 Good evening and welcome, and let's get ourselves in the proper spirit. We have a little medley of carols to begin our service this evening. So if you'd like to turn to 226 in your hymnals, join your voices with mine and song. Continue with number 237, the first Noel, and on this gentlest Christmas Eve night, number 234 in the gentle of the moon. The labor suspended and our errands accomplished. Once again we gather in the last light of deep December to turn our anxious, jaded hearts toward jubilation. With a rising sense of awe and expectancy we like, our forebears have fled from our chores to a place of peace, hoping to be reminded of the power still latent in ancient mysteries. And to feel kinship with all who have hoped, dreamed, and prayed for midwinter miracles, for new birth and new beginnings. Let minds and hearts now be ready to make room for wonder. As we kindle our chalice, please join in the words printed in your order of service. We will light candles this holiday season, candles of joy despite all sadness, candles of hope where despair keeps watch, candles of courage for fears ever present, candles of peace for tempest-tossed days, candles of grace to ease heavy burdens, candles of love to inspire all our living, candles that will burn not just tonight, but all year long. Thank you. In voice this evening, our first lesson this evening is the two lambs. Long long ago two lambs were born in the far hills of Judea. As they grew they followed their use to find food, but their hunger was for more than the best grazing. The two lambs were curious about many things, and they huddled close to the shepherds to hear of the world beyond the hills. As the days grew colder, an ancient one among the shepherds began to speak of a great expectancy that was spreading among the tribes. It concerned a child who was to be born to be a king, a child who would come from lowly folk. The two small lambs listened and wondered, shepherds and sheep were lowly. Could the babe be born to be a king, come from the hills of Judea? The ancient one said that there would be a sign to show when and where the great expectancy would come to pass. And so the small lambs began to watch and wait. But much time passed. One night, as the lambs lay close to their use, they could not sleep. At last the smaller lambs spoke. Nothing is ever found unless it is searched for, even grass. Let us go down from the hills and look for the child. And so the two lambs set off on their search. They peeked into every hut and circled every fire where shepherds kept watch. But they found nothing. Now where do we go? asked the larger lamb. We keep on, said the smaller of the two. As they traveled, the small lamb lifted his eyes to the stars for some sign, some beckoning light. The other lamb plodded along, looking for hindrances. At long last, he said, I am tired. This search is nothing but foolishness. I will lay me down by the road and sleep until morning, and then I will return to the flock. Lay yourself down then, said the smaller lamb, but I will go on. So the two lambs went their separate ways. Gladness welled up in the heart of the smaller lamb as he followed a road which wound between the hills. His eyes caught the brightening of the skies, and he followed the star to the lowly stable. Inside shone radiance, and he could hear the lowing of the cattle and the stamping of donkey's feet. The lamb knelt and nuzzled the tiny hands of the baby born, that very eve. He said softly to the shining child. You will remember, and I will remember, that a small lamb was the first to find you. Then he departed into the night to tell all who would listen and understand. Our second lesson continues with the animal theme, and in a somewhat lighter vein. W. Edward Harris was a Unitarian minister who served our church in Indianapolis for a number of years. By that he enjoyed a career as a journalist. We have all heard the popular song about Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer, but what can we say about its hero? He was excluded by the other reindeer. They did not let Rudolph play with them. We may feel confident that they made fun of him, and particularly his red nose. It's possible that they hurt poor Rudolph. He was on the outside. The other reindeer had a special relationship with Santa Claus. They were the elite, Dancer, Dasher, Prancer, Comet, Blitzen. These were fine names, bespeaking solidarity, stability, education, training, ability, access to the very best. These reindeer were sturdy and fast. Rudolph was smaller, and his only distinctive feature was that shiny red nose. It seemed to have a glow about it, and it made poor Rudolph a figure of fun. See Rudolph with his red nose, yeah, yeah. I'd rather be dead than red in the nose, the other reindeer would scoff. Still, Rudolph may have been content to be red-nosed by himself. He probably muttered more than once, I don't care. Let them be the favorites. Let them have all the fun. I can have fun by myself. One wonders why Santa Claus had not noticed this previously, had not taken steps to stop the torment and the teasing of young Rudolph. Perhaps he knew that reindeer can't be forced to accept others against their will, trying to get Donner and Blitzen and Prancer and Dancer and Comet and the others to play with Rudolph. That just wasn't going to work. So we have this classic story of the insiders excluding the newcomer making fun of his special traits. It happens all the time, doesn't it, in schoolrooms, playing fields, classes, society in general. They just don't have it. And if they do, well, we got here first and we do not have to let them into our group, our club, our company, our church, our country club, or our games. Did Rudolph wish to be included? We don't know. Perhaps he did, for it is the deepest wish of all creatures to be long, to be accepted. But