Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa: A Sermon by the Reverend Andrea Abbott, Christmas Day, 2016
Preacher: Reverend Andrea Abbott
Hanukkah, Christmas, Kwanzaa
Many years ago, I worked in a library where three of the staff were Jewish. The annual office Christmas party was under discussion and, for some reason, someone brought up the difficulty of having Jewish staff expected to contribute to and take part in a Christmas party. At any rate, during the discussion one of the clerks spoke up indignantly and said, “Well, I don’t understand what the problem is. After all, aren’t we all Christians together?” There was a little pause and then we sort of abandoned the discussion. What happens at Christmas if, like the mailroom clerk, and like many of us, we are not all Christians together? What do we do during this overwhelming holiday time?
It happens this time of year, give or take a few days or weeks, that Hanukah and Christmas coincide. This year they have done so almost completely, since last night was not only Christmas Eve but also the first night of Hanukah. And, by design, Kwanzaa follows tomorrow, the day after Christmas. Two of these holidays are ancient and one more modern but in each case their meanings have changed and, particularly the older celebrations, have undergone some significant alterations, as they have rubbed up against each other in this country.
Hanukah was never a major Jewish holiday. Major holidays are those found in the Hebrew Scripture and this holiday originated after the books of Hebrew scripture were determined. Originally, it was an observance that commemorated the rededication of the 2nd Temple. The Maccabees, a clan of warriors, led an uprising against the oppression of the Jews by their Persian overlords who had desecrated the Temple.. By 165 BC the Jewish revolt was successful. The Temple was liberated and rededicated. The head of the clan ordered the Temple to be cleansed, a new altar to be built in place of the polluted one and new holy vessels to be made. According to the Talmud, unadulterated and undefiled pure olive oil with the seal of the high priest was needed for the menorah in the Temple, which was required to burn throughout the night every night. The story goes that one flask was found with only enough oil to burn for one day, yet it burned for eight days, the time needed to prepare a fresh supply of kosher oil for the menorah. An eight-day festival was declared by the Jewish sages to commemorate this miracle. And so this festival involves a commemoration of freedom from tyranny and a reaffirmation of a culture and traditions, as well as a celebration of religious freedom.
In this celebration, the menorah is placed in a window or at the entrance to a house so all may see it and the light may shine out into the world. During two time periods, at the time of the Roman occupation of Israel and during the Nazi occupation of Europe, menorahs were hidden and so the public display of a menorah took on additional meaning.
Though Hanukah was always part of Jewish tradition, though celebrated in different ways by different groups, it began to have more significance in the 1960’s and 70’s, particularly in America. Hanukah began to be seen as a symbol of Jewish identity. Menorahs became part of public displays and the celebration of the holiday in Jewish homes became more elaborate. In this, it reminds us that for everyone Christmas is not the only holiday and that other cultures may find the emphasis on what is at its roots a Christian holiday, no matter how secularized, something alienating rather than embracing.
Hanukah says that there are other ways to see this season. It also reminds us that, frighteningly, anti-Semitism is not dead but has only been sleeping. Neo-Nazis and their kin are taking full advantage of the change in political climate. There has been both overt and covert encouragement of anti-Semitism. And, even without the swastikas and other abominations, how do the words “this is a Christian nation” feel to those, including many of us, who are not Christian in the narrow sense that it is usually meant?
If Hanukah is an altered holiday, altered to demonstrate pride in heritage, Kwanzaa is a created holiday, created, though in order to engender pride in a heritage that had been much despised. Kwanzaa was never a religious holiday. Nor does it rely on ancient texts. It is a week-long celebration held in the United States and in other nations. The celebration honors African heritage and is observed from December 26 to January 1, culminating in a feast and gift-giving. Kwanzaa has seven core principles. It was created by Maulana Karenga and was first celebrated in 1966–67, as the first specifically African-American holiday. According to Karenga, the name Kwanzaa derives from the a Swahili phrase matunda ya kwanza, meaning “first fruits of the harvest”.
Kwanzaa celebrates what its founder called the seven principles of Kwanzaa, or Nguzo Saba (the seven principles of African Heritage), which Karenga said “is a communitarian African philosophy,” consisting of what Karenga called “the best of African thought and practice in constant exchange with the world.”
These seven principles comprise *Kawaida, a Swahili word meaning “common”. Each of the seven days of Kwanzaa is dedicated to one of the following principles. The seven candles in the candleholder, called the kinara, symbolize the seven principles of Kwanzaa, which are:
Umoja (Unity): To strive for and to maintain unity in the family, community, nation, and race.
Kujichagulia (Self-Determination): To define and name ourselves, as well as to create and speak for ourselves.
Ujima (Collective Work and Responsibility): To build and maintain our community together and make our brothers’ and sisters’ problems our problems and to solve them together.
Ujamaa (Cooperative Economics): To build and maintain our own stores, shops, and other businesses and to profit from them together.
