Keep Saying “Yes”
Originally preached on December 3, 2023 at Dickey Memorial Presbyterian Church.
Scripture: Luke 1:5-23
In the days of King Herod of Judea, there was a priest named Zechariah, who belonged to the priestly order of Abijah. His wife was descended from the daughters of Aaron, and her name was Elizabeth. Both of them were righteous before God, living blamelessly according to all the commandments and regulations of the Lord. But they had no children because Elizabeth was barren, and both were getting on in years.
Once when he was serving as priest before God during his section’s turn of duty, he was chosen by lot, according to the custom of the priesthood, to enter the sanctuary of the Lord to offer incense. Now at the time of the incense offering, the whole assembly of the people was praying outside. Then there appeared to him an angel of the Lord, standing at the right side of the altar of incense. When Zechariah saw him, he was terrified, and fear overwhelmed him. But the angel said to him, “Do not be afraid, Zechariah, for your prayer has been heard. Your wife Elizabeth will bear you a son, and you will name him John. You will have joy and gladness, and many will rejoice at his birth, for he will be great in the sight of the Lord. He must never drink wine or strong drink; even before his birth he will be filled with the Holy Spirit. He will turn many of the people of Israel to the Lord their God. With the spirit and power of Elijah he will go before him, to turn the hearts of parents to their children and the disobedient to the wisdom of the righteous, to make ready a people prepared for the Lord.”
Zechariah said to the angel, “How can I know that this will happen? For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” The angel replied, “I am Gabriel. I stand in the presence of God, and I have been sent to speak to you and to bring you this good news. But now, because you did not believe my words, which will be fulfilled in their time, you will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.”
Meanwhile the people were waiting for Zechariah and wondering at his delay in the sanctuary. When he did come out, he was unable to speak to them, and they realized that he had seen a vision in the sanctuary. He kept motioning to them and remained unable to speak. When his time of service was ended, he returned to his home.
Sermon
I think you all know me well enough to realize that I’m pretty straightforward. Someone at Catonsville Presbyterian called me “diplomatic” this week and I laughed in her face. So before we jump into this text, I want to lay my cards all out on the table.
The theme for Advent is “How does a weary world rejoice.” I don’t know about you, but I’m so done with talking about how tired we are. I’m so done with talking about “talking about hope.” I’m so done with fixating on our emptiness and brokenness and helplessness. So I’m going to give this sermon a title after all: “It’s about time this weary world rejoices.” Today, on this First Sunday of Advent, we’re not finding a possibility for hope, or a possibility for rejoicing in the midst of weariness. No, we’re hoping, we’re rejoicing on this day, because the good news of the incarnation and God’s miraculous works is already here and among us.
The Advent season is sometimes described as “expectant waiting,” or “active waiting,” but to be honest, that can be a little silly sometimes. The good news is that God is already incarnate, God is already with us, Christ was already born in a stable in Bethlehem, and God has already delivered us in this world, just as God will surely continue to do so. Feel the excitement in this space, feel the Spirit’s presence among us, filling everything in this sanctuary from the pews to the flowers with joy and hope and celebration. There is too much love among this congregation and within this church to be sanded down into quiet, docile, solemn waiting. Everyone, it’s about time we rejoice, weariness and all.
With that being said, let’s turn to the scripture.
I promise we’re going to get to Zechariah and Elizabeth, but before we work our way to them, we’re going to zoom out to get the big picture. The Gospel writers, as you might expect, frame the birth of Christ in these cosmic narratives. This isn’t just the birth of a significant historical figure. The Gospel of John frames the birth of Christ as divine poetry, an incarnation that is swirling about in mysticism and rhetoric. We might remember the words that open that Gospel: “In the beginning was the Word, and the Word was with God, and the Word was God… What has come into being in him was life, and the life was the light of all people.” [1] Or in Matthew, the birth of Christ is framed in the context of God’s movement throughout all generations, a fulfillment of God’s mission in history. Matthew gives us these long genealogies that stretch throughout the history of the Hebrew people. Today, in this Lukan account, Zechariah and Elizabeth are part of this grand, existential, cosmically-significant story. The child they are promised in today’s text is John the Baptist, a messenger prophesied throughout the scripture to prepare the way of the Messiah.