then what happened? One foggy Christmas Eve, Santa realized that Rudolph could make the difference in guiding his sleigh. Rudolph could lead them through. Rudolph's special trait was his ugly, shiny nose, but it was just this trait, this nose, that the occasion called for. So Santa goes to little Rudolph, asks him to guide the sleigh, actually to lead the sleigh. He would be in front of all the other reindeer because their mission of getting Christmas to the boys and girls of the world, that mission was so important that it became necessary to think past old past practices. When Rudolph was asked to do this job, what did he say? We don't know. He wasn't recorded, but we do know what he did not say. He didn't say, I can't, or I'm too little, or I haven't had the proper training. He didn't say, me, why should I? The others are always making fun of me. He didn't say, now you ask. He didn't say, I've got something else to do, or it isn't fair, or get somebody else to let dancer do it. He did not say spitefully, I hope you crash, you and all the others. And he did not say, what's in it for me? How much will you pay me? No, he just did it. He led the sleigh through. He executed the task. It wasn't easy, but he did it. And then as we know, all the reindeer loved him. What does this story, this little bit of doggerel mean? What is its moral? Well, there are a few possible meanings. Anyone can serve. We need everyone to be part of the team. Even the least attractive and the smallest has a special contribution to make. The mission is more important than the personalities. And so perhaps you will think of a few folks that you know who are like Rudolph the next time you listen to this song. And again, for the third time, continuing with the animal theme, please turn in your hymnals to number 243, Jesus Our Brother. Our third lesson this evening is from Truman Capote. There is a trunk in our attic, and it contains a shoebox of ermine tails off the cape of a curious lady who once rented a room in the house. Coils of frazzled tinsel gone yellow with age. One silver star, a brief rope of dilapidated, undoubtedly dangerous, candy-like light bulbs. Excellent decorations as far as they go, which isn't far enough. My friend wants our tree to blaze like a Baptist window, droop with weighty snows of ornament. But we can't afford the made in Japan splendors at the five and dime. So we do what we always have done, sit for days at the kitchen table with scissors and crayons and stacks of colored paper. I make sketches, and my friend cuts them out. Lots of cats, fish too, because they're easy to draw. Some apples, some watermelons, a few winged angels devised from saved up sheets of Hershey Bar tinfoil. We use safety pins to attach these creatures to the tree. As a final touch, we sprinkle the branches with shredded cotton picked in August for just this purpose. My friend, surveying the effect, clasps her hands together. Now honest, buddy, doesn't it look good enough to eat? Our dog, Queenie, does try to eat an angel. Our next project is fashioning family gifts, tie-dye scarves for the ladies, for the men, a home-brewed lemon and licorice and aspirin syrup to be taken at the first symptoms of a cold and after hunting. But when it comes time for making each other's gifts, my friend and I separate to work secretly. I would like to buy her a pearl-handled knife, a radio, a whole pound of chocolate-covered cherries. I could live on them, she once told me. Yes, Lord, buddy, I could. And that's not taking his name in vain. Instead, I built her a kite. She would like to give me a bicycle. She said so on a million occasions. If only I could, buddy, it's bad enough in life to do without something you want, but confounded what gets my goat is not being able to give someone else something you want them to have. Only one day, I will, buddy, locate you a bike. Don't ask me how, steal it maybe. Instead, I'm fairly certain she is building me a kite, the same as last year and the year before. The year before that, we exchanged slingshots, all of which is fine by me, for we are champion kite flyers who study the wind like sailors. My friend who is more accomplished than I can get a kite aloft when there isn't enough breeze to carry clouds. Christmas Eve afternoon, we scraped together a nickel and go to the butchers to buy Queenie's favorite gift, a good, gnawable bone. The bone wrapped in funny paper is placed high in the tree near the silver star. Queenie knows it's there. She squats at the foot of the tree, staring up in a trance of greed. When bedtime arrives, she refuses to budge. Her excitement is equaled by my own. Buddy, are you awake? It is my friend calling from her room, which is next to mine. An instant later, she's sitting on my bed holding a candle. Well, I can't sleep a hoot, she declares. My mind is jumping like a jackrabbit. But I feel so bad, buddy. I wanted to give you a bike. I tried to sell the cameo Papa gave me, but, buddy, she hesitates as though embarrassed. I made you another kite. Then I confess that I made her one, too. And we laugh out loud. The candle burns too short to hold. Out it goes, exposing the starlight. The stars spinning at the window like a visible caroling that slowly, slowly daybreak silences. Possibly we doze. But the beginnings of dawn splash us like cold water. We're up, wide-eyed, and wandering while we wait for others to wake. Quite deliberately, my friend drops a copper kettle on the kitchen floor. I tap dance in front of closed doors. One by one, the household emerges, looking as though they'd like to kill us both. But it's Christmas, and they can't. First, a glorious breakfast. Just everything you can imagine from flapjacks to fried squirrel to how many grits to honey in the comb, which puts everyone in a good humor. Except my friend and me. Frankly, we're so impatient to