First Unitarian Universalist Society of Burlington
Reverend Karen G. Johnston
Christmas Eve, 2025
I want to talk to you about hope tonight. And Possibility.
I want to talk about hope, recognizing that there are people listening, in this room and on the livestream, whose hearts are broken – who move forward each day with the heavy weight of grief, of serious illness, of depression, of addiction, of estrangement from loved ones, of dementia, of the threat of violence – and for them, for us, hope can be hard to find.
If that is you, I say to you tonight: I meet your skepticism, uncertainty and longing with my confidence and trust.
Not always, but tonight, I have plenty in my Hope Reserves. I will lend you some of mine. The more I lend, the more I feel. It’s win-win.
I want to talk about hope tonight, and Possibility, because it is one of the two deep truths of the Christmas story, at least how I read it.
When world events cause us to fall on our knees, not in awe or gratitude or humility of which our next hymn sings, but in heartbreak, in confusion, in outrage, in despair, we can choose to connect with the Christmas story.
For this story to resonate, we don’t have to be Christian (I’m not).
We don’t have to believe that Jesus was born by immaculate conception or was the son of god (I don’t – certainly not more than any one of us).
The Christmas story can speak to us, no matter our ideology or theology, if we allow it.
For it is a story about the possibility of illumination beyond our own human making;
For it is a story about the possibility that there can be miscommunication, disappointment, even the sense of betrayal in our most intimate relationships, and still there can be loyalty and fierce protection, a solidarity that cannot be fully explained by logic;
For it is a story about the possibility of safety and shelter for those who seek it ~
(and don’t we, here in Burlington, need to believe that is possible, especially since earlier today the Mayor announced that tomorrow afternoon, the extreme-cold-weather shelter will be activated, so that some of us, some our neighbors might not freeze to death);
For it is a story about the possibility that those who are held captive by the Empire will be set free and those pursued by the tyrant will be befriended and aided by those who refuse to be enthralled by Herod’s power, threats, and manipulations.
The Indian author, Arundhati Roy, wrote two sentences that my mind and heart turn to regularly when I am in need of replenishing my Hope Reserves.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Do you know it? Have you heard it before?
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Another world is not only possible, he is on his way. On a quiet day, I can hear him breathing.
Another world is not only possible, they are on their way. On a quiet day, I can hear them breathing.
I have been thinking about what the sound of this breathing is.
Since it’s a beautiful vision, maybe even promise, of possibility, it’s not a huffing and puffing, like the Big Bad Wolf, which is the sound of ICE raids throughout our country.
No, the breathing of the new world of which the author writes, has a wholly (holy?) different cadence.
That new world is, I think, the same new world promised by the Christmas story.
So maybe it sounds like the breathing that must have taken place in that manger: the animals, shuffling their feet on the straw, their lowing, their animal curiosity – can you hear their creaturely breath? Warm, moist, odiferous, alive.
It is the breathing of a young woman in labor, far from home, none of her womenfolk nearby who would have known just want to do at this momentous time. I am thinking in her breath, there is fear mixed with live-giving straining, effortful panting, fierce protective love, hard work, the reward arriving.
It is the breathing of an attentive father, older than she but not by much, out of his element, perhaps an undercurrent of fear that he has stuffed out of reach, so that he can be present to this miracle, both so ordinary and so extraordinary.
I think, too, it is the breathing of the stars, all of them keeping company with that one spectacularly magnificent Star, a collective breath that illuminates the passage of both shepherds and kings, individuals of all classes and geographies showing up in solidarity with something they don’t quite understand, but somehow know to be true.
Maybe, just maybe, or so I am hoping, that breathing in those days of old, was just one of so many innumerable moments, some that had come before, some that have happened since, some that are yet to happen, when for the briefest of cosmological moments, there is a universal exhale and inhale, a life-giving affirmation in the form of communal YES elegantly translated into a baby’s first breath – every baby’s first breath.
Another world is not only possible, it is on its way. On a quiet day, I can hear the breathing.
We humans have always done, and will continue, to create stories that not only allow us
to hope for a better world, but
in embracing that hope,
in tending to that hope,
in practicing that hope,
in growing that hope,
in lending it to others,
in borrowing from others,
we find that we make Possibility possible.
Another world is not only possible, she is on her way. On a quiet day, I can hear her breathing.
Yes, that is what the author wrote, yet I want to argue a point: it is not the quiet day we should wait for. In this clamoring world, quiet days come too rarely.
Instead, let us find – and create — ways to quiet our hearts and minds. In so doing, we are much more likely to be in a position to welcome Possibility: that new world on its way.
