The Resilience of the Flame
Rev. Diane Rollert
Unitarian Church of Montreal, 8 January 2023
I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I often forget to extinguish our chalice at the end of
our worship services. I think the rest of the worship team finally got tired of this and
decided, when I was off one week, to begin formally extinguishing the chalice as a way
to bring our services to a close. This works well, and I appreciate the team’s sensitive
approach to liturgy.
Still, I think there’s something inside of me that wants our chalice flame to continue
burning throughout the week. Of course, I know this isn’t practical. But maybe it comes
from having grown up in the Jewish tradition, where an eternal flame always burns in the
synagogue’s sanctuary. When I was a child, that flame would call to me, inspire me and
reassure me. It gave me a sense that there was something constant and powerful burning
for me, burning for the community and for the world; something so powerful that it could never be extinguished.
The flaming chalice became a nearly universal symbol of Unitarian Universalism in the
twentieth century. By now you’ve probably heard the story of its origin several times.
The most often told story is how a refugee named Hans Deutsch designed a logo of a
chalice with a flame to distinguish the vehicles and paperwork of the Unitarian Service
Committee during WWII.
Long before that, there was a Czech priest named Jan Hus. He was burned at the stake in
the 15th century for criticizing the Roman Catholic Church. One of his great sins was to
offer the chalice of holy wine to everyone during communion. In the Catholic tradition,
only the priest drinks the wine. It is never offered to the people. Jan Hus believed that the
spark of the divine was in everyone and that everyone deserved to share the blessings of
the wine.
The flaming chalice is the cup of wisdom and the flame of love available to all. These
elements of our faith have been our core theology for hundreds of years. Within each of
us is a holy spark, an eternal flame of love and goodness that brings us closer to the
divine, however we each choose to define what is holy.
As I look out at all of you, both here in the sanctuary and online, I am in awe of the
uniqueness that you each bring to this time and space. There is a sacred flame, something
beautiful and powerful, within each and every one of you. Sometimes, when I see you, I
find myself getting choked up with gratitude for all your beautiful uniqueness — for the
fire of commitment, as the song goes, that connects us, that is a source of strength and
resilience for us as a community.
This month we are considering the theme of resilience, and today I want to start here,
with a sense of what it means to develop personal and communal resilience. To be
resilient is to be mentally, emotionally and spiritually flexible; to be able to withstand
adversity and bounce back when life challenges us.
This community has survived much adversity. It has survived rebellions, cholera and
world wars, as well as the fires that destroyed two of our former buildings, in the early
1900s and again in 1987. In this century, we’ve just been through a pandemic that isn’t
really over. We’ve had to deal with many challenges during the past two years, as
individuals and as a community.
Here we are learning together how to be creative and flexible, how to be resilient as a
community, gathering in person and online. We have not been extinguished by our
struggles. We are still here, doing our best to survive and to thrive.
Resilience is a like a muscle that develops with use. The more we learn ways to cope, the
stronger we become. There are studies that show that people develop greater resilience
when they are able to reach out for support and stay connected to others, when they are
part of a community, especially a spiritual community where people really care for each other.
We can help each other become resilient through our engagement and care as a community. I’m not a believer in New Year’s resolutions, but there’s no harm in committing to new intentions. We can make a commitment to be more intentional about being part of this community. It doesn’t have to be a big commitment. It can be something as simple as taking a moment to say hello to someone, to share in an act of kindness, to participate however you can in something new, and to look for the flame burning bright in the eyes of someone else.
This is my very simple message for the beginning of the Gregorian New Year. There is an eternal flame burning inside of each of us. It is a gift that comes from beyond all that is. A gift from the stars. A gift that is sacred. This is where our Unitarian Universalist faith begins. We affirm that each of us carries within us the rush of the planets in our blood and the brilliance of the stars in our hearts; that we are capable of goodness, that we can sustain ourselves and each other through love.
This is the eternal source of resilience that is ours to share. When it feels as though our own flame has weakened or been snuffed out by all that challenges us, we can turn to each other for support. We can look for the light that still burns in each other’s eyes. We can offer our own warmth and love as a spiritual community.
Today, when our service ends, I will say the words we say each Sunday: Nous éteignons la flamme de notre communauté, mais jamais sa chaleur. As much as I wish we could keep an eternal flame burning in our sanctuary, we will extinguish our chalice. But the warmth of its flame will remain with us, in our hearts and in our minds, to carry out into the world. Each time that we gather again, the flame of our community is rekindled and strengthened. That’s what makes it eternal.