I received only one advance question for this service, but it’s a complex enough one that I’ll spend the first part of my reflection time on it alone. It’s about the Flaming Chalice, and the questioner asks:

“The Unitarian Chalice which we light has a long history of meaning and use. ....... Why was the Chalice chosen by Unitarians, and what does it mean for congregations today, or do we each decide for ourselves?”

This question can be answered on at least two levels – historically and psychologically: I’ll start with the historical, and I’m indebted for much of the background to Rev. Daniel Hotchkiss, who’s written a pamphlet about the Flaming Chalice. First, a little explanation for those of you who may be brand-new here. At the opening of Unitarian Universalist worship services, many congregations, if not all, light a flame inside a chalice, as we did this morning and as we always do; this has become a well-known symbol of our religious movement, suggesting the spirit of who we are and what we do together. How did it originate?

The chalice and the flame were brought together as a Unitarian symbol by an Austrian artist, Hans Deutsch, in 1941. Living in Paris during the 1930's Deutsch used to draw political cartoons critical of Adolf Hitler. When the Nazis invaded Paris in 1940, he fled to the South of France, then to Spain, and finally, with an altered passport, into Portugal. There, he met the Reverend Charles Joy, executive director of the Unitarian Service Committee (USC). The Service Committee was new at that time, founded in Boston to assist Eastern Europeans, among them Unitarians as well as Jews, who needed to escape Nazi persecution. (This was the American USC, not the Canadian organization with which many of you are familiar, founded by Lotta Hitschmanova.) From his Lisbon headquarters, Charles Joy oversaw a secret network of couriers and agents. He felt that this new, unknown organisation needed some visual image to represent Unitarianism to the world, especially when dealing with government agencies abroad.

Hans Deutsch was most impressed with Charles Joy and soon was working for the USC. He later wrote to Joy:

"There is something that urges me to tell you... how much I admire your utter self denial [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 faith---as it is, I feel sure---then religion, ceasing to be magic and mysticism, becomes confession to practical philosophy and---what is more- --to active, really useful social work. And this religion--- with or without a heading---is one to which even a 'godless' fellow like myself can say wholeheartedly, Yes!"

The Unitarian Service Committee was an unknown organization in 1941. This was a special handicap in the cloak-and-dagger world, where establishing trust quickly across barriers of language, nationality, and faith could mean life instead of death. Joy asked Deutsch to create a symbol for their papers

to make them look official, to give dignity and importance to them, and at the same time to 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.

With pencil and ink, Deutsch drew a chalice with a flame. Joy wrote to his board in Boston that it was

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 Christians. Indeed, at the present moment, our work is nine-tenths for the Jews, yet we do stem from the Christian tradition, and the cross does symbolize Christianity and its central theme of sacrificial love.

The flaming chalice design was made into a seal for papers and a badge for agents moving refugees to freedom. In time it became a symbol of Unitarian Universalism all around the world.

So the symbol of a flaming chalice stood in the beginning for a life of service. When Deutsch designed the flaming chalice, he had never seen a Unitarian or Universalist church or heard a sermon. What he had seen was faith in action—people who were willing to risk all for others in a time of urgent need. Today, the flaming chalice is the official symbol of the Unitarian Universalist Service Committee in the U.S., of the Unitarian Universalist Association in the U.S., and (in the maple leaf) of the Canadian Unitarian Council. Officially or unofficially, it functions as a logo for hundreds of congregations.

In the U.S., the Chalice is often shown within two overlapping circles. touching but separate. The circles symbolize the Unitarians and the Universalists as separate groups, with separate histories before merger which took place in 1961. I’m not sure whose inspiration it was to enclose the Chalice in a maple leaf for the Canadian Unitarian symbol, but I find it wonderfully attractive, not just visually but figuratively too. A version of the symbol was adopted by the General Assembly of Unitarian and Free Christian Churches in Britain, and it’s used by Unitarian churches in many other parts of the world. Perhaps most importantly, it’s become a focal point for worship. No one meaning or interpretation is official. The flaming chalice, like our faith, stands open to receive new meanings compatible with our individual and collective sense of reason, justice, and compassion.

And that brings us to the other level on which this question about the chalice can be answered, the psychological level. The questioner in our congregation suggested many possible associations which the symbol may have for any of us, including these:

the cup Jesus drank from in communion with his disciples at the “Last Supper”

fate or unwanted experience, as in Jesus’ prayer: “Let this cup pass from me.”

a goal which only the pure of heart can achieve, as with Sir Galahad and the Holy Grail

the communion cup which Bohemian Catholic priest Jan Hus, insisted should be shared with all members of the congregation, instead of being reserved for the priesthood – for this heresy, among others, he was burned at the stake in 1415

For our worship services we have customary words, the ones we used this morning, but when I light a chalice on other occasions I often say something like this: May this flame remind us of the light of truth, the warmth of love, and the fire of our commitment to one another and to our beloved community. So yes, questioner: we do each decide for ourselves what the chalice means for us – after all, the matter of meaning is something which only each person can decide, just as what we believe is a totally personal matter. And yet, its meaning for us will almost certainly be influenced by what we know of its history, and by the associations which it carries for us. The Flaming Chalice has personal as well as communal meaning – which is surely appropriate for the symbol of our religious movement.

Now, before going on to Part Two of the Question Box, I want us to spend a little more time in quiet reflection together. You may remember that I said at the beginning that I only received one written question for this service. This doesn’t mean, of course, that none of the rest of you have any questions. In fact, you may well have questions that you’ve been dying to ask but thought they were too personal (in relation to me or to you), or only of interest to yourself, or even too elementary, as if you should know the answer before asking the question! If they’re factual questions, it’s quite likely that I won’t know the answer, but if they’re opinion questions, I probably will have an opinion – you know I usually do! So listen to some music, and then some silence, and formulate your question, and I’ll take questions till 11.30.