Zechariah
and Elizabeth: embracing the future
Christ
Church and St Mary’s, 24th June 2001
Luke 1:
56-67
Isaiah
40:1-9
Some of you may have heard of
people falling asleep while listening to sermons. Well today perhaps you had better pray because you may well see
someone for the first time falling asleep while giving a sermon. Anyway, when I read the passage about the
naming of John I had to admit I thought God had a pretty ironic sense of
humour, since baby naming has been high on our agenda recently. When we were choosing we didn’t want to go
for names which were too popular so we were interested to find out that in the
UK there are 44 Tony Blairs, 199 John Prescotts, 834 Gordon Browns, 38 William
Hagues and only one Michael Portillo.
Good job we had a girl, then.
But more interestingly this story is a great example of the fact that
the meaning of names was very important at the time and so in my research for
this sermon I was delighted to find out for example that Anna means grace, and
Margaret means pearl. I was interested
in the fact that Judy means that Jewess, but I was absolutely bowled over when
I've found out the meaning of Simon-snub-nosed. Mind you, I can't talk, because Guy means piece of wood. I also thought about Bishop
Barry means spear.
Anyway, that's all by way of
introduction. The real question is,
what is a story about the naming of a child doing in the Bible? I mean, this gospel is meant to be the story
of Jesus, and here Luke is taking up several verses of his precious gospel
telling us about how John got his name.
What's going on? In fact there
are a number of stories in Luke’s gospel about seemingly unimportant people who
come along before Jesus -Zechariah and Elizabeth, Simeon and Anna, John the
Baptist. Why does Luke put them in?
Well, they are examples to us of people who have heard about Jesus and
have responded. A new thing has happened
in their lives and they have reacted to it.
We can learn about how to react to God by seeing how they did. Now, you may be thinking, “Well that was
2000 years ago.” But there is one
similarity between us and them which can make them excellent companions for
spiritual pilgrims in the 21st century.
Elizabeth and Zechariah were about to enter a completely new phase of
history-the coming of Jesus-which would turn a lot of things they had known and
felt upside down. God would be revealed
to them in a completely new way, in a way which would require a whole new way
of thinking. And I would argue that
this is pretty much where we are as a church.
We live in a culture which accelerates beyond itself. Add to that the fact that for most of us our
whole Christian lives have been played out against a background of church
decline. Our whole experience has been
formed by the expectation that things can only get smaller, while the world
becomes increasingly incomprehensible.
If we are honest, we know that if we continue with things as they are
then we will get so far left behind that people will finally lose sight of
us. But rather than being completely
demoralised by this thought, I believe we are now at a time when we are
starting to acknowledge as a church in the West that we will need to be making
changes in the way we are church which are ground shifting, which will require
an openness to the future and a willingness to take risks, but which will equip
us to bring the grace of God to a broken world and community in new ways. It is at scary place to be, but it is also
an exciting one-God is doing a new thing with us, as he did with Zechariah and
Elisabeth-like them, we need to have the courage to embrace it. So they can be worthy companions.
So how can Elisabeth be our
companion? She wasn't afraid to speak
up against the crowd, she had the courage to say what she thought God wanted to
be said even though everyone else would disapprove. Let's try a little test: Think of a number from 1 to 10. Multiply that number by 9. If the number is a 2-digit number, add the
digits together.
Now subtract 5. Determine which letter
in the alphabet corresponds to the number you ended up with (example: 1=a, 2=b,
3=c, etc.). Think of a country that
starts with that letter. Remember the
last letter in the name of that country.
Think of the name of an animal that starts with that letter. Put up your hand if you are thinking of
Kangaroos in Denmark.
We all like to think that same about a lot of things-we don't like to be
different or to stick out too much.
Picture the problem for Elizabeth-when a child was circum- sized and
about to be named, it was the custom for that child to be called after its
father or grandfather. So Elizabeth
invites all her neighbours, and all her husband’s workmates i.e. a lot of priests,
around and they gather round for the ceremony.
Her husband of course can't say anything because he has been struck
dumb. They all come in the house saying
how the child must be called after its father-a well respected priest. But at the crucial moment when the child is
to be named Zechariah, Elizabeth clears her throat and butts in, "Excuse
me, actually his name is John."
