| December 6, 2009
From The First Baptist Church in America pulpit – Providence, Rhode Island
Unlike Matthew, Luke begins his gospel with the birth of John not Jesus. The place is Jerusalem, not Bethlehem. In the temple not a manger. Not Mary and Joseph, but Zechariah and Elizabeth, who became the surprised parents of the one who would precede “the One who was to come.” Luke’s nativity begins not with a boring but intriguing genealogy, rather a captivating story about a man who got so scared in church that it infected him with a bad case of laryngitis!
Since both Zechariah and Elizabeth were descendants of Aaron, set apart to serve in the temple, today we would call them a “clergy couple.” But only Zechariah was allowed to go into the priestly-business. Elizabeth’s job was to stay at home and have priestly-babies. Only she didn’t. Yeah it’s unfair and like a lot of stuff we’re seeing today, unscientific. We know it but they didn’t. So the blame for barrenness fell on the woman. In that society, an infertile woman was the same as a dead woman. And Zechariah could’ve divorced her for it and got somebody more fruitful. But he didn’t. And because of it, we have Christmas!
Luke says they were “righteous and blameless before the Lord,” which means they shared something more important than having kids. When Zechariah’s turn came to serve in his temple duties, something important happened. He was the one selected to pray. This was as close as Zechariah would get to the Holy of Holies. But it scared the daylights out of him when he ran into an angel up-in-there. But I don’t know what he was expecting to find. Perhaps he was concentrating so hard on performing his liturgical responsibilities that he forgot where he was, so absorbed in repeating his rituals that he was shocked when God really did show up in the routines! But I think he was incensed more over Elizabeth than he was the incense.
“Don’t be afraid, Zechariah,” the angel said, “for your prayer has been heard.” The prayer for the people or the prayer for himself, that Elizabeth would give him a child? He realized which on when the angel informed him that it was really gonna happen! And it already had a name. Then the angel clicked off a lot of details about what their kid would grow up to be and do. But faith is hardest to come by when it gets confused with believing certain facts are true. In the priestly couple’s case, they’d been praying too hard and waiting too long to think anything else than they were way too old to ever have the child they’d been hoping for. So this story isn’t just about laryngitis, it has theological roots--the pain of unanswered prayer. That’s why Zechariah hesitated. “How will I know? I’m an old man and my wife’s getting up in years.” Well, he shouldn’t have said that! Its one of those blundering responses that no sooner do you say it, than you want to call the words back. “How will I know?” Oh yeah, he got his sign ... and then some. He was struck dumb -- unable to speak a word until his son was born.
It feels more like punishment than a sign to me; like Thomas, who “wouldn’t believe until he touched the wounds...” Both were asking for proof. But could it also not be a failure of imagination? Or the fear of disappointment ? Or a habit of hopelessness? When you’ve waited a long time for something that never comes. “Someday ... never comes.” (Credence Clearwater Revival). Nothing happens. Time goes on. After awhile you give up. The priest had gotten used to not-being-heard, how was he to know this time would be any different?
When the messenger said, “I am Gabriel,” that should’ve been at least a clue if not a sign! But because Zechariah was so blown away, he lost his ability to communicate. He’d been tongue-tied by an angel! And wherever his story is told, muteness is presented as retribution for his doubt. Because he didn’t say “something nice,” he wasn’t allowed to say anything at all. He was muzzled and when he got home, he couldn’t say a word. But before long, Elizabeth conceived. And as the months of silence passed, her swelling-belly was the proof that the angel wouldn’t provide. And when the child was born, they named him John. What a bummer! A new daddy who couldn’t tell anybody! All he could do was pass out blue-labled cigars.
I was just wondering if Zechariah’s silence might be a blessing, not a curse? Like an enforced sabbatical; a gestation period of his own during which the seeds of hope were sown again in his hushed soul. Nothing he could say held-a-candle to what’s going on in front of him anyway. And he could only watch as his muteness turned out to be the wilderness which paved the way for a dream to be re-born. Anybody whose had to wait a long time for their prayers to be heard can understand Zechariah’s predicament. Eventually you run out of words. And finally you run out of hope. That’s where Luke begins Christmas.
“Kudzu” has a cartoon with Preacher Will B. Dunn sitting at his typewriter, dutifully answering his morning mail: “Dear Preacher, why should I read the Bible? Why should I care about what a bunch of dead white guys had to say about anything? Gen-X-er.” “Dear Gen-X-er: How about a resurrected white guy?” Today’s Starbuck’s theology. We’ve spawned a generation full of Zechariahs! Burned from waiting and hoping: “How will we know? How will we know?” Is God hiding? Or are we covering our eyes?
