This sermon was preached for the second Sunday of Advent, December 8, 2024. The texts for this sermon were: Malachi 3:1-4, Philippians 1:3-11, Luke 3:1-6, and Canticle 16.
As part of learning to be a group facilitator I had to internalize the norm “Step up, step back.” Which is really just a jargony way of saying everyone in the group commits to pay attention to how much time they’re taking up in any given conversation. It’s the responsibility of those who talk a lot to notice when they need to step back - and the responsibility of those who are shyer about contributing to step up more. That way we maintain balance and make sure all voices and perspectives are heard.
You may know me well enough by now to know which reminder I needed most often. But if you don’t, it was “step back.” I suspect that each of us, if we are really pushed to consider it, know which reminder we tend to need in group settings. What I like about the norm, though, is just that it acknowledges that the balance is really hard to get right - knowing when to speak and when to be quiet. It’s so, so normal to err on one side or the other.
Today is the Sunday in Advent when we traditionally reflect on prophets and prophecies - people famous for speaking the truth. I want us to notice for a second how many prophets appear in our readings today. We’ve got the anonymous voice of the Book of Malachi, the last of the Twelve Minor Prophets before the New Testament. Then we read the Canticle of Zechariah, as he prophesies about his son, the prophet John the Baptist. Then, in the Gospel, John is quoting the prophet Isaiah. Prophets on prophets on prophets.
What do we mean when we call someone a prophet? Dr. Kate Bowler, in our materials for our Advent series, speaks of prophets as truth-tellers who name how the world is not as it would be, not as it could be, not as it should be. It’s less about telling the future and more about telling the truth - truth so clear and real and grounded - a truth so true that it will be true for eons to come. Worthy of writing down and remembering, worthy of teaching to our children and reading year after year in worship.
Usually we focus on John the Baptist on this Sunday, the wild, hairy cousin of Jesus who prepared the way. But this year, I’ve been drawn in by the story of John the Baptist’s father. We don’t usually talk about him as much, do we? To my frustration this week, Zechariah is not in any of the Children’s storybook Bibles we have. Only his canticle ever appears in our Lectionary.
But Zechariah was a prophet nonetheless. He started out as a priest in the Jerusalem Temple and we are told he and his wife, Elizabeth, are good and righteous people. One day in the Temple sanctuary, the Angel Gabriel appeared to him and announced that Elizabeth would bear a son. Zechariah did not believe the angel; he was old and Elizabeth was old and they had never managed to have any children. “How can I know that this will happen?” Zechariah asked the angel. “For I am an old man, and my wife is getting on in years.” And so the angel gave him a sign. “Because you did not believe my words,” the angel declared. “You will become mute, unable to speak, until the day these things occur.” And Zechariah was indeed struck dumb. He couldn’t talk all the way through his wife’s pregnancy, up until just after the naming of his son. The very first thing Zechariah did was praise God. Then Zechariah “was filled with the Holy Spirit and prophesied.” We just read the words he proclaimed about his newborn son. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel…You, my child, shall be called the prophet of the Most High, for you will go before the Lord to prepare his way, to give his people knowledge of salvation by the forgiveness of their sins.”
Here is my child, Zechariah says to the community. Here is his purpose. Here’s how he will be a blessing to the whole world.
I struggle a lot with when to speak up. When is my voice simply adding to the confusion? When is it about me hearing myself talk? About proving my credentials, my compassion, my virtue? When I am secretly, subconsciously, still trying to get that participation grade?
When is the right time to share an important critique, even if it’s really honest and very needed? The right time to trumpet a blessing? When is it the right time to say to that dear, dear friend - or maybe even your adult child - I think you’re making a mistake. And when should you just keep your mouth shut?
For every moment I regret opening my mouth, there’s another moment when I wish I had said something. Because we know how it feels on the other side of someone else’s silence, don’t we? That heart-sinking moment after a hurtful comment when no one said anything. That week weeks after the death when the phone stopped ringing. That time none of your coworkers stood up for you. The deafening silence of your community, your church, your family in the wake of an injustice that frightened you to your core and kept you up at night.
We are going to get it wrong sometimes. We just are. But if the fates and lives of the prophets teach us anything, it’s that how we measure whether we spoke too soon or too loudly or too honestly or to the wrong person cannot be judged by the personal consequences we face. The jobs we lose, the friends who leave, the customers and donors and clients who drop us. The real question is this: have I helped God’s truth be heard by the people who needed to hear it?
The maddening thing about it all, of course, is that the prophets don’t get proven right in their own time very often. They don’t get accolades and promotions. They get crosses, and nooses, and silver platters. It’s quite possible that we won’t know whether the truths we speak have landed until much, much later - maybe not even until we meet God face to face.
Perhaps it shouldn’t be surprising that I find Zechariah much more relatable as a prophet than his son. Not least because he starts off as a priest. Unlike John the Baptist, who preaches fire and brimstone, repentance and the imminent arrival of the Messiah, Zechariah’s prophecy is that of a proud parent. He’s in awe of God’s goodness in giving him a son. He’s certain that his child will change the world. Most of all, though, I suspect my affection for Zechariah stems from that moment when Zechariah was so quick to discount himself as having any role to play in God’s salvific plan. It couldn’t be him and Elizabeth the angel means - he was too old.
Do not discount yourself and the truth you have to offer. Even if the song you have to sing is simply joy at God’s blessings in your life, and your conviction, your hope, that a better, more just world is coming.
And yet, Zechariah needed to wait. He was told this fantastic truth directly by an angel and then was forced to step way back for nine long months. Did the angel know he needed help holding back until the right moment? The truth about Zechariah’s son’s destiny was best heard at the moment of John’s birth and not a second before. The months of Zechariah’s unusual silence made those words louder and clearer. “Fear came over all their neighbors,” the Gospel of Luke reports. “And all these things were talked about throughout the entire hill country of Judea. All who heard them pondered them and said, “What then will this child become?”
It’s also quite possible that the angel knew Elizabeth needed a break from Zechariah’s babbling. Perhaps Zechariah’s angelic silence made space in the story for Elizabeth to step up. She got to be the one to proclaim the truth about the child in Mary’s womb. Elizabeth was a prophet in her own right. An uncommon voice for the Gospels, for Jesus’ time - a voice we get to hear because Zechariah shuts up.
The Good News of Zechariah’s story is right there in front of us in his canticle - John the Baptist’s role in God’s plan of salvation of all humankind. But there’s other Good News in the silent part of his story, too - Good News some of us might need to hear more than others. In all likelihood, we are not going to get delivered some extraordinary news directly by an angel. Nor will we magically lose our ability to speak for months. But there probably will be times in our lives when we feel certain that we do have something vital and truthful to say to people we know - but some force, external or internal, holds us back from saying it, at least right away.
Sometimes temporary silence, being made to step back, it’s not a judgment on the value of your words and perspective. It may actually be a sign - a sign that you do have something important, holy, and true to say. God’s just helping you along in figuring out the right moment to say it. Just for now - step back.
Along with that reassurance comes a challenge - a challenge some of us might find more difficult than others. Our responsibility to speaking the truth is outlined in our baptismal covenant. We promise to proclaim the Good News of God in Christ in word and deed - with God’s help. We will be called to account for what we say and do to make God’s love known in this world. That’s about evangelism, but it’s about prophecy, too. Step up.
You, too, have a message for the world. A truth we all need to hear that only you can say.
Step up, step back. A great, communal dance of speaking out and quieting to listen. Step up, step back. A dance we do together because we value each and every voice. Zechariah’s voice, Elizabeth’s voice, John’s voice. And yours. Yours, too. Amen.
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