November 20, 2016
Rev. Kristin A. Rice
Luke 1:68-79
“A Prophet’s Lullaby”
When we think of the singers who heralded the birth of Israel‟s new king, I suspect we mostly think of
the angels. They‟re found in Luke‟s gospel, in Chapter 2. The phrase “heavenly host” suggests they
look more like an army than a choir, and their audience is initially terrified. But who can imagine a
Christmas without “Hark! The Herald Angels Sing!?” Or a children‟s pageant without the cherubs in
their glittery halos? All right, we‟ll leave the angel choir alone—for now. But only so we can turn our
attention to the real singers of Advent.
They are three amateur soloists, also found in Luke: a teenage girl and two old men. One is still
winded from her pregnant hike in the hills; one is simply hanging on to life so he can see the new
king; and the middle one hasn‟t used his voice in nine months. Imagine planning a worship service
around that?! But so the church has done, for centuries, incorporating these three canticles into
some of the most beautiful worship music and memorable liturgy we are heirs to, thanks to the work
of numerous classical and contemporary composers.
Mary‟s song, known as the Magnificat, is most known to us in Advent, but many of our High-Church
siblings use it as part of evening prayer year-round, and the Eastern Church sings it every Sunday.
Simeon‟s song, known as the Nunc Dimittis, is traditionally found in late evening prayer services, and
also sometimes at funerals or memorials.
But it‟s the middle one; most often sung at Morning Prayer, that we turn our attention to this ChristThe-King Sunday. Known as the Benedictus, it‟s the song of Zechariah--priest, prophet, and brandnew papa of John, who will come to be known as the Baptist. Let‟s listen for what we might learn
about the One we worship from his story and his song. Beginning at chapter 1, vs. 57:
57
Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son.58 Her neighbors and relatives
heard that the Lord had shown his great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.
59
On the eighth day they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah
after his father. 60 But his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” 61 They said to her, “None of
your relatives has this name.” 62 Then they began motioning to his father to find out what name he
wanted to give him. 63 He asked for a writing tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And all of them
were amazed. 64 Immediately his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak,
praising God. 65 Fear came over all their neighbors, and all these things were talked about
throughout the entire hill country of Judea. 66 All who heard them pondered them and said, “What
then will this child become?” For, indeed, the hand of the Lord was with him.
67
68
Then his father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:
“Blessed be the Lord God of Israel,
for he has looked favorably on his people and redeemed them.
69
He has raised up a mighty savior for us
in the house of his servant David,
70
as he spoke through the mouth of his holy prophets from of old,
that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.
72
Thus he has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,
71
and has remembered his holy covenant,
the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham,
to grant us 74 that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,
might serve him without fear, 75 in holiness and righteousness
before him all our days.
76
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
73
78
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.” (NRSV)
The Word of the Lord.
Thanks be to God.
What song would you sing? If you had to sing, if you couldn‟t help but sing, no matter how gravelly
your voice? How would your canticle begin? Perhaps we haven‟t dared be silent long enough to find
out. Perhaps we, too, have struggled as Zechariah did to believe the promises are for us--that our
lives, our households, our sense of calling could be transformed, turned upside down for the sake of
the new king‟s reign, even now.
Zechariah begins with blessing. Blessing is special vehicle, Karla Suomala reminds us.i Whereas
praise takes a one-way flight in our spiritual tradition, from us to God, blessing can, and does, go
either way.
We are blessed. When we lay claim to that notion, we are most often firmly planted in the present,
with an eye toward the past, surveying our personal or collective history. “We have been blessed,”
we say. It‟s cumulative. There‟s a fullness implied. Ask Nanny, my-grandmother-in-law, “How are you
today?” and she‟ll say, “I‟m blessed!” Regardless of how the particular day is going. It‟s an
ontological state, and an indisputable fact. They name the baby John, which means “Yahweh is
gracious,” which amounts to something very similar.
Turn blessing around, however, and when we are the blessors, suddenly we have a stake in the
future. We bless the meal, usually, before we take a bite. The preacher blesses the congregation at
the time of sending, as they are preparing to bear the Word into the world. Even our most common
usage, the response when someone sneezes, once had future-oriented connotations; the soul
having potentially escaped put the sneezer in danger of perdition. Blessing was serious business.