When we listen to this story, the feeling of weariness isn’t in a single character or event. It’s a weariness implicit in that broad, cosmic narrative of the Hebrew people, especially in the prophets. It’s in the collective mind. Take Elijah, for example, a prophet whose familiarity to ancient audiences cannot be understated. He prophesies against King Ahab, a wicked ruler who worships Baal. Elijah does God’s bidding, acting justly and doing what is right in God’s sight. But Elijah’s righteousness lands him in trouble quickly, having to flee to the wilderness when Ahab is angered. Once Elijah escapes with only his life, the scripture says that Elijah “asks that he might die.” [2] That’s some cosmic weariness. Or consider another prophet: Isaiah. In the first few chapters of the book, Isaiah is commanded to prophesy against the people, saying “Keep listening, but do not comprehend. Keep looking, but do not understand. Make the mind of this people dull… so that they may not turn and be healed.” [3] There’s a sense of fruitlessness, pointlessness that comes from talking and talking so long and so often. Finally, in the book of Micah, we might be familiar with this passage: “With what shall I come before the Lord and bow myself before God on high? Shall I come before God with burnt offerings, with calves a year old? Will the Lord be pleased with thousands of rams, with ten thousands of rivers of oil? God has told you, O mortal, what is good, and what does the Lord require of you but to do justice and to love kindness and to walk humbly with your God?” [4] There’s so much noise in the world—hustling, running around, stocking stuffing, and ministry-planning—that chokes us into weariness. Even when it’s good intentioned, we talk and talk and talk, do and do and do, that our spirits want to collapse. What’s left is this ill-defined, hard to pinpoint weariness.
From Egypt to a civil war to Babylon to Rome, the Hebrew people have seen some stuff by the time Zechariah and Elizabeth appear on the scene. This is the weariness that has seeped into the text, that’s “in the water” so to speak. There’s this cacophony of voices, a cacophony of stories and narratives that are carried in the bodies of the holy family and the collective consciousness of their people.
In our lives, the toxic positivity and self-help industrial complex is flooding the world with noise; self-proclaimed pastor-prophets constantly tell us what we’ve irreparably messed up; our own minds compel us to do more, be more, earn more. And the fact of the matter is that listening well and listening deeply to God feels almost impossible. Our weariness is from the noise.
So that’s the weariness that is stuck in between the words in our Bibles. That’s what’s before the “once upon a time” of today’s story. But it’s about time this weary world rejoices.
Zechariah and Elizabeth are really interesting characters in the Advent story. They know who they are, and there’s a sense of acceptance that seems to be in between their words and actions. As a reminder, Elizabeth is the maternal aunt of Mary, mother of Jesus. But what is remarkable about Zechariah and Elizabeth is how instrumental they are in this narrative, and yet how little they have to bring about themselves. I don’t think it’s entirely fair to call them passive or submissive. I think it’s a little more appropriate to say they’re closer to unindicted co-conspirators. They’re part of this grand plan, and though they did not instigate it, they become overjoyed at God’s movement in their lives. Honestly, I forgot until this week that there’s a beautiful song of Zechariah later in this chapter. It parallels the Magnificat in many ways, and is a beautiful piece of poetry. He says: “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for God has looked favorably on God’s people and redeemed them. The dawn from on high will break upon us.” That’s rejoicing.
So today might be the first place where we can be overcome by joy, where we can rejoice unabashedly and wildly: We don’t have to pull ourselves up by our bootstraps; We don’t have to clench our fists and hold on tight to ministry, and we don’t have to fight some sort of battle for the soul of this world. All we have to do is say “yes” when God comes knocking.
