"Why do we light a chalice?"
Around the Church Around the Year by Jan Evans-Tiller
uu&me!, and We Are Many, We Are One by Colleen M. McDonald
Goals:
To learn about the meaning and history of the flaming chalice as a symbol of UUism.
Materials:
For family chalice:
• Poster paint
• Unglazed Flowerpot 4" in diameter
• Unglazed flowerpot saucer 7” in diameter
• Glue
• Votive Candle
For chalice banner
• Cloth (felt, burlap, or muslin) for banner, 40” x 50” and of a light color
• Wooden dowel, 48” long and 1/2” in diameter
• Fancy cord or heavy yarn for hanging banner
• Colored felt or cotton cloth pre-cut into 1” squares. You will need various shades of green for the outer circle; blues, purples, & grays—or earth tones—for the chalice base; reds and oranges, yellows, and golds for the flame.
• Fabric glue
Activities:
1. Read “The Flaming Chalice, Symbol of Unitarian Universalism”
2. Make a family chalice
• Paint the unglazed flowerpot and saucer. You can make them all one color, or put designs on them.
• Use the unglazed flowerpot, upside down, to form the base.
• Glue the saucer right side up to the pot, following the directions for gluing porous materials. It will need a long drying period.
• Place a votive candle in the saucer. It will look like the illustration here.
3. Make a chalice banner
• Print the chalice design here. Enlarge it to trace on the banner cloth, or draw it freehand on the cloth.
• Place the background cloth on a flat surface. Trace or draw design on the cloth.
• Brush glue onto each section of the design and fill in with overlapping pieces of colored cloth.
• When the glue is dry, insert the dowel and fasten the cord or yarn for hanging.
4. Light a Chalice using Words and Motions
5. Do the Flaming Chalice HandShake
God is Like a Father
As Jesus was growing up he Iearned many things about God. He learned that God cared about what happened to people and he learned that God wanted people to care about each other. He also learned that he could talk with God and when he talked to God he called him Father. After Jesus was grown he traveled around the countryside, meeting many people and telling them how God wanted them to care for each other.
One time a large group of people gathered around Jesus and one of them came forward and said, "Jesus, I want to do the things that God wants me to do but sometimes it is hard to know what I am supposed to do. God has given us many rules to follow like: don’t steal, don’t lie, don’t hurt others. But sometimes it’s hard to remember all the rules. Can you tell me an easy way to remember what God wants me to do?" So Jesus spoke to God in the following way, "Father, one of your children wants to know a way to remember all the things you want your people to do. What shall I tell them?"
Then God answered, "Tell them, ‘All those rules really mean one simple thing: Love each other." And so that was what Jesus told them.
But one of the people said to Jesus, "Must we love everybody, even people who are different from us?" Jesus spoke to God again, "Father, they want to know if they must love people who are different."
And God answered, "Tell them, ‘Every one of you is different and special but you are all my children and I love each one of you and I want you to love each other,"’ And so that was what Jesus told them.
The people who came to talk with Jesus noticed that he talked to God. They asked him to teach them how to talk with God. So Jesus spoke to God again and said, "Father, your children want to know how to talk with you. What shall I tell them?"
God then answered, "Tell them to talk with me in prayer." And so that was what Jesus did. He taught the people a prayer like the following:
Father, blessed is your name
May we learn to love each other
May a world of love come to be.
Give us this day the things we need
And forgive us for the wrong things we do
As we will forgive others.
Keep us safe from evil.
Amen.
The Healing Cup
Many Unitarian Universalist churches and fiellowships start their worship service on Sundoy morning by lighting a flame inside a chalice. This flaming chalice is a symbol for Unitarian Universalists just as the cross and the Star of David are symbols for other religious groups. The story of how the flaming chalice became our symbol is an interesting one and it begins during the Second World War.
During that war, a lot of people living in Eastern Europe–Unitarians, Jews, and others–were in danger of being put in prison or killed by Nazi soldiers. A group of Unitarians came together in Boston, Massachusetts to form the Unitarian Service Committee and their plan was to help the people in danger from the Nazis. The director of the Service Committee was the Unitarian minister Charles Joy. Rev. Joy had an office in Portugal so he would be near the people he wanted to help. He was in charge of a whole secret group of agents and messengers who worked hard trying to find safe routes for people to escape.
