The Fire of Commitment

By Rev. Terry A. Davis

Delivered at Northwest Unitarian Universalist Congregation on December 19, 2012.

I met with our Unitarian Universalist parents last week, and the word is that our kids love lighting the chalice every Sunday. My guess is that where they’re concerned, the more fire, the better. And, so I imagine December is a hit with them as they continue to light the Advent wreath and the Hanukkah menorah leading up to our candlelight service on Christmas Eve.

As many of you know – and as we heard in the children’s Story Wisdom – the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah is the eight-day festival that commemorates the rededication of the Temple after the Maccabees regained control of Jerusalem from the Assyrians in the second century BCE. This ancient story is one of triumph and miracle, as the Maccabees reclaim their sacred worship place and manage to keep the Temple’s menorah burning for eight days, when there appeared to be just enough oil for one day.

As Unitarian Universalists, these stories illustrate what it means for a people to overcome oppression and assert their right to practice their faith. The flaming menorah, much like our own flaming chalice, is a symbol of hope and perseverance. In many ways, it is a fire of commitment . . . a reminder of human courage and perseverance . . . a reminder of those values that inform our liberal faith tradition and guide us to do what we can to restore and promote equity, freedom, and respect for a diversity of beliefs.

In reflecting on this Jewish holiday, I have been thinking this past week of what it means to rededicate one’s self to someone or something . . . to rekindle that fire of commitment. As Neal mentioned in his reflection, dedicating one’s self anew to family, to a faith community, or something else of high value can sometimes follow a period of high highs and low lows.

I also believe that rededication can follow a time of oppression and desecration . . . a time when one has felt stifled by one’s own actions or inactions . . . a time when one can no longer tolerate the pain of abandoning one’s personal values, hopes, and dreams.

For these reasons, it seems that the Jewish holiday of Hanukkah and its message of triumph and miracle is one that can call us back to ourselves. It’s a holiday that can help us see where we might rekindle our own fire of commitment  . . . a commitment to put our values at the center of our actions in a way that liberates us from oppression and establishes a new sense of health and wholeness.

To consider Hanukkah’s message of triumph and rededication, we might start with the details of the ancient story itself, as told by Jewish Author Lesli Koppelman Ross:

“It began in 168 BCE, when the ruler of the Syrian kingdom, Antiochus Epiphanes IV, decided that all the subjects in his vast empire – which included the Land of Israel – would share the same culture and worship the same gods.

“The king and his soldiers proceeded to march into Jerusalem, where they vandalized the Jewish Temple, erected an idol on the altar, and desecrated its holiness with the blood of pigs . . . which are considered unclean animals in the Jewish tradition. The king also forbade the study of the Torah, observance of the Sabbath and other acts of faith.

“When the Syrian soldiers reached Modin (about 12 miles northwest of the capital), they demanded that the local leader Mattathias, (who was a member of the priestly class), be an example to his people by sacrificing a pig on a portable pagan altar. The elder refused and killed not only the Jew who stepped forward to do the Syrian’s bidding, but also the king’s representative.

“With the rallying cry “Whoever is for God, follow me!” Mattathias and his five sons fled to the hills and caves of the wooded Judean wilderness. Joined by a ragtag army of simple farmers, the Maccabees –as Mattathias’ sons came to be known – fought a guerilla war against the well-trained, well-equipped, seemingly endless forces of the mercenary Syrian army.

“In three years, the Maccabees cleared the way back to the Temple mount, which they reclaimed. They cleaned the Temple, dismantled the defiled altar and constructed a new one in its place. They held a rededication – or hanukkah – of the Temple with proper sacrifice, rekindling of the golden menorah, and eight days of celebration and praise to God.[i]

“The miracle of the one-day supply of menorah oil lasting for eight days was written about 600 years after the events described in the book of Maccabees. It seems after the forces of Antiochus had been driven from the Temple, the Maccabees discovered that almost all of the ritual olive oil had been profaned, meaning it had been used for rituals that they did not consider sacred.

“They found only a single container that was still sealed by the High Priest, with enough oil to keep the menorah in the Temple lit for a single day. They used this, yet it burned for eight days, which was the time it took to have new olive oil pressed and made ready.”[ii]

In applying this story to my own life today, I am aware of some areas where I could benefit from rededicating my efforts, rekindling my fire of commitment.

