Posts
Our gospel today from is the first chapter of Luke I will get to that gospel story in a few moments, but for the meantime, I’d invite you to be seated while I give you a little backstory first. The gospel of Luke begins with a couple of characters that don’t normally get a lot of airtime around Christmas. Shortly before the angel came to a town called Nazareth to visit a woman who’s name was Mary, that same angel known as Gabriel, made another surprise visit to the priest, Zachariah, one day at the temple and told him that after many years, his wife, Elizabeth, was going to have a child.
There’s Gabriel with the trumpet, scroll and everything proclaiming the good news to Zachariah and instead of high-fiving Gabriel and jumping for joy, Zachariah is suspicious.
Can you blame him?
Besides the fact that there’s an angel standing in front of him, the bible alludes to how Elizabeth and probably Zachariah were really, really sad about how they couldn’t have a baby. When Zachariah’s questioned the message from God, Gabriel, it seemed, got a little huffy and took away Zachariah’s ability to speak or hear for the next 9 months. (Moral of the story: do not mess with the angel Gabriel.)
In Gabriel’s defense the next stop on his earthly visit after sharing the news with Zachariah was to visit the unwed teenage mother in Nazareth and tell her she was bearing the son of God --a task which perhaps had him a little on edge.
Zachariah is struck dumb and deaf there in the temple and herein our story picks up today.
The gospel from the first chapter of Luke: Luke 1:57-80
However you spin it, adding or not adding children to the story can makes things complicated. While some babies are joyfully expected, other folks long for babies they can never have and it’s terrible. Some pregnancies are a mess and hardly the “happily-ever-after” tale the world might paint them to be. The absence or presence children complicate things.
In the case of Zechariah and Elizabeth, in ancient Galilee, not having children was a problem (it can still be a problem in today’s day and age and one of these days, our own society will finally learn to chill out about whether or not people have kids). In her own ancient words, Elizabeth called her struggle to have a baby a “disgrace.” Oh, honey. I doubt she was thinking of those biblical foremothers like Miriam or Deborah who never had children that we know of. Elizabeth wanted a child and it was terrible. In her case, not having children poked holes in her status as a valuable member of society. It meant there was no security net in old age. Her social status was shaky. No doubt her grief—and probably Zechariah’s—ran deep.
Not only were Elizabeth and Zechariah living through this personal pain, that afternoon when Gabriel visited Zechariah, there was deep political conflict around them in Galilee where they lived. There were divisions. There was hatred. There was rampant classism. In many ways, life was shaky.
Eight days after the child is born, his parents head to the temple to go through all the proper Jewish rituals and have him circumcised. I imagine Zechariah holding the baby just like you see on the front of your bulletin there in the temple when and an argument breaks out over what to name the child.
“Name him after his father!” Elizabeth shakes her head.
(Elizabeth might have been accustomed to the a backseat since she’s married to one of the priests, but she was also a pastor’s kid herself, and given that I have high hopes for my own children, I’m happy to report that she held her ground.)
“Nope.” She says. “We’re calling him John.”
“Oh for goodness sakes, someone comes back at her. What is this name, John?! At least name him after a relative as is the custom.”
This is the point where Zechariah hands the baby to someone, asks for a tablet and writes: “his name is John!”
Right then and there, Zechariah’s voice returns and he begins to speak or, rather to sing. The first verse of his song is a rousing version of “thank you God, for sticking with us across the ages. You’re incredible. You’ve been here. You’re our everything. Thank you, Lord!"
Given this was the first thing he had said in quite some time, I imagine the people in the temple paying attention and even joining into the song so by the time Zechariah finishes the first part, the whole place has chimed in, or is in tears: Thank you Lord! And then as Zechariah sings on, the tune turns wistful as he sings of his hopes for how this child will help heal this hurting world around him. It’s a hope I think we all share for all the children in our midst.
And this is where I had to pause the story for a moment. Because life has not been easy for Zechariah and his people. This last week has been tough on some of us too. Not only are folks a little rattled with the news of another variant of covid, four kids lost their lives in a shooting inside a high school this week, Lord have mercy.
Folks are rattled about monumental cases sitting in our supreme court, there has been continual violence across Chicago and even in this very neighborhood where we congregate.
As the days grow shorter and the nights grow longer, it’s not hard to spin out into despair, the weight of our pain can be so heavy. Life has not been easy around us and for some of us, it has been very, very hard. All of these characters in our Advent and Christmas stories give us something different to cling to.
Zachariah calls us to remember not the places where our lives seem empty, but to remember the moments where God’s grace and presence filled our lives, and has filled the lives and history of our people and then to hold onto the hope that just as God was, God is and will be.
Amy Butler writes, “when the weight of your pain is so heavy, turn to the one who can balance out the scales of utter inequity and lift your countenance from sadness to hope. Open your eyes now to see your life, filled to overflowing with the goodness and promise of God. And then open your heart to the richness of justice making community so that together we may move this world toward what God imagines for us.”
In my case, when the shadows of this world accelerate my heart, when hopelessness squeezes at my throat, when I’m afraid of what the future will bring, I think, among several things, of you all. I think of the way people have raised their hands and said, “I’ll serve. I’ll give. I’ll lend a hand.” I think of the box of cookies that one of you sent to my door several months ago and the card of encouragement I get now and then. I will think you all passing out Halloween candy to neighborhood kids and making blessing bags for GLBTQIA youth at the Center on Halsted in a few weeks. I will think of our staff working with neighborhood groups to create a vaccine clinic here at church, for music you all help lead each week, through the way you reach out to each other through coffee and lunch and walks and phone calls. I will think of all the things we’ve learned this last year and how God has stuck with us through all of it and led us to grow. I will think of you all and remember what God’s salvation looks like when it comes alive in this space and in our lives.
Then I imagine what will be and how we will prepare the way, all of us together for God’s love to be alive around us again. And we’ll again call out for God’s light to pierce our hearts and come find us in our brokenness. To shine a light on the path to lead us forward in a way of peace.
Surrounded by all of the uncertainty and pain, God’s love is strong enough to lead us, God’s love is strong enough to save us, God will never stop blessing this world and we hold onto and participate in that promise. As we wait for the one who is to come, we remember Zachariah’s song:
By the God’s tender mercy, the dawn from on high will break upon[b] us, to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, It will guide our feet into the way of peace.”
Let it be so.
No comments:
Post a Comment