Windward United Church of Christ members will be introduced to a Moravian love feast Christmas morning that has little to do with indulging in decadence, though the service is meant to induce feelings of warmth toward one’s fellow man.
Its distinguishing feature is that people will get to eat sweet buns with a warm drink while the service is going on, nothing like the tiny tastings of bread and wine of Holy Communion. There won’t be a set agenda of Scripture and song, but people will get to request that everyone join in singing their favorite Christmas carols, and talking story will take the place of a sermon.
Churchgoers will be loosed from the pews and instead be able to see each others’ faces in a big circle on the Kailua church’s lawn at 9 a.m. Christmas Day under a big tent, lit by a big multipointed Moravian star.
They are invited to come as they are. "We’ve had kids showing up in their jammies with something they got for Christmas, which is just fine. The service will just sort of weave itself," the Rev. Ruth Sandberg, church pastor.
She and the Rev. David Sandberg, her husband and the church’s interim co-pastor, have introduced the casual service to many churches in their 20 years of serving as temporary ministers. Their home base is San Francisco.
David Sandberg said the love feast has nothing to do with holding an orgy, as some of the early Christians were accused of doing when the tradition started in the 1700s during a revival of the Moravian Church.
He laughed and added, "It’s quite the opposite. No sin is involved." (The Moravian Church is a Protestant denomination that originated in the 1400s in what is now the Czech Republic.)
Ruth Sandberg said the kind of love that’s involved is "agape," a Greek word that means the highest form of spiritual love, one that is unconditional.
"It doesn’t take the place of communion. It’s meant to be so much more family-ish — ohana," she said. "We will invite people to pick out their favorite Christmas carols, and we’ll alternate between singing and readings and prayers. We’ll invite people to share Christmas memories that are very important to them. Someone will share a special card or letter they got over the holidays."
David Sandberg said people will also be able to share "special things that happened to them during Christmas that resulted in the strengthening of their faith, the rebirth of hope, or signaled God’s presence."
The United Church of Christ, Methodists, and many other Christian denominations have adopted the tradition for use mainly at Christmas, but Moravian churches might hold 40 a year to mark special occasions or as a healing kind of ceremony at the end of a conflict, he said. Usually sweet buns and coffee with milk are served, but the Sandbergs will be offering Portuguese sweet bread formed into buns, and warm cider.
Ruth Sandberg said the Moravian feast is quite a contrast to the ritualized Lessons and Carols service at 7 p.m. today, customarily used worldwide to celebrate Christmas Eve. (It follows a format created in 1880 by Edward White Benson, who later became the archbishop of Canterbury, and widely adopted by various denominations.)
The dramatic high point of the service happens near the end when all lights are turned out, and a little girl will light the white "Christ candle" in the middle of the Advent wreath. A child is chosen to light it to symbolize the "Christ child, the idea of newness and birth, Jesus being the light of the world at his birth and from then on," she said.
From the light of the Christ candle, the pastors will light their own candles, which will be passed down the rows of the congregation to light the candles of each individual until the whole sanctuary is illuminated, while everyone sings "Silent Night." "It’s absolutely gorgeous," David Sandberg said. "Then we put all the lights on and sing ‘Joy to the World,’ and that’s the end of the service."