The Rev. Joy and his assistants often needed to ask governments and other organizations for
their help to save people who were in danger. They would send messages to anyone in government who might give them money, transportation, or a safe route. Because they were a new organization though, not very many people had heard of them. This made it much harder for the Unitarian Service Committee to get the help they needed.
In those days during the war, danger was everywhere. Lots of people were running away from their own countries. People who were escaping and people who wanted to help often didn’t speak the same language. The Rev. Joy decided it would be much better if they had an official symbol, or picture to help identify members of the Unitarian Service Committee. With a picture or symbol, language didn’t matter.
An Artist helps
The Rev. Joy needed an artist. He went to a very talented man for help. His name was Hans Deutsch, and he had escaped from the Nazis in Paris, France, where he was in danger because he drew cartoons showing people how evil the Nazis were. The Rev. Joy asked Deutsch to create a symbol to print on their papers to make them look important. We wanted the symbol to impress governments and police who had the power to help move people to safety.
The Healing Cup
Deutsch borrowed an old symbol of strength and freedom from Czechoslovakia–a chalice with a flame. The Rev. Joy wrote to his friends in Boston that the new symbol seemed to show the real spirit of the Unitarian religion. It showed a chalice, or cup, for giving a healing drink of helpfulness and sacrifice. And so the flaming chalice became the symbol of the Unitarian Service Committee.
Many years later, the flaming chalice became the symbol of Unitarian Universalist groups all over the world. By the early 1970s, enough Unitarian Universalists had heard the story of the flaming chalice symbol that they began to light a flaming chalice as part of the worship service. Over the years, this practice has spread over most of the United States and Canada.
What does it mean to have a symbol like this? Well, one thing it means is that wherever you see a flaming chalice, you know that there are Unitarians and Universalists nearby. Having a symbol also can remind you of what’s most important to you.
Truth Wins
One very old woman told how the flaming chalice of her homeland, Czechoslovakia, helped her while she was in a Nazi prison camp. Printed under the picture of the Czech flaming chalice was the motto "Pravda vitezi," which means, in English, "truth overcomes," or "truth prevails." Every single morning in that terrible camp, the old woman said, she traced a picture of a flaming chalice in the sand with her finger. Then she wrote the motto underneath it. "It gave me the strength to live each day," she said. Whenever she drew the chalice in the dirt she was reminded that some day the world would remember the important truth that every single person is important and should be free to think and believe as he or she chooses.
When we see the chalice lit at the beginning of our service every Sunday, we can enjoy it because it is a lovely thing to do. But we can also remember the story of the flaming chalice and the strength it has given people for hundreds of years. We use it to let others know that Unitarian Universalists believe in helping others.
Sources: UUA website, The History of the Flaming Chalice, and the sermon, OtherPulpits, OtherMinistries by the Rev. Mark Belletini, delivered at the 1999 UUA General Assembly.
Background for Moses in the Bulrushes
All that is known of Moses comes from the Bible and mostly from the book of Exodus, which tells the story of the "going out" of the Israelites from Egypt, of the covenant made with YHWH, and of the tabernacle. The J authors, Z 50 years after the likely time of the events depicted in Exodus, offer the earliest account; the E and P writers build on the J document. Originally, the material in Exodus belonged to four separate traditions, but by the J writers’ time in the 11th century B.C.E., these separate sources had been woven into a common strand.
The stories about Moses reflect an accurate picture of Egypt in the 13th century B.C.E., though much of the material in Exodus is legendary. The best guess of today’s scholars is that the events of Exodus may have taken place from 1290 to 1224 B.C.E., and that the Pharaoh was Ramses II. It would have been customary for nomadic people to be admitted to Egypt in times of famine, and it is known that during this time Ramses II launched vast building projects that needed much slave labor. The number of Egyptian loan-words found in Exodus is another reason to believe in the historicity of the basic story.
