Worship Service December 13, 2020
Channel: Unitarian Universalist Church of Greensboro
Date: 20/12/2020

Light and Darkness, Rev. Sadie Lansdale
Reverend Lansdale recounted two stories before the video starts. (Sadie) 1)The Maccabees Story
2) The Reverend Jason Cook, a UU minister with Jewish roots, tells this story about his Aunt Lee and the Hanukkah celebrations of his childhood:
“My aunt Lee knew how to put on a Hanukkah buffet.
I mean, she really knew how to put on a Hanukkah buffet.
There was no doubt: she knew her way around any casserole that had ever tickled humankind’s palate. And there was sweet kugel and beef brisket and latkes and rugelach and blintzes and on and on.And this buffet would appear at her home during Hanukkah, dishes lined up neatly across the island of an immaculate kitchen that never betrayed a sign that there was any effort that went into the process. There she was, always stylishly dressed in something that shimmered, standing next to my Uncle Al in his corduroy bowtie, that glorious buffet spread out in front of us while the candles flickered on the menorah and the lights twinkled on the Christmas tree. (While Jewish, Aunt Lee and Uncle Al embraced the festive sparkle of Christmas decorations, too).
I took that buffet for granted when I was a little kid. I knew it would just be there, the food as familiar as the back of my hand, the taste of each dish forever associated with memories of Hanukkah or Christmas. And, no matter how many family members and friends showed up, there was always enough. The buffet never ran out. There was enough food for seconds and thirds, and by the time we were stuffed, the buffet disappeared as easily as it had come, fading into the background.
I look back now and think how this bit of magic that Aunt Lee conjured each Hanukkah was very much in keeping with the Hanukkah story of the lamp and its replenishing oil. That when we think we don’t have enough, we still do.
But, of course, like the Hanukkah story, if I [change my perspective a little], I realize that...it wasn’t magical at all. Aunt Lee made the magic. That neat line of casseroles in silver chafing dishes was the product of much labor that came before—labor we didn’t see or recognize in that moment. And there was always enough because Aunt Lee made sure there was enough—a second or third dish of kugel or more latkes waiting in the wings for whatever hungry holiday traveler might show up.
I think for me that is the lesson of that Hanukkah buffet: abundance is ours, there is enough for everyone--but only if we are intentional in our sharing of that abundance.
Aunt Lee died last year and Uncle Al is busy playing cards in an assisted living facility these days. But the buffet—it belongs to all of us—and it’s the responsibility of all of us: to enjoy, to appreciate, to share in all its miraculous, everlasting abundance.”