THE FLAMING OF OUR FAITH Rev. Scott W. Alexander Preaching Unitarian Universalist Fellowship of Vero Beach Sunday, November 5, 2017

VIDEO CLIP BEFORE THE SERMON http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cX3BOZKHsXw (In place of the reading, a 2.04 trailer from the PBS documentary)

[GRAPHIC OF SHARPS' MOVIE POSTER IS PROJECTED UP ON THE CHANCEL SCREEN]

I’d like to begin the sermon this morning by letting American video historian Ken Burns (who happens to be an active Unitarian Universalist from !) and narrator Tom Hanks tell an amazing story about Martha and – by way of a short clip from the recent PBS documentary, which we will be showing today at 4:30 PM in its entirely for all those of you who are interested. These Unitarian heroes of World War II effectively waged their own personal war against Hitler’s hatred and genocide. This four-minute clip tells the story of the terrible night in , the very day the invading Nazi army marched into . Martha Waitstill was on a mission to get a Jewish to safety in the British embassy. Let’s watch it together…

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[Video clip, timestamp 22:40 to 26:26 – the rescue story]

[WHEN VIDEO CONCLUDES, THE PHOTO AND CAPTION OF WAITSTILL AND IS PROJECTED UP ON THE CHANCEL SCREENS]

Martha and Waitstill Sharp

Martha and Waitstill Sharp…true heroes of World War II! As Ken Burns says elsewhere in the documentary about the “Daring-Do” of the Sharps – who, despite their mild-mannered appearance, were often in great danger as they fought to help the endangered escape Hitler’s grasp. These are skills that I am certain the Sharps did not learn in Divinity School! Over the tragic course of World War II the acts of bravery, skill and daring of this husband and wife team (and others working for the Unitarian Service Committee) enabled thousands of adults and children to escape Nazi persecution and murder…including many Jews.

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In 2006, in humanitarian recognition that was long overdue, the names of Waitstill and Martha Sharp were engraved into the wall at the “Garden of the Righteous among the Nations” at in Israel. Only one other American has been similarly honored for selflessly rescuing Jews from the Holocaust during World War II. Martha and Waitstill Sharp put their lives on the line for what they believed, working night and day to protect the lives of those endangered. They are true heroes of our Unitarian Universalist faith.

This morning – by way of the Sharps’ heroism – I want to tell the story of the flaming chalice of our faith, which we ceremoniously light every Sunday morning we gather together. Some of you may not be aware of the fact that the flaming chalice…

[OFFICIAL UUA CHALICE DESIGN AND CAPTION PUT UP ON CHANCEL SCREENS]

The Official UUA Chalice

...shown here is the newly designed and adopted “official chalice logo” from the website of our denomination, the Unitarian Universalist Association. The flaming chalice is the one unifying symbol and ritual of modern day Unitarian . This morning – in every Unitarian Universalist congregation scattered around the world, and in more than 1050 congregations here in the United States – a chalice will be ceremoniously lit as begins. And just a word about this particular chalice we light here at UUFVB every Sunday to open our worship. This beautiful hand-crafted chalice is made of pure sterling silver, and was a gift of early UUFVB member Doris Sloan. It was hand-crafted by a silversmith from the Florida Keys according to her specifications and is, as you can see, a lovely piece of art.

Because this is a one-of-a-kind chalice, no other UU congregation has one just like it…but many other beautiful (some made of wood…some made of ceramic or pottery…some from various metals…and fueled by different combustibles – many by candles, and many, like ours -- by lamp oil) can be found in our congregations all around the world.

As any of you who visit other UU congregations when you travel know full well, the content and style of Sunday morning worship services in our denomination vary widely from congregation to congregation…but the flaming chalice is a universal and widely beloved symbol of our religion and everything we stand for. And that symbol was born in the dark days of World War II when Martha and Waitstill Sharp and other brave Unitarians were working to save so many from imprisonment, slave labor and genocide.

