[Vigil and Mass of Day
present two different extracts from the story of Zechariah. At each Mass I
preached through the whole story, narrating it afresh for the portions we hadn’t
heard. So, what was preached differed more substantially than usual than what
is reproduced below. In the introduction to the Mass, I explained that we’re
celebrating the birth of JBap today, why this feast is always 6 months before
Christmas (/3 months after the Annunciation), why it is celebrated even on a
Sunday.]
What we
just heard from Luke’s gospel was really just an extract from what Luke tells
us about how the birth of John the Baptist came about, and to get a sense of
what God might be saying to us through this, we really need the whole story.
Zechariah
was a priest and he and his wife were a very devout couple, but they’d never
been able to have children. One day, Zechariah is ministering in the holiest
part of temple, offering incense. In the psalms, we read that our prayers rise
up to God like incense. The psalms assume that the people singing will know
well the experience of burning incense, of seeing the smoke rise, of smelling
the smoke rise, maybe of feeling the heat, and the psalms use that physical
experience to tell us that our prayers work just like that. Incense gets burned
up, but in its being burned up, it’s not destroyed, but transformed into
something that rises up to heaven, and is received with delight by God and all
the angels. That’s how we’re meant to understand prayer. I don’t know if you’ve
had the experience of praying for something so desperately that you felt like
the desire was spending you, consuming you, burning you up; the prayer that
comes from that kind of burning desire that’s sacrificial rises up, and is
received with delight by God and all the angels.
And then
one of those angels comes to Zechariah in the Temple. He’s scared, as you might
expect. When you hear angels, don’t think of the pretty winged creatures with
harps; these are heavenly creatures who burn with the fire of God’s love,
they’re not safe, they’re kind of scary. And the angel has heard Zechariah’s
prayer, the deepest longing of his heart, for a child. And the angel proclaims
that he and Elizabeth will have a son. But, like all gifts of God, this gift is
not given just for Zechariah and Elizabeth’s sake alone. No, this boy is given
for the sake of the whole people of Israel, really the whole world. The angel
tells Zechariah to name him John, which means gift of God or “God is gracious,”
and the angel says that John will do something to bring people back from error
and sin to righteousness. What we know, knowing more about John the Baptist’s
ministry, is that John will proclaim that the kingdom of God is at hand, that
God is near, and call people to a baptism of repentance, of turning their lives
around, and that Jesus will hear that call and make it his own. It’s by
proclaiming the nearness of God, the graciousness of God, that God is giving,
that John will summon people to turn their lives around, to return to
righteousness, to justice.
Zechariah,
pretty naturally, struggles to believe this, “How can this be?” This isn’t a
sinful question. Moses asked a similar question when God commissioned him. Mary
will ask a similar question when the angel comes to her before she gives her
“yes” that changed the world. But in response to this question, the angel
declares that Zechariah will become mute, unable to speak, until “these things
occur.” We should notice first that it’s can’t have been clear to Zechariah how
long he’d be mute for. Until Elizabeth conceived maybe? That would be when
these things started. Until everyone make perfectly righteous? That would be
the end? It turns out neither of these are what happens. Zechariah remains mute
until the baby is named John. Elizabeth proposes this name, but all their kin
refuse to listen to her. When Zechariah gets his voice back is when he writes
on a tablet, “his name is to be John,” backing up his wife in her mission to
obey God against those who would try to dissuade her, that’s when he gets his
voice back. Maybe that’s when he, who was already devout, discovers a new,
deeper righteousness.
I wonder
what you or I might say if we’d just spent nine months and eight days unable to
speak. Zechariah sings a song of praise to God: “Blessed be the Lord, the God
of Israel, for he has come to his people and set them free.” Zechariah
proclaims that closeness of God that his son will go on to proclaim. Zechariah
proclaims that God comes close in order to set his people free. Could Zechariah
have ever proclaimed that if he hadn’t known the imprisonment, the social
shame, of being mute for so long? Zechariah’s muteness was no punishment, for
his question was no sin. No, Zechariah’s muteness was his formation, was how
God prepared him for powerful prophetic speech, and how he prepared him to
raise a son whose speech would be more powerful still.
Powerful
prophetic speech always comes from people who have known weakness, because we
can’t feel God’s liberating hand when we’re doing well enough in life that we
can kid ourselves that we don’t need God’s hand. Whoever we are, that
challenges us. If we have known pain, shame, weakness, God has given us in that
something to say that we need to dare say. If we haven’t, we first need to
listen to those who have, especially those our world makes mute by refusing to
hear their voices (and it’s not like you can just divide humanity into two
classes here; all of us have something to say, and stand in need of listening
too). And we also need to ask ourselves, am I too comfortable for God to form
me for powerful prophetic speech?
Because the
message matters: our God has come close, and he’s acting to set us free from
all that keeps us from righteousness.
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