Did Moses actually exist? In the oldest section of Exodus, "The Song of Miriam," there is no mention of Moses. On the other hand, it is reasonable to assume that the legends about Moses are based on events in the life of a historic person. Details about him such as his Levite ancestry, his ability to deal with the Egyptians, and the descendants he left support such a belief. Though Exodus 2: 10 infers that the name Moses stems from his being drawn out of the water, most scholars believe it is an Egyptian root word for "to be born." It is found in names such as Tutmose, which means "Tut is born."
The nativity story is similar to other such tales in the Near East and elsewhere in which a king is warned that a child who is about to be born will in some way usurp his power. The king then tries to kill the child, who is saved by the deity and eventually does carry out the fore ordained plan for his life. Elements in this story are similar, for example, to one about the birth of Sargon I of Agade: "… my changeling mother conceived me, in secret she bore me. She set me in a basket of rushes, with bitumen she sealed my lid. She cast me into the river which rose not over me…." (Daiches, Moses: The Man and His Vision, p. 32).
The story of a cruel king who tries to kill a child destined for great things, only to be thwarted in the end, has intrinsic psychological appeal. Children identify with the hero who survives persecution and is eventually able to win the battle against such evils. The question of adoption may bring up special concerns. Though most children have concerns about adoption at one time or another, these issues are especially acute for children who are actually adopted. As you pose the discussion question about adoption, be sensitive to the children’s worries, and invite them to share their feelings. Reassure the children with the thoughts about the biological mother’s difficult but loving choice and the adoptive parents’ commitment, care, and love.
Opening Activity about Prejudice
Opening (10 minutes)
Gather in a circle and light the candle or chalice. Say something like, "At our first session, we talked about racial justice and racism. These were words some of you had never heard. So far we have been doing things to help us understand racial justice, which is about being kind and fair to all people.
"We talked in the last few weeks about the beauty of all the kinds of people in the world, and all the different kinds of families. We can see on the map that our country is composed of people from different parts of the world. We know that there are many different languages and foods. We know that there are many different ways of dressing and playing, and many different ways of seeing the world. We call this diversity, and we cherish our nation’s diversity."
If your congregation has little or no racial diversity, you may want to say something like, "Yet, when we look around us, in our own town, we find that most of our neighbors are the same as we are. Many of our schools and churches have the same people as our neighborhood. When we look around us, we find very few African Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, or Native Americans (or Canadians) in our neighborhoods, churches, and schools. So we don’t have many chances to experience the diversity of our world.
"To understand why we are separated from some of the wonderful diversity of people, we have to understand another hard word, ‘prejudice’. Prejudice is an invisible wall between people. Prejudice keeps African Americans, Asian Americans, Latin Americans, Native Americans, and European Americans (Canadians) apart. Prejudice is a form of racial injustice. Today we are going to learn a little more about prejudice and how it affects us all–even people like you, who may never have heard the word ‘preiudice’ before."
If your congregation is racially diverse, say something like, "We have a wonderful world of diversity in our church, too–a rainbow race with people who are African American, Asian American, Native American, European American, Latin American–just like our city, and our country, and our world.
"Not all churches and schools and towns have a rainbow of people. In many communities in our country, people are separated from each other by color. To understand how this happened, you need to understand a hard word, ‘preiudice’. Prejudice is an invisible wall between people. Prejudice can keep African Americans, Asian Americans, Native Americans, Latina/Latinos, and European Americans apart. Prejudice is a form of racial injustice.
"Today we are going to learn a little more about prejudice and how it affects us all–even people like you, who may not have heard the word brejudice before."
Focusing (10 minutes)
Bring out the snack. Say something like, "Today we are beginning with a snack, Ugli fruit." Hold it up and wait for reactions. Ask questions like, "What is it? Have you ever seen one? Have you ever tasted one? What do you think it tastes like? Do you think you’ll like it?" Pass one or two around and let the children feel and smell the fruit. Encourage reactions from reticent children.
Cut up the fruit. Elicit comments as the children try it. Say something like, "Do you like it? Does it taste like you thought it would? Does it remind you of another fruit? What was your favorite part of snack today? Why?"