It is also important and interesting to know that this universal practice of Unitarian Universalist congregations lighting a chalice each and every Sunday when they gather is relatively new. When I entered the ministry in the early 1970s, the flaming chalice and the moving story of Martha and Waitstill Sharp were basically unheard of in our congregations. In fact, as far as I know, the first time the symbol was used by the denomination as a symbol of our faith was on the cover of the 1976 UUA directory.

By the mid-1980s, about the time UUFVB was founded, lighting a chalice on Sundays had quickly become a widespread and beloved practice in UU congregations everywhere…and since then the flaming chalice has become the official logo and symbol for all around the world. Today the flaming chalice is central to our identity as Unitarian Universalists, and will undoubtedly remain so for centuries to come.

But I have gotten ahead of myself. I need to go back to the dark days of World War II to tell the story of how the flaming chalice came to represent and stand for our faith. There are two equally important components to this UU symbol:

1) THE CHALICE (the vessel itself), and

2) THE FLAME.

These two ancient archetypal religious images that can be found in ancient mythology as well as in many of the world’s great traditions were brought together in 1941 as a Unitarian symbol by an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch.

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As my colleague the Rev. Dan Hotchkiss tells the fascinating story:

Living in Paris during the 1930s, Deutsch [an Austrian Refugee] drew critical cartoons of Adolf Hitler. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, he abandoned all he had and fled to the south of France, then to Spain, and finally, with an altered passport to safety into neutral Portugal. There, he met the Rev. Charles Joy, Executive Director of the Unitarian Service Committee. The Service Committee was new, founded in to assist Eastern Europeans escaping the Nazis, among them Unitarians as well as Jews who needed to escape Nazi persecution. From his Lisbon headquarters, [Rev.] Joy oversaw a secret network of couriers and agents who, among other things, created fake “traveling papers” and replacement papers for endangered people trying to flee Europe. Deutsch was most impressed and soon was working for the USC. He later wrote [Rev.] Joy, “There is something that urges me to tell you…how much I admire your utter self- denial as a Unitarian…and readiness to serve, to sacrifice all, your time, your health, your well- being to help, help, help. I am not what you may actually call a believer. But if your kind of life is the profession of your Unitarian faith then…religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and – what is more – active and really useful social work…[this is a religion, Deutsch went on] to which I can say a wholehearted YES!”

The Unitarian Service Committee was a relatively unknown organization in 1941, and Rev. Joy realized they needed a recognizable and dignified symbol in this cloak-and-dagger world of border guards, false identity papers, and clandestine escapes. So Joy asked Deutsch to create a symbol for their USC travel papers and replacement documents, which the organization boldly issued to artists, intellectuals, dissidents and Jews who were trying to escape…“to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time symbolize the spirit of our work…When a document may keep a man out of jail, give him standing with governments and police, it is important that it look important.”

[PICTURE OF ORIGINAL FLAMING CHALICE IS PROJECTED UP ON THE CHANCEL SCREENS]

With pencil and ink, Deutsch drew this simple chalice with a flame, which Rev Joy, in later writing to his Board of Trustees in Boston, described as “A chalice with a flame, the kind of chalice which the Greeks and Romans put on their altars. The holy oil burning in it is a symbol of helpfulness and sacrifice…This was in the mind of the artist. The fact, however, that it remotely suggests a cross was not in his mind, but to me this also has its merit. We do not limit our work to . Indeed, at the present moment, our work is nine-tenths for the Jews, yet we Unitarians do stem from the Christian tradition, and the cross does symbolize and its central theme of sacrificial love.”

So…the flaming chalice of our faith was born as a practical yet striking symbol for our Unitarian Universalist humanitarian efforts in World War II, and the amazing part of it, as one denominational historian observes, is that “When Deutsch designed the flaming chalice he had never seen a Unitarian or Universalist church, or heard a [UU] sermon. What he had seen was faith in action – people who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need.” [PICTURE OF ORIGINAL SERVICE COMMITTEE CHALICE COMES DOWN OFF CHANCEL SCREENS AND UUA FLAMING CHALICE GOES BACK UP ON CHANCEL SCREENS]

The Official UUA Chalice

As Dan Hotchkiss writes about this legacy in the UUA pamphlet about the flaming chalice:

“Today, the flaming chalice is the official symbol of [both] the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee and the Unitarian Universalist Association. Officially or unofficially, it functions as the logo for [more than a thousand] congregations…Perhaps most importantly, it has become the focal point for [UU] worship.” And then Hotchkiss makes an important observation, “ No one meaning or interpretation is official…the flaming chalice, like our [free] faith, stands open to receive new truths that pass the tests of reason, justice, and compassion…It unites [us] in worship and symbolizes the spirit of our [Unitarian Universalist] work [in the world].”