get to the presents that we can't eat a mouthful. Well, I'm disappointed. Who wouldn't be with socks, a Sunday school shirt, some handkerchiefs, a hand-me-down sweater, and a year's subscription to a religious magazine for children, The Little Shepherd. It makes me boil. It really does. My friend has a better haul. A sack of mandarin oranges was her best present. She's proudest, however, of a white wool shawl knitted by her married sister. But she says that her favorite gift is the kite I built her. And it is very beautiful, though not as beautiful as the one she made me, which is blue and scattered with golden green good conduct stars. Moreover, my name is painted on it. Buddy. Buddy, the wind is blowing. The wind is blowing. And nothing will do till we run to a pasture below the house where Queenie has scooted to bury her bone. There, plunging through the healthy waist-high grass, we unreal our kites, feel them twitching at the string like sky fish as they swim into the wind. Satisfied, sun warmed, we sprawl on the grass and peel mandarins and watch our kites cavort. Soon I forget the socks and hand-me-down sweater. I'm happy that I'm happy as if I'd won a $50,000 prize in a coffee naming contest. Our lessons, that there is an old legend about Christmas bread that I cherish. It goes something like this. Anything given to others at Christmas time, anything is Christmas bread. The act of dividing it multiplies it. At Christmas, one loaf would be enough to feed the whole world. I believe that legend, for I have seen it happen most recently last year. You see, I had spent months writing a book, a book that I deeply believed in. And I had become temporarily poor in the process. I'd planned to scrape along on savings, but a book always takes longer than you would expect it. And there are also stretches when you are quite sure that the work is just no good and that you have been mad to even attempt it. I was in just such a predicament as Christmas drew near. There was little I could do to make merry, except send out a few Christmas cards. But then I received a card from someone 3,000 miles away with a check for $5 and closed. Now, three years earlier, I had given this friend $5 in a small emergency. And now she was in a position to be able to return it. And she did so gladly. I'm not really one for signs and wonders, but that little check lay on my work table for days curiously spurring my faith in the work that I was doing on my book. There is a man who had been kind to me, and I had hoped to buy him a book for his kindness that cost $5.95. I had already discarded the idea because I knew I couldn't afford it. But now, here is this unexpected check for $5, and I could just eek it out. But was that practical? I rather needed the $5 myself, and the man was not expecting a gift from me in any case. And yet the complete surprise of it, that was part of the pleasure. And anyway, there was this whole matter of holy bread. I bought the book, wrapped in bright paper, felt immensely happy every time I looked at it. Two days later, another greeting card arrived with a $10 bill in appreciation for a small service I had once performed for a neighbor. Christmas bread, I thought to myself, it does multiply. But then I heard of this young couple in great financial difficulty, and well, I sent the $10 to them. I wasn't actually poor and hungry, and I knew what an unexpected boost can mean far beyond its actual cash value. After all, I had just received two of them myself. It was Christmas bread. It had watered my soul. Now it was time to pass it along. And the afternoon, before Christmas, I sat down with a cup of tea, a piece of fruit cake, and I began opening the day's mail. There was a letter from my sister inside a check for $100. She knew about the book that I was writing, and it was her way of saying, keep it up, bro. I sat looking at that check for a whole minute. A bit later, I tore into a letter from a bank and learned that a loan had been repaid to my late mother's estate, and that was enough money for me to live for several months. I could now finish my manuscript with ease. Holy bread indeed. When you share it, you can't get rid of the stuff. How can I not believe in that old story? Legends become legends because, often as not, they are rooted in the deep laws of life. Please join me in singing Joy to the World. Now it is time for the giving and the receiving of our offering. And as you can see from the back of your program, at all of our services during the holiday season, your gifts will be given 100% to our Eviction Prevention Fund here at First Unitarian Society. Last year, we were able to keep people 140 families in their homes because of your generosity. And so in the spirit of holy bread, please be generous. When it comes from Susan Janicek, it concerns a single mother with three young children. And these three children are trying to figure out what would be appropriate to get their mother for Christmas. And in the days before Christmas, they ask her, Mom, what do you want? And each time the mother gives the same answer, all I want for Christmas is some peace and quiet. But Mom, the kids protest, we can't buy you peace and quiet. What do you really want? What gift can we buy you? Mom still insists. I don't want you to buy me anything. My life is busy and it's noisy and all I really want is some peace and quiet. This request stumps the children. They don't know how to give the gift of peace and quiet. As Christmas approaches, gifts for the mother begin to appear under the tree from each of the children. They compare notes about what they have gotten for their mother. One of them had bought her a new wallet, another a scarf. But the third child had only this to say. I got Mom what she asked for. I got her peace and quiet. You can't buy peace and quiet, said the other children. What did