent and punitive aspects of God, angels who appeared beside him echoing the cherubim of the Ark. It is this image, and its rich spiritual meaning, that we commemorate on Ascension Thursday.

[A version of this homily was published on a previous Ascension Thursday.]

04/29/10

A Day of Faith and Confidence

faithToday is Loyal Thursday, the 4th Thursday after Easter and the Ultimate Thursday of the 12 Days of Trust, the second dozenal of the Ascension Season.

The 12 Days of Trust are a celebration of the clear-minded virtue of Faith (πίστις in Greek, fidelis in Latin), and Loyal Thursday is a day to feast in fidelity to the things we know to be true. Faith is the virtue of steadfast thinking, the antidote of confusion, and with Hope a vital half of the highest Christian virtue of Love.

04/15/10

A Day of Hope and Blessings

hopeJoyful Thursday, the second Thursday after Easter, is the Ultimate of the 12 Days of Blessings, the first of the three dozenals of the Ascension Season.

The 12 Days of Blessings are a celebration of the open-minded virtue of Hope (ἐλπίς in Biblical Greek), and Joyful Thursday is a day to feast in optimistic happiness.

Hope is the virtue of open-minded thinking, the antidote of despair, and with Faith a vital half of the highest Christian virtue of Love.

03/25/10

Palm Sunday and Religious Idiom

palm_sundayPalm Sunday commemorates the day Jesus entered Jerusalem on the back of a colt (or donkey) with throngs of Messianic enthusiasts paving the way with palm fronds. Celebrations of this holiday therefore often include palms.

In some regions, however, this tropical plant has historically been difficult to acquire, particularly when shipping methods were still primitive and slow. For this reason, local trees were often substituted for palms, and the name of the holiday revised to match.

This raises an intriguing question: Were Christians who celebrated “Yew Sunday” — because their culture knew yews and did not know palms — practicing a heresy because they violated the explicit accounts in scripture?

We don’t think so.  In fact, to invest the palm tree (or any other created thing) with significance over and above the spiritual meaning it conveys would verge on idolatry.

This is why AUR takes an idiomatic, rather than dogmatic, approach to religious creed.  This approach allows us, even as creedal Christians, to look beyond the particulars of the life of Jesus of Nazareth to see the Word of God as expressed in other regions, other cultures, and even other religious traditions.

Continue reading →

03/18/10

Attrition in Unitarian Universalism Reflects History

Earlier this year, a guest posting at the Unitarian Universalist Growth Blog discussed the perennial problem of high membership turnover in the Unitarian Universalist Association (UUA), eliciting comments that highlight the tension between UU and its Christian origins, Christian origins that American Unitarian Reform (AUR) has chosen to embrace rather than hold at a safe arms’ length.

As a matter of etiquette among general friends and allies, Reformed Unitarians tend not to contrast ourselves with UU as often we do Trinitarians.  But, to understand the issues facing “Unitarianism” in America, it is appropriate occasionally to revisit the philosophical history of American Unitarianism, and explain the differences between our two divergent paths.

Or, more accurately, between the path of AUR and other Christian Unitarians, and the lack of an explicit path in the UUA.

Continue reading →

03/4/10

Reform Unitarian Symbols – The Chalice

During this Lenten season leading up to Garden Thursday, let’s discuss one of our key symbols in Unitarian Reform: the chalice.

Now, the flaming chalice is known as a symbolism of post-Christian “Unitarianism” (absent the Unitarian meaning) with origins in the oil-burning lamps in Greek and Roman ritual.

For AUR, however, the chalice is the Cup of Gethsemane: the image Jesus used to symbolize the suffering of material existence, the worst of which he was about to suffer himself.

Continue reading →

02/25/10

Pietist or Liturgical?

One of the primary divisions in the Christian religion is the chasm separating the pietist approach, emphasizing a rigorous Christian lifestyle, from the liturgical approach, emphasizing ritualized public worship.

It may be most appropriate to address this issue a week after celebrating Ash Wednesday with liturgical churches, as American Unitarianism arose from the pietist tradition of Protestant Christianity, which has been very critical and even suspicious of ritual and ceremony.

However, the tide has been turning in favor of liturgical forms recently, and we have learned much in the centuries since the beginnings of American Unitarianism about the important role that social ceremony plays in reinforcing personal lifestyle.

Continue reading →

02/11/10

Music Thursday – Celebrate in Song!

Today is Music Thursday, the 8th Day of Carnival, a day for celebrating life in song!   Music has a strong role in Carnival traditions, particularly in the Americas.

But, that music, and Carnival celebrations in general, often have sexually aggressive content that might make some uncomfortable, or be inappropriate for family Carnival parties with children present.

Sexual expression is a touchy issue at any time, but during holidays when sex tends to come out in to the open, it creates unnecessary tensions between folks who might otherwise get along nicely.

Continue reading →