One is around self-care. I have to admit that I have allowed my exercise, sleep schedule, and other healthy habits to slip these last few months . . . in part, I tell myself, because I was adjusting to my new job and in part because my aging dogs now get us up at 4:30 AM each day, ready to go outside and eat breakfast.

Yet, I also know that there’s more to it than that. What’s closer to truth is the fact that I am once again bumping up against my perfectionism, which generally manifests itself in my life as trying to do too much.

Psychologist and author Anne Wilson Schaef, who writes and lectures about addiction argues that overdoers often are persons who overuse their skills and competency rather than face the truth about their limits. She writes:

“So much of our world is built on illusions.

The illusion of control. The illusion of perfectionism, the illusion of objectivity. Dishonesty and denial are the building blocks of doing too much. And yet, we are the only ones who can refuse to acknowledge our perceptions and lie to ourselves. Sometimes our awareness makes funny noises to get our attention.”[iii]

Our awareness makes funny noises to get our attention . . . what are the funny noises in my life? Well, when it comes to self-care, one funny noise I’ve been hearing is the whisper of the word “hypocrite” in my head. I hear it when I counsel others to put self-care first when they are dealing with big life changes, stress or difficult circumstances. As the saying goes, it’s time for me to practice what I preach.

Another funny noise I’ve been hearing occurred just recently. It involved a new awareness of another way I have been in denial and participating in my oppression. It’s an awareness that has grown stronger since arriving at Northwest and learning more about your care and concern for one another and for our hurting planet.

This new funny noise occurred this past week during a breakfast meeting I was having with a Northwest member. We both had driven some distance to meet at a Marietta restaurant, and we both made note of the unfortunate fact that we had each burned considerable fossil fuel to get there.

As we were talking, my breakfast companion – who has a strong passion for the environment – mentioned that he and another Northwest member had once discussed making a pilgrimage to West Virginia so they could see first-hand what mountaintop removal coal mining  looked like. “Once you see it, you’ll never forget it,” he recalled his Northwest friend saying about the trip, indicating that one look at the desecrated mountains would be all it would take to awaken anyone to the severe crisis fossil fuel dependency has created for our planet and our spirit.

It was right then that I heard Schaef’s funny noise of awareness. It manifested itself as embarrassment. “Well,” I reluctantly admitted, “I have been to West Virginia. I did fly over areas of mountaintop removal mining. And, I am ashamed to admit, it wasn’t yet my wake-up call.”

The moment to which I was referring occurred in the early 2000s when I was in working in marketing and communications. My agency had among its clients a Virginia-based coal mining company whose CEO lived near Huntington, West Virginia. I was scheduled to interview him for his company’s annual report to shareholders. They flew me from Atlanta, first by plane, and then by helicopter, to his office in West Virginia, which was located in a double-wide trailer on the side of a mountain.

We flew over an enormous swath of desecration – a moonscape really of leveled mountain summits, deforested hills, and exposed rock and soil. Our helicopter also flew over reclaimed areas that had been reseeded with grass and planted with trees, an attempt at restoring nature without its essential biodiversity.

These scenes were new and shocking to me, but apparently not shocking enough. Nor was it shocking enough to have the CEO laughingly tell me later in his office about the bullet hole in the television set that sat behind his desk . . . how the bullet hole came from a union miner who tried to shoot him through his office window for his practice of hiring cheaper, non-union workers so that he could drive down coal prices.

I probably should have resigned the account then, but I didn’t.  Nor did I use my one-on-one time with the CEO to question him about the practices of his company. My curtain of illusion was still firmly in place. And, so I conducted my interview and eventually my firm produced his company’s annual report – a report that of course emphasized the positive and minimized the negative. A report that seems to me now was full of denial.

My breakfast with a certain Northwest member got me thinking. If I’m truly dedicated to sustainability in all its forms – mind, body, spirit, and planet – then I can no longer look the other away at those practices or omissions that deplete me and deplete this earth. It’s time for me to take further responsibility for my own restoration by increasing my awareness and making some concrete changes in my life. And, I have a feeling that this faith community is going to teach me how.

And, so, it is with humility and gratitude that I approach this season of Hanukkah and the opportunity to consider what it means to rededicate oneself to that which is most sacred. I invite us all to make this time of light a time of reflection and rededication.

May we find the courage to pay attention to those funny noises of awareness. May we find the courage to rekindle the fire of commitment for our own liberation and growth . . . and for the wellness and wholeness of all.

May it be so. Amen.