Everyone pauses. You don't do
this kind of thing. This is not the way
things are. And so, of course, they
ignore her and turn to her dumb husband who confirms what she has said by
writing it down. Elizabeth has the
courage to speak out, the courage to say what God wants to say, the courage to
be prophetic.
John means "God is
gracious." The grace of God can be
a difficult message. We were discussing
in our house group this week about how in many ways the Bulger case has
highlighted this. The message of the
media-characterised mostly by the desire for vengeance-and the message of grace
would seem to be at odds. “Comfort, oh,
Comfort my people”, said God through Isaiah.
“Cry to her that she has served her term, that the penalty is paid, that
she has received from the Lord’s hand double for all her sins." With God there is forgiveness, there is the
chance of a new start. The message of
Jesus tells us that those who are unlovable, can be given the name “My
beloved”, those who are poor can be named “Rich”, those who are undeserving can
be named “My child”. This is a
wonderful message which lights our lives, but in the context of our world it
can be hard to proclaim. Do we have the
courage to cry out the name "God is gracious" to those whom society
reviles? Isn't that what Jesus
did? There are those who are desperate
to hear this message, who want to hear the comfort God offers, and who want us
to speak about it. "What kind of
society is this,” asked Mary Riddell in the Observer, “where vigilantes exploit
a dead child's memory as justification for revenge?” She then went on: “The justice system should be founded on the
Christian ideals of repentance, rehabilitation and forgiveness.” People are longing to hear the grace of the
gospel. Do we have the courage to clear
our throats and declare it? Do we have
the courage to speak out, to be prophetic in the face of opposition? This is Elizabeth's witness.
And what of poor old Zechariah?
How would he feel about his son not carrying on his name? We all struggle with the temptation to make
those who come after us carry on in our image.
To follow the path we would like them to follow. Whether our baby is a child we have brought
into the world, or our baby is a project we have worked on, an institution we
have been tied up with, or our baby is the church which we have spent our lives
in, all of us find it difficult to contemplate changing the pattern, and we
long to see the baby grow up in just the way we would want. But where does that leave room for a
different kind of future? You know, if
John had been named “Little Zack”, it would have been because he was to follow
precisely in his father's footsteps. To
be a priest, like his dad. But the fact
that God had to step in and give him a new name said precisely the opposite:
this child will not follow in your footsteps. He will not be made in your image. He is something new.
Zechariah was someone for whom
change did not come easily-he didn't expect it either. That's why he had scoffed when the angel had
told him he was going to have a child.
He was part of the institution, He had been there for many many
years. But his strength was that when
he saw change was coming, when God breathed a new word into his life, he
accepted it. He could break with the
old tradition, he could sacrifice the honour of giving his own name to his son,
because he wanted to make the shift into a different future. Luke sets him before us as an example of
someone who expects new things from God.
So can we be Zechariahs in looking to the future? Can we be prepared to break with some of the
things we hold dear, to re-name and understand our lives in different ways in
order to make way for a church which can face the future? “Prepare the way of the Lord,” said
Isaiah. “Every valley shall be lifted
up, and every mountain and hill be made low; the uneven ground shall become
level, and the rough places a plain.”
That is quite a painful and radical process. He didn’t say “Prepare the way of the Lord by a bit of new turf
here and there.” The kind of shifts and
plans, the kinds of dreams we will need to have in order to exist in fifty
years will require just this type of changing the landscape, not altering the
scenery. And that will be painful – it
may mean that our name, our stamp will not be used in the way we have been used
to. But the promise of God is that the
glory of the Lord shall be revealed and all people shall see it together, if we
can make the path for him.
It’s a risky business, letting god name the
future. But it’s also an exciting new
adventure. David Ford, professor of
divinity at Cambridge has said, “Today’s task is to improvise in ways that
surprise and delight and yet ring true with the past.” When Zechariah renamed his child, he didn’t
throw the baby out with the tradition, as it were. But he was prepared to improvise, to take risks in order to be
surprised. We are going to be
considering the future of Christ Church and St Mary’s very carefully. We will be asking ourselves questions about
our buildings, our resources, what we think God is calling us to be in this
place for the next fifty years. We have
some tough choices and exciting opportunities ahead. The question is can we be like Elizabeth, with the courage to be
daring and prophetic in our vision? And
can we be as well like Zechariah, who was prepared to let go of some of what he
had known, who was able to take risks with God? If we can follow these people, our brother and sister from 2000
years ago, then we can be a church fit for the next 2000 years.