Why a Flaming Chalice?
Upstairs in Phillippa’s Place this morning Megan and our children are having a lesson about symbols and making chalices for the children to bring home with them. I remember a similar lesson from my Sunday School days. The mimeographed symbol sheets included religious and international symbols–Red Cross, the peace symbol, a cross, the Star of David, the then quite recognizable logo from a now defunct local grocery store chain. And a flaming chalice or two. We were meant to gain an understanding of the concept of symbol, more than any one particular symbol, so the lesson wasn’t centered on the flaming chalice. Megan is probably balancing the discussion between symbols in general and our flaming chalice with our kids today.
The differing emphasis in these similar Sunday School lessons is one indicator of the fact that I, like some of you, have lived a transformation with regard to the flaming chalice A chalice is lit each week in the sanctuary of my family's church now, and has been for perhaps the past 25 years, but there was no chalice in my childhood or my college years or several years beyond that. In children’s chapel each week we took turns lighting tall pillar candles, but there was no chalice there either, like there is up in Phillippa’s Place. The flaming chalice has gone from a little known symbol on a Sunday school worksheet a generation ago to a centerpiece of worship and faith today.
We Unitarian Universalists often reveal ourselves to a study in contrasts. Rational humanists who turn out for Christmas Eve and Easter Sunday in the highest attendance seen all year at our UU congregations. Fiercely non-creedal but increasingly claiming and celebrating a single symbol (though in many variations). As Lisa Friedman points out, many of us distrust liturgy (often dismissing it as empty ritual) but nevertheless have become attached to the lighting and extinguishing of faith community chalices. Flirting uneasily and in denial, with elitism at times, yet with our words and in our better moments, championing the common cause, the common person. Frequently accused of not believing in anything–or conversely of believing anything we want–we also revere our martyrs who died for their very beliefs, and even revere some martyrs we can’t rightly claim as our own but whose life-giving sacrificing belief nevertheless is one that resonates deeply within our liberal hearts. Today’s sermon revolves around the intersection of several of these contrasts.
First the facts:
The flaming chalice as a symbol was created some eighty years ago by an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch, at the request of the Reverend Charles Joy. Joy’s work with the Unitarian Service Committee (the predecessor of today’s UUSC) was an underground rescue operation in service of those needing escape from Nazi persecution. He wanted Deutsch to give the organization’s letters and papers a certain something “to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to symbolize the spirit of our work…”
Deutsch’s symbol for those important papers, the flaming chalice, has in the eight decades since been embraced by almost all of Unitarian Universalism, to symbolize the spirit of our work, our faith. The central components of the symbol, the flame and the chalice, as Lisa Friedman writes, have ancient and varied meanings and associations layered one atop another. Community, communion, elixir of life, purification, warmth, light, truth, wisdom. We hear all these in words spoken when chalices are lit in worship. Each individual who claims the flaming chalice as the symbol of their faith anoints it, consciously or not, with their own mix of meanings. I’ve spoken pretty consistently through the years of the oil of healing, the flame of truth, the cup of life. A few minutes ago you heard Dani read the chalice lighting I wrote after 9/11–with those and a few other meanings. Beside all these, the flaming chalice also holds a precious and less metaphorical association for me. One that nods to one of those martyrs we love to borrow.
Jan Hus was by no means a Unitarian Universalist. Back in late 14th century, early 15th century Bohemia there were no Unitarian Universalists. He was, in fact, a Catholic priest who is today also claimed by the Church of the Brethren. Having entered the priesthood at least in part to escape poverty, Hus soon distinguished himself as a church reformer and champion of the common person. Influenced by the works of English reformer JohnWycliff, Hus ran afoul of the established church by preaching against indulgences and other excesses of the power structure of the church. He also held that the communion chalice should be offered to the laity, not solely the priest as was common at the time. Hus was excommunicated and executed for his reforming ideas. He died at the stake on July 6, 1415. Here we have in the life and death of one person both the chalice and the flaming.
“It is in our national DNA to say to those who would be our masters, ‘You’re not the boss of me!’” Perhaps you remember then Delaware Senate candidate Christine O’Donnell rousing the Tea Party and Values Voters with those words back in 2010. It’s not eloquent rhetoric, and I’m no fan of O’Donnell’s politics, but she was absolutely right, of course, on this point. Our country was founded by people who told the king of England, ‘you’re not the boss of me’. The notion that each person is the captain of their own destiny is deeply embedded in our national psyche.
Unitarian Universalists too are fond of saying “you’re not the boss of me,” if not in so many words. We display “question authority” on bumper stickers and lapel pins, and sing that “to question is an answer.” We claim our own authority in matters of faith and theology. We govern ourselves according to congregational polity, rejecting all forms of ecclesiastical hierarchy. And the presence of a chalice in our worship, our jewelry, our clothing, our publications, is, I suppose, yet another way we say it: “you're not the boss of me. My faith, represented by this symbol, promises me autonomy of belief and religious practice.”
But the true message differs slightly and profoundly. When we place the flaming chalice at the center of our faith we proclaim, “No one shall be denied the cup of life. All shall quest their spirit’s thirst at will. All may warm themselves at the fire of community. The flame of truth burns to light the way for all.” Not only is no one the boss of any one of us when it comes to our beliefs and our practice of faith, but also, and more importantly, no one is the boss of deciding who has access to and welcome in this free faith. More important even than that, we proclaim, and defend the right of all to their own beliefs and religious practices, whatever they may be. We proclaim and defend healing, blessing, truth, spirit quenching for everyone. That’s why a flaming chalice.
This little light of mine. This little light of ours. We’re gonna let it shine, let it shine, let it shine. Shine in our sanctuary, shine in our homes, shine in our hearts, shine in our words, shine in our actions. Illuminating courage, spotlighting hope, reflecting wisdom, guiding us in the ways of truth and justice and love. May it be so. Amen.