Say something like, "Sometimes we don’t think we are going to like something different– a new food, or game, or people who are different from ourselves. But when we taste the food, or play the game, or meet and live with the people, we are glad that we did. We grow when we try new things."
"When you first saw the outside–the skin– of the fruit, you may have thought,’Ugh–I’m not going to eat that!’ That was prejudice–you made up your mind about a new experience without even giving it a chance. If you refused to eat the fruit, you’d only miss out on a piece of fruit. The fruit doesn’t have any feelings; it doesn’t care. But when someone looks at a person and says, ‘I don’t like the color of his skin,’ or,’What funny hair she has!’ and refuses to get to know them or play with them, that’s prejudice, too. When a person develops a prejudice against another person, feelings are hurt, and everyone loses."
Exploring (15 minutes)
Reintroduce the word "prejudice" by writing the first part of the word on a card or newsprint. Say something like, "Today we have been talking about the word ‘prejudice’. It’s a long word, so let’s break it into parts so we can understand it better. ‘Pre’ means before, and ‘judge’ means to give an opinion about something. Add ‘pre’ to what you think, and you are saying what you think about someone or something before you even know that someone or something.
Prejudice means to be unfair to someone before you even know that person. Did anyone pre-judge the fruit? Did you think you wouldn’t like it before you even tried it?
"Have you ever had an experience where someone prejudged you? That is, when someone put you down or wouldn’t let you do something just because you were a girl or a boy, or too young or too small? Have you ever seen someone being unfair to someone else when they didn’t even know them?"
If it is helpful, use an example from your own experience. Use this example if you don’t have another one: "I know someone who started to wear glasses in the first grade. Do you know anyone who started to wear glasses then? Well, she was the only person in her class wearing glasses, and that made her different. What do you think happened to her? First of all, she could see the teacher and the blackboard, and that was good. But some of the other first-graders thought she looked funny, so they called her names and wouldn’t become her friend."
Elicit responses about this instance of prejudice to help the children understand the concept. Expand the discussion to include instances of racial prejudice. Use examples from your own experience or from news articles. Help the children identify the prejudice in each example. Take out some baseball cards. Invite the children to show any cards they have brought in. Point out that professional baseball teams are "rainbow" teams, with players of many colors — black and brown and white (point to appropriate cards).
Say something like, "But did you know that years ago, only whites were allowed to play baseball in the American and National Leagues? That meant that you couldn’t play for the New
York Yankees or the Cincinnati Reds or any other Major League team unless you were white.
What do you think about that?"
Invite responses.
Introduce the story Teammates by saying: "Today we are going to read a true story about real people. It’s about racial prej udice, and about justice and fairness. Let’s see what happened in the history of baseball to give us the rainbow teams we have now."
Read the story and show the illustrations. Invite reactions and discussion.
What are the Ten Commandments?
Goals:
To hear the story of Moses and the Ten Commandments
(for older kids) To examine the rules and responsibilities they experience in their own lives
Activities:
Read Background for the session
Be sure your kids know the meaning of the word repent (to be sorry for something you’ve done)
.
Read the story: “The Ten Commandments”
Discuss:
Which commandment do you think is most important? Why?
Some rules are easy to understand, like “Don’t run out in front of a car.” Others aren’t as obvious, like “Always say thank you when someone gives you something.” If you were starving, do you think you should have to follow the commandment “You shall not steal?” Why?
If you could make up a new commandment of everybody, what would it be?
Are the stories in the Bible true?
Timeless Themes by Gowdy, Moore, and Skwire, and Connections by CLF
Goal: To understand that the Bible is a collection of stories, written long ago. To understand that “truth” can mean a story that is true for us in meaning but not necessarily historical fact.
Preparation:
• Read “Background for Teachers”
• Collect a variety of Bibles from your local library, family or friends. (If you are interested in purchasing a family resource, The Complete Idiot’s Guide to the Bible, by Jim Bell and Stan
Campbell—is very kid-friendly)
• Print Bible Trivia Questions and/or Bible Pictionary quotations and background and instructions. Cut into strips.
