Sermon

Do you love family traditions? I do. I feel that traditions are something to savor and they help to maintain some continuity in an ever-changing world. I sometimes wonder whether I had enough traditions for my children to model and remember fondly but I notice that they are creating their own—variations of what they grew up with.

One tradition that I looked forward to as a child in my native England was having a little bit of “Christmas cake” over Christmas week. It is also called wedding cake or christening cake or funeral cake. We ate it only in one-inch pieces because it was usually laden with rum or brandy.

If I were in England last night, I would have nibbled a small piece of this cake with a celebratory drink. Christmas cake is heavy fruit cake, covered with marzipan and then royal icing on top. Royal icing is very hard icing. If you get married in England, your wedding cake would be this heavy fruitcake. You would probably take off the top tier and store it in a tin for when you have your first child; it will keep for many years because it has in it lots of alcohol, marzipan to keep in the moisture, and royal icing to ensure it holds together.

When I came to this country and found I couldn’t buy Christmas cake, I began making them for gifts for my friends. I would make a dozen small ones at Thanksgiving and each week I’d take them out of the fridge, unwrap them and pour a little brandy (or rum) on the top. By Christmas, they would be just right, at least in my view. I did this for about 10 years and my friends could count on getting one each year and I felt very good about what I gave them.

Imagine my surprise when one friend confided to me that she didn’t like the fruit cake and always felt guilty when she “passed it on” to another friend. “What?!? You don’t like fruit cake!” I exclaimed. “How can you not like fruit cake?!” I found out that she was not the only one and that many of my fruit cakes were being passed on. Ah, I see that some of you are smiling—knowingly!

A few days ago, I was amongst a group of admiral, delightful, and amusing people. Imagine my chagrin when the topic turned to fruitcakes and they talked most disparagingly. They said such things as, “You can use them for doorstops.” Or, “You can recycle them and pass them on.” I was determined to do something about how low the opinion of fruitcakes has fallen in this country! Surely the fruitcake must have a history! So I turned to the Internet.

I foun`d that in ancient Egypt pieces of fruitcake were buried in tombs for eating in the afterlife and likely symbolized rich and festive eating. In the Middle Ages, dried fruit was brought from the Middle East and Europeans started cooking with it. It was first baked in bread and this migrated to heavy dessert. During the Civil War, southern ladies gave packages of fruit cake to their sweethearts who went off to war. By the time of the Revolutionary War, it is my opinion that the disparagement of the fruitcake had begun. Benjamin Franklin is rumored to have said, when there was a shortage of bullets, that they should use—yes—pieces of fruitcake!

In Europe, however, the fruitcake was and is revered. Queen Victoria is reputed to have not allowed herself a piece of her birthday cake for a year so that she could remember to practice restraint.

I called one of my sisters in England this morning to discover the latest attitude towards fruitcake there. Joy, my sister, said, “We have it every week. I have five recipes that I use. My husband absolutely has to take a piece with him to work for his afternoon tea and we have a piece with a cup of tea before going to bed. I have made a heavy, dark fruit cake for us to have at teatime today because we will have had a big dinner at 3 pm.” So they are still civilized over there.

Like a good Unitarian Universalist I am standing up to identify prejudice and the lowly status of fruitcake in America. It has occurred to me that we UUs are like fruitcakes in some ways. (Guess what I’ve brought to share with you today!) First of all it has nuts!!! Then it has a great diversity of ingredients, like our diversity of religious beliefs. It is rich, in variety if not in gold! And all the diversity is simply wonderful. Also, remember that the British economy is doing much, much better than ours; I wouldn’t be surprised if it is due to the inspiration of fruitcake!

I haven’t exactly brought a petition to campaign for the virtues of fruitcake but one of my New Year Resolutions is to bring fruitcake back into my life—the real one that is chock full of, rum and raisins (which my sister calls sultanas) and to raise up the virtues of this wonderful and nutritious dessert to you. From now on I shall ring out the old year and ring in the new with fruitcake!

So I know one resolution that I will make today and this brings us to the topic of letting go something that we would like to banish from our lives and a resolution to bring something in. Have you written one thing to let go on your pink kitty paper yet? Pass it to your right and we’ll collect them and burn them. (The sexton burned them for us safely in our roaring fire.)

Have you written something on your green paper with the puppies on that you want to bring into your life this year? Put this in a safe place so that you can look at it from time to time. Let us hold in our hearts for a moment what we want to bring into being this year. Before midnight last night, a television reporter asked two policemen what New Year resolutions they were making. One said: I’m going to lose weight. The other said: I’m praying for World Peace. May we let go those things that trouble us or make life more difficult for us. And may we bring in that which is to our greatest benefit! So may it be!