The moral isn’t that God will give us a child if we’re faithful enough. Zechariah and Elizabeth to the contrary find acceptance with the struggles they faced with fertility. But what is true instead is that there will be days when the world unexpectedly starts turning around, when God is moving about, stirring among us, and unlocking doors that we thought were forever locked. And in those moments, those inflection points, God invites us, beckons us, cries out with love and delight for us to say “yes” with everything within us. We are invited to be unindicted co-conspirators with God, saying, “here I am, Lord” to the good news that is already at hand, already at work, ready for someone to join the fun.
This is a posture that’s often the opposite of the way we do ministry together. Usually we start with, “How do we fix ‘X,’” or “We have to do this to bring in new people,” or “If we do Y, our church will grow.” But what we see in this Scripture is that the deliverance and salvation of God–the incarnation of God–isn’t up to us to determine or for us to set the parameters. But we can say “yes” to the table that God has already set before us. Thank God all we can do is say “yes” to that grace and good news that God is stirring up, because what God is doing is immeasurably more life-giving, more meaningful, more charitable, and more fun than what we try to force through on our own.
Today we see Zechariah unexpectedly thrust into a path forward. After he receives this news, we hear the scripture say that Zechariah was unable to speak. The translation we read says he becomes “mute.” What’s really important–and it’s not obvious at first glance–is that Zechariah wasn’t silenced, unable to communicate, but rather unable to audibly speak. He can still communicate by writing–which he does later in the scripture–and he can still gesture with his body. So he isn’t silenced, as much as his way of communicating was altered for a time. This odd moment isn’t a curse from God or some weaponization of physical impairment, but instead a reorientation in the way Zechariah communicates and lives. Zechariah must slow down, carefully choosing his words before writing them. And most pronouncedly, Zechariah listens more. A lot more. We have to imagine that he started paying attention to others far more, unable to interject or cut others off or change the course of conversation. His words take a backseat to what matters most: listening, understanding, and experiencing the presence of others.
That’s a strangely beautiful remedy to the noise of everything clamoring around us. When the planet spins around, blasting ideas and voices and arguments into the void of space, the remedy isn’t to yell “be quiet” or hush everything around us. It’s to silence ourselves, becoming aware of those around us, becoming present to the world, and attuning ourselves to the quiet grace and whisper of God’s Spirit. This reminds us a bit of what Elijah does after he wearily collapses in the wilderness. He goes out to the ledge of his cave, and experiences loud winds, crashes of thunder, and the turmoil of an earthquake. But he doesn’t find God in those things. He listens, and then he encounters it. Sheer silence. A still, small whisper. And there was God.
As Zechariah and Elijah show, the deliverance, salvation, and grace of God is found in the sacred art of listening and contemplation. It’s not found in raucous ideas, shouts of strategic plans, or a loud slew of buzzwords. No, the grace and deliverance of God–the incarnation of hope and joy and peace–is found in Zechariah’s listening, Elizabeth’s strength in the midst of vulnerability, and in an uncertain yet hopeful “Yes” to God’s conspiracy on earth. So today, as we spend time after worship together, we will prepare the way of the Lord by rejoicing in what God has already started doing. We’ll find grace and joy in listening rather than persuading, hoping rather than fearing, trusting rather than doubting.
If you’re weary today–deep in your bones, tired, exhausted, just plain pooped–then you’re in luck. Because we’re rejoicing not in spite of our weariness, but precisely because of it. Because Zechariah and Elizabeth show us that it is time to let go of old stories that are hurting us, to let go of wounds from a thousand years ago if we can, and to listen and say “yes” to deliverance. This Sacrament that Christ instituted is where we learn to laugh in the face of death, to hope in the face of fear, to love in the face of hate, to build peace in the midst of betrayers, and to rejoice in the midst of weariness.
Friends, we’ve made it to Advent together. Keep saying “yes.” Keep listening. Keep moving forward, rejoicing in all these things.
Sources
[1] John 1:1-5
[2] 2 Kings 18-19
[3] Isaiah 6
[4] Micah 6:6-8