Maybe Luke is using Zechariah like Matthew’s four notorious women in Jesus’ graveyard: paving the way for the “real McCoy” that’s on the way. Zechariah is Luke’s example of how not to do it. Luke then contrasts the priest’s request for proof with Mary’s response of obedience in a similar strange-birth-situation by saying, “Let it be to me according to thy word.” Now that’s how to do it! Faith comes not by believing facts, but by trusting God ... to do what he says.
Where I grew up, there was a gullible little kid, who was slow-minded. And the older boys loved to make fun of him and lead him on, because he’d believe anything he was told, as if it were fact. So they had a field day at his expense all the time. They’d tell him the school burned down and he’d run to see it. Or his mamma was calling and he’d rush home to find that she hadn’t. But when the revival came to town and in those days folks attended the services, because there wasn’t anything else to do. When the preacher extended the invitation to come forward and accept Christ, all the other kids stayed in their seats because either they didn’t believe or were scared. But only the boy that got teased went forward, because he even believed the preacher! Faith requires simple, childlike trust in Jesus; always relational never logical. Mary believed and obeyed. Zechariah doubted and demanded a guarantee. Something God never gives. Not even to Jesus. So ol’ Zechariah got a lot more than he prayed for.
Advent is a time for us to claim the angel’s gift of silence. To stop trying to come up with a “canned answer” for everything. Answers have agendas. How valuable would it be for you to soak up the solitude of the mystery of God and see what the quiet has to teach us? Maybe you’ve noticed all the silence involved in the incarnation. Shepherds and Wise Men bowing in silence. Mary “pondering these things in her heart.” Joseph never speaks a word in the entire New Testament. Talk about silence! Jesus was silent from twelve to thirty-three. “Silent Night” on Christmas Eve. It’s a time to just “chill out ... and know that God is God.” And we’re not! God transforms us in times of solitude. Zechariah got sent into a nine month exile where he discovered God birthing a change within him, that made a believer out of him.
At what point in a modern person’s life is there room for reverence anymore? Do you think Luke is telling us sometimes its best to leave even the right things unsaid, so that the silence can be more eloquent? Zechariah like most of us, had to learn the hard way. He was not allowed to speak until “all that the angel had spoken was fulfilled.” Until John was born. What a day that must’ve been for his family! At any rate -- when Elizabeth’s water broke, Zechariah’s silence broke!
A little boy was flying his kite, with so much string that the kite flew behind a low-flying cloud. A woman noticed the boy with his string, but couldn’t see the kite and asked about it. He said, “I can’t see it either, but every now and then I feel a tug and that’s how I know its there.” God tugs at our faith-strings in many ways. Sometimes he uses silence. This Advent, let’s take a cue from Zechariah and be sensitive to the ways God tugs at us; to “be still and know that God is God;” to watch where God’s Spirit is at work and meditate on the scriptures, and be reminded that God’s time is different from ours; and to settle for nothing less than the truth, with all the fraud and deception going-on out there.
Listening for the silence, just might turn out to be the very wilderness in which our dreams are born. What a way to begin a gospel! Ol’ Luke has us right where he wants us. With a speechless priest, an old woman hiding in expectation, and us acknowledging the one who “prepared the way of the Lord,” with a “baptism of repentance,” -- to remind us that none of us are here because we’re clean, because we’re not. But at least we are washable!
Providence Prayers: (12/6/09)
In Advent we focus yet again on the coming of Christ. If he is coming, why the delay? To suggest he's ‘dithering,’ is to presume we know what time it is, equating human perception with divine reality. If God wears a watch at all, it doesn’t work the way ours do. “One day with the Lord is as a thousand years.” It’s so hard for us to wait in full confidence. Like brave children left alone too long, before long, we start to assume it’s all left up to us now. God help us! And teach us not to expect too much magic from our faith. Save us from our self-deceptions and help us to develop a steady, growing faith that gives life true direction. Let our church become a mirror, reflecting the light that brightened a cold, dark stable.
Forgive us when our short-sightedness causes us to confuse God’s ‘slowness,’ with God’s patience. That we have in short supply. We thank Thee for keeping the porch light on for centuries now, in hopes that the last stragglers will someday uncover their eyes. And it’s no wonder if we wonder if someday will ever come? For this loving church family that encourages us while we wait, we are grateful, and for all it does to offer avenues of service, to keep blessing the hurting, welcoming the stranger, accepting the outsider, caring for the dying, and inspiring the living. Let our place continue to be known for opening up possibilities in the name of Jesus and for doing our part in making this corner of the world more fit for people to live in.
May this hour allow us to see the many gifts of Thy grace, as angels invade our post-modern mundane lives with new hope. We thank Thee for the patience that helps us bridge desire and fulfillment and the ability to distinguish between the certainty that knows all the answers and the kind that’s content to wait on the Lord. Let us re-learn the “values of the stable,” and the gift of silence in Thy holy presence and accept the gentle love of Christ, as the generous gift that it is. Through Christ our Lord.
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