Now you know the proud history and story of the flaming chalice of our faith. As Dan Hotchkiss rightly observes, there is no one meaning ascribed to this simple yet inspiring symbol of our faith. Some congregations say each Sunday that the flame in their chalice is the flame of community, reminding all of their indissoluble belonging to one another. Other congregations think of it as the flame of truth that is a living, illuminating thing guiding us to greater understanding. Other congregations affirm the flame as representing the love, social justice, and compassion we seek to serve as Unitarian Universalists. The flaming chalice is indeed an open, dynamic, inclusive symbol that can represent any number of aspects of our liberal faith, and can mean different things to different congregations and individuals.

But to me – especially given the moving history of its origins during World War II which I just recounted – to me the flaming chalice is a sacred, steady reminder that ours is a faith of action…a faith of deeds more than creeds…a faith of active work and commitment…a faith – as former UUA President the Rev. Bill Schulz put it – of “dirty hands.” The flaming chalice was used countless times to help rescue Jews and others during World War II, reminding us that as Unitarian Universalists we cannot be disinterested or selfish bystanders in this troubled world of ours. Our chalice reminds us that our religion is not an intellectual or armchair exercise.

Finding yourself in intellectual agreement with our seven principles is an important first step in one’s religious life…but is not enough to make you a Unitarian Universalist! To be a real Unitarian Universalist (to be a Unitarian Universalist in more than name only) you must also personally commit to embody and serve the principles and ideals that animate our history and faith – embody and serve them in your individual life and of equal importance embody and serve them with others…as together we do the work of our religion in community here at UUFVB – both amongst ourselves within these four walls and as we live out our faith in our wider community. The flaming chalice of our faith reminds me whenever we gather that we must regularly act on behalf of love, justice, compassion, and our common humanity, and get directly involved both individually and together in the work of making this world a better, more humane place for all. Each Sunday, the flaming chalice we light beckons us to the demanding yet soul-satisfying work of our faith. Let me bring all this home here to Vero Beach if I might. After several months of reflection about who and what we are as a congregation – and what we must always be about here at 1590 27th Avenue – your Board of Trustees in the year 2013 unanimously adopted the following slogan about UUFVB, both to remind ourselves who we are as a congregation and how to present ourselves to the wider community. We put it on the chancel screens every Sunday before our service begins.

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So, dear friends, if you are looking for a concise and coherent sound-bite answer for when someone in our community asks you about our congregation, you can say “My spiritual home, UUFVB, located on the corner of 27th Avenue and 16th Street, is a Unitarian Universalist congregation of open minds…loving hearts…and helping hands.” Doesn’t that just about sum up who we aspire to be in this congregation? And doesn’t that simple statement just about sum up our Unitarian Universalist religion?

Here in this Unitarian Universalist community:

1) We are open to the wisdom of all the world’s great religions and traditions of thought – and willingly embrace spiritual insight and ethical truth wherever it can be found….and…

2) We seek to approach everything in life with loving and compassionate hearts – so that with both our words and our deeds we can affirm and promote “the inherent worth and dignity” of every person and community we encounter…

3) And we serve others – most especially those in human want or need – with helping and generous hands…sharing what we can from our abundance and working with others of goodwill so that every human being can have the dignity, justice and quality of life to which they are entitled as citizens of this earth.

Every Sunday may the lighting of our flaming chalice remind us how and why we come together as a people of faith.

We come into this sacred space with open minds… loving hearts… and helping hands.

We come ready to lend ourselves to the work of making ourselves and the world better.

We come because we know that the future of the world lies in our hands…and that it matters, profoundly, how well we live and love...as Unitarian Universalists.

AMEN.