you really get, Mom? Third child will only repeat. I got her peace and quiet. Children took the box and shook it. There was something in the box. They could hear it. They tried to guess what it was, but the only response that they could get from the third child was I got her peace and quiet. Well, on Christmas Eve, this family had the tradition that they would each open one gift before they went to bed. And when it was mother's time, she took the box with the gift of peace and quiet, carefully unwrapped the wrapping paper, slowly opened the box, reached inside, and pulled out a white candle. She found matches while the other children turned out all the lights in the house. In the darkness, she lit the candle. The mother and the children sat together in silence, watching the flame, and together they all enjoyed the gift of peace and quiet. Please join me in the spirit of meditation. It's important in season and out to remember that peace begins with you. Peace can feel warm, bright, and strong, or it can feel calm and cool and gentle. There are some things you need just to stay alive, like food and clothing. Peace is having the things that you need to survive. But everybody is different. They want to need different things. So peace is also being allowed to be different, letting others be different from you. There's a special kind of peace that lives inside you. And some people can feel this peace, even when they're in great pain, or fear, or danger. Now there are always choices that we can make. And some of those choices threaten peace. Some choices protect it. Every day we make choices about peace, at home, at school, and at work. And the same kinds of choices are made when there are problems between one country and another. Some choices lead in the end to war. But peace can be protected. Working for peace can be harder than using force. You may have to be braver and stronger. But when you consider how much pain is caused by the breaking of peace in families, neighborhoods, countries all over the world, and all through time, then working for peace has to be worth it. Peace has to be the better way. It's not a gap between times of fighting or a space where nothing is happening. Peace is something that lives and grows and spreads and needs to be looked after. So when you leave this evening and go forth to your holiday festivities, don't forget, be a peacemaker. And remember that peace begins with you. We're gonna sing together now a little town of Bethlehem. Sprinkling the mantle of heaven with their lustrous and far shining light. Gorgeous is the moon that seems like a lovely maiden walking in the fields of the sky, clothed with raiment of wondrous gold and light. Glorious is the sun with its great brightness, circling the seasons bringing the benediction of ever renewed life to the earth. Comforting are the hearthfires, the lamps and tapers that hallow our homes and make a reassuring glow within the surrounding shadows. And beyond all of these, we cherish the light that lights everyone that comes into the world. The imperishable flame of the human spirit touched into being by the eternal one. Oh, fire of reason and imagination, fire of compassion and pity, fire of friendship and good will, oh divine spark burning at the center of every human heart. The sacred flame discerns in every age by Persian and Jew, by Hindu and Christian, by pagan, prophet, scientist and sage. But our acolytes, please come forward. Come then apostles, come fellow pilgrims, come dreamers and singers and poets, come builders, come healers. Come those of the soil and those who command the might of great machines. Come all and carry the sacred flame to light up the windows of the world. And now there is light where all was shadow before. May we abide in the mystic fellowship of love, peace, hope and light. Perhaps it will happen this way. Someone will hand you a package. You will untie the ribbon of Handel's Messiah and Bing Crosby's White Christmas. Tear off the glittering paper of department store windows and strings of colored lights. Open the box made from old cards, friends' names fading beneath sweet greetings. Toss aside the tissue paper of stockings stuffed with oranges and candles lit with hope. And finally, you will hold in your hands the desert at twilight, colors sinking across its sandy shoulders like a silk scarf tossed. The sky at night stars skating too slowly to sea over black ice, tracing elegant curves. The old growth forest, new shoots springing from the root of stumps cut down. A thousand faces of human terror and human joy singing. You touch it all. An ache transformed. Earth, life, evening sky. This is the gift. Open it. And now it is time to extinguish your flame, but you may take the candle home with you from this place of sharing. Light it again tomorrow and in the days ahead. Taking a few moments on each occasion to think of the warmth, love and peace you can share with others. And in so doing, cause your own inner light to burn, even brighter. It all begins with one light, one child or adult, and with you and with me. Bright blessings, Merry Christmas. Merry Christmas and please remain seated for our postlude. And good night. The spells are free, but its voice is sleeping clear. Sing the sound of heart to cheer. Ding dong, ding dong, Christmas bells are ringing. Caroling, caroling through the town, Christmas bells are ringing. Caroling, caroling up and down, Christmas bells are ringing. Marky, well the song would sing, but some targets shall be green. Ding dong, ding dong, Christmas bells are ringing. Caroling, caroling near and far, Christmas bells are ringing. Howling, going, younger star, Christmas bells are ringing. Sing we all this happy moon, blow the King of Heaven his horn. Ding dong, ding dong, Christmas bells are ringing. Ding dong, ding dong, Christmas bells are ringing.