Nia (Purpose): To make our collective vocation the building and developing of our community in order to restore our people to their traditional greatness.
Kuumba (Creativity): To do always as much as we can, in the way we can, in order to leave our community more beautiful and beneficial than we inherited it.
Imani (Faith): To believe with all our hearts in our people, our parents, our teachers, our leaders, and the righteousness and victory of our struggle.
A different candle is lit each day. Three candles on the left are green; three on the right are red; and in the middle is a black candle.
Now, you can see that a different set of concerns shaped both this holiday and these principles, a different set of concerns from, say, our seven principles and our own interaction with a holiday.
The holiday was very self-consciously inaugurated to help African Americans reconnect with their African cultural and historical roots from a recognition that culture helps in identity, purpose and direction. Though Kwanzaa is sometimes mocked as false, or artificial and though there is evidence that it is a holiday on the wane, it is still evidence of the great need for cultural recognition, for a sense of belonging and rootedness celebrated publicly, for an uplifting of one’s culture, a holiday which exalts the best of one’s culture in the face of the overwhelming force of mainstream culture, the culture considered to be the norm. So Hanukah was changed and Kwanzaa was created because it is not easy not be part of what everybody assumes is normal.
And, this, of course, brings us to Christmas. Christmas has been celebrated and not celebrated, been a day of prayer, a day of merry making, a day of fasting, a day of feasting. It has so many roots in the Norse and Celtic traditions that someone from the Middle East, let’s say 2000 or so years ago, would have a difficult time equating it with the birthday of the leader of his new cult.
In this country, Christmas has become open, filled with the customs of many people who have come here and so there are glass pickles and Irish dancers, Christmas greetings and St. Nicholas’ of every nationality on our trees. In the great, booming, buzzing experience that is the American Christmas, all are welcome, all are supposed to join the party.
But not everyone is so comfortable at the party. And the democratic impulse of secular Christmas can also obscure the reality that every culture is not equal here, every way of being is not equal here, and there is always the danger of disappearance, of loss, of a certain homogenization of experience. And not everyone wants to be homogenized. Holidays are affirmation and holidays are resistance.
The sheer pull of the American Christmas is emblematic of the deeper pull of American culture. And the limits and rules of that culture are up for grabs now as never before. Christmas has become one of the battlefields of the culture wars and we know that the war is alive and well. Holidays are celebration and holidays are a portal to another way of thought.
What have we, as U-U’s to do with this? Do we celebrate, how do we celebrate, why do we celebrate? Do we celebrate Yule instead of Christmas, that oldest of turnings of the season that still calls to us? Do we annex other holidays, adding, for example, Hanukah, Kwanzaa, become conversant with Ramadan and with Diwali? Do we not celebrate, seeing all religious holidays as tainted by their origins and uses? Do we invent our own holiday, as was tried with the holiday of Chalica? I am not making this up and I suppose some congregations do this.
Perhaps more to the point, how we will fare in the times that lie before us? How do we express what is holy and of great meaning to us in a climate of hostility and hatred of the different? How do we, or perhaps I should say, do we, still carry on the old dream of tolerance, of respect, of sheer curiosity and delight in diversity and variety?
Most of us live within the confines of our traditional culture. On the edges, perhaps, maybe not in our thoughts, but, at first glance, most of us are pretty much like the folks next door. It may be hard for us to imagine how chilly it can be to not be part of the crowd, to be singled out, to be the exception. Whether it’s outward appearance or the customs of our heritage, to be outside what is assumed to be the middle, the accepted, can be lonely and frightening. Our country has traditionally swayed between the twin poles of conformity and acceptance of difference, between welcoming the stranger and condemning the alien. Which values will triumph in the next few years remains to be seen. We have grown up in a world in which diversity has been gradually, sometime grudgingly, but gradually, accepted. To me, this is the world as it should be, a world in which doors are opened wide and all are welcome to come in. This has been the basis of our religious life. Will this remain and how will we work to keep those doors open and the welcome mat out? Now, at the time that accentuates the many ways in which we celebrate freedom and self-worth, gratitude and hospitality, now is the time to reflect on what our efforts are to be.
Holidays are defined in different ways. They reaffirm our belonging; they uphold our heritage; they tell of the best in our traditions. They are altered by circumstances and history. Holidays both remind us of our similarities and of our difference. In the light of these different candles, we can see how we are so much the same. Let these candles show us how we all have need for celebrations, for light, for self-worth, for freedom. Let us also see that those ideas play our differently because of the accidents of our pasts, our histories, the places that we come from. And it is this variety and similarity which gives us the fascinating texture of human life, human life in its many facets. At the same time, this variety never obscures our basic needs and the similarities of our values. The world over people are very similar at heart. We are the one religion I know which honors the many ways in which both similarity and variety play out. In the light of these candles, let us see the beauty in each other’s faces.