• Print “Beatitudes of Jesus” by Rev. F. Forrester Church
Activities:
Introduce the topic by saying something like the following.:
The Bible is not historically true and accurate like a dictionary, but it is not fiction, like Harry Potter books either. It is a mixture of history and stories that hold truth, like myths and poetry. As one girl said [a myth] “is something that is true on the inside, but maybe not the outside.” Stories in the Bible are not always true on the outside but there are parts that teach us something that is true on the inside.
Use the example of Jonah and the Whale. It probably couldn’t be true, but Hebrews used it to illustrate how someone who tried to avoid doing something unpleasant couldn’t escape it. Jonah tried to flee when Yahweh asked him to take a trip to Nineva and tell them about God’s message. The truth, the wisdom for us, is that when we try to avoid doing something unpleasant, it may well feel like we are being swallowed alive. Finally when we realize that we might as well just DO IT, we are released.
Think of a time when you felt “swallowed alive” by some issue—avoiding an unpleasant job or avoiding confessing the truth. Ask your kids to think of a time they did. Discuss.
UUs value wisdom and learning, changing and growing. By reading these stories and searching for the inside truth, we are being helped to learn and grow.
Play Bible Trivia Game:
Divide your family into 2 groups if possible and give each group a pile of trivia questions. One group pulls a question from their pile and poses it to the other group. Discuss among yourselves. If the group answers correctly, they try to answer another question. Continue until they are stumped, or until you want to switch roles. If you come on a question that no one knows the answer to, try to find the answer in the Bibles you have collected.
Play Bible Pictionary:
Like the popular Pictionary games, this one involves 2 teams and paper and pencils for drawing the word to be guessed. Place the quotes in a basket. Taking turns, teams draw a quote from the pile. Each quote has one key word in bold face type. The object of the game is to get your teammates to guess the key word in the quote using only pictures. After the word is guessed, the team finds the quote in one of the Bibles you have collected. Play a few rounds without a timer to see how you do and then add a time limit to make it more challenging.
Who owns water and air and the earth?
& We Believe by the UUA
Goal:
To think about possession and ownership as it relates to things that are essential to life and natural resources. To introduce the concept of stewardship.
Preparation:
If you choose to act out the story, you will need:
Copies of the script for each reader
Puppets for each animal character – puppet parts and body pattern
Clay or playdoh for making coils to be the well
Activites:
Read: The Chief of the Well, or
Act out the dramatic skit of this story in We Believe
Discuss:
Did the lizard, placed in charge of the well, own the water supply? Can you think of people who have the idea that they own something when they are placed in charge of it?
Why didn’t the lizard want the other animals to share the water? Did he want it it all for himself? Did he enjoy exerting power? Are people this way sometimes? What is the meaning of the expression ‘drunk with power.’
Is it possible, on the other hand, that the lizard was so concerned about his responsibility that he was too careful? Do you know of anyone who is this way?
Social Action:
Introduction: This story says that the water (and air and the earth) belong to God, that these belong to everyone. The earth is owned not by the biggest or the smartest or the richest, but by all who live on it, from the tiniest insect to the tallest tree. What’s more, we are all connected in ways we don’t even understand. People who study these connections between living things are called ecologists. One way to think about the earth and the air surrounding it is as an ark, like Noah’s. A man named Buckminster Fuller used a more modern image, the spaceship. “Spaceship Earth” was the title he used to describe the notion that we are like travelers on a spaceship. We can only carry so much of the things we need to survive, just like Noah on the Ark. Our life support system, so to speak, is limited. What do we need to survive? Food (plants and animals), clean air, clean water. On our “Spaceship Earth” we only have limited supplies of these necessary things. So, what do we need to do? Be careful not to wst, not to use them up, not to spoil them. We need to be good “stewards” of our spaceship. (A “steward” is one who manages or takes care of another’s property.)
Make a list of things you do, or could start doing, in your family to be good stewards. There are big things like recycling or boycotting potentially dangerous products and little things like conserving paper by using both sides, not letting the water run while you brush your teeth, and turning off the lights when you’re not using them.
Ask each member of the family to make a commitment to do at least one new thing to be a good steward of “Spaceship Earth.” Share with each other what you’re going to do. Decide on a group project that you could all work on together. Check out your local library (and the Resources section of this website) for ideas.