Zechariah begins his song by blessing God. “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for God has looked
favorably upon his people and redeemed them.” What does it mean to bless God? My sense from
this passage and several others is that to bless God is to take God at God‟s word. “Blessed be the
Lord of God of Israel, for God has looked favorably upon his people and redeemed them. He has
raised up a mighty savior for us in the house of his servant David, as he spoke through the mouth of
his holy prophets from of old….” The mighty savior is still in utero when this sung is sung. The
prophet and preparer of his way is only eight days old. And yet Zechariah blesses God with a
statement of assurance that God‟s word is as good as done. “He has remembered his holy
covenant,” Zechariah proclaims, “the oath he swore to our ancestor Abraham.” If the covenant was
overlooked for a time or two, it was probably not God who forgot it. Still; in Zechariah‟s reclaiming of
the promise for a new day and a new generation, God is blessed. In Zechariah‟s ability to grasp the
far-reaching implications of the divine favor he and his wife have found, God is blessed. And in the
vision Zechariah articulates of the new reign, in which people will serve God in holiness and
righteousness without fear, God is blessed.
Upon what grounds does a mere mortal, a man nine month‟s mute as a consequence of tepid faith,
presume to bless the God of the Universe? Under whose auspices, by whose authority? By a baby‟s,
of course; this is how power works in the upside-down kingdom Luke‟s gospel illustrates. And now
the old man who has blessed his Maker turns to laud his infant son, with a lullaby meant for
daybreak.
Imagine being thus commissioned:
And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most High;
for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,
77
to give knowledge of salvation to his people
by the forgiveness of their sins.
By the tender mercy of our God,
the dawn from on high will break upon us,
79
to give light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death,
to guide our feet into the way of peace.”
The new king is coming, for Zechariah‟s people, for all people. How shall we bless him? By
believing his promises. How shall we prepare the way? By proclaiming—and practicing—
reconciliation. By enacting mercy.
How deeply we need that mercy to break upon us, O God. How great is our need for you to guide
our feet in the way of peace. It would be one thing if this was a song for professional singers only, if
we could sit back and listen and applaud politely at the end, and walk out into a perfect world. But if
we are to be those who bless you, by our song and by our deeds; if we are to show forth the dawn of
your reign by our performance in the world; if it is our work as the priesthood of all believers to give
knowledge of salvation to your people by the forgiveness of their sins—then we need all the feetguiding, voice-coaching help we can get.
Some of us may have trouble believing that the mighty savior Zechariah sings of is really concerned
with what happens in our day to day lives. There in the tensions between us and our own neighbors
and relations, the communication struggles within our own families, is God really present and at
work? The gospel says yes! While Luke is probably the most clear of all the gospel writers that this
good news is meant for the whole human family, he also paints the most intimate portraits of how it
emerges within the nitty-gritty particulars of life between marital partners, parents and children, and
the people up and down the street.
One of the more remarkable aspects of the notion of blessing God is that God is blessed to carry our
burdens. God is blessed each time we lay the anxiety or worry of a particular situation at his feet.
Just over a week ago, on a Thursday morning, the Mothers of Preschoolers group I belong to held a
holiday bazaar in the courtyard of the north Phoenix church where we meet. It was a small affair,
mostly a chance for us moms to shop each other‟s handmade wares, though we had placed an
announcement in the bulletin inviting others to come. Midmorning an older man wandered through.
He chatted politely with several of the gals, bought some jam from Trisha before moving on to
Amanda‟s mugs emblazoned with inspirational sayings. He handled one in a pretty sea green with
gold script spelling out “progress, not perfection.”
“You made this?” he asked, evidently impressed.
Yes, Amanda said, explaining that the phrase had become a kind of mantra for her, an erstwhile
perfectionist raising a two-year-old with another baby on the way.
“This is an AA saying,” he told her.
“I didn‟t know that,” she said. “Thanks for telling me.”
“I‟ll take it,” he said.
The man made his way along the other tables to the spot where Elizabeth had set up a coffee station
and homemade muffins.
“Good morning! What brings you here today? Are you a member of the church?” she greeted him
cheerfully.
No, he said, he was here for an AA meeting but had come a little early. Thirty-five years of sobriety,
he shared when she lauded his efforts and that of his group. Then she decided to share a burden
she‟d rarely spoken of, even to her closest friends. Her brother, she said, was celebrating for the first
time 5 months being clean and sober. What hope it gave her to see this man before her, and to
imagine her brother, down the road a piece, healthy, whole, standing in the sun, celebrating 35 years
and blessing a stranger with his story.
“Here,” he said, placing a brand-new mug in her hands, emblazoned with the words “progress, not
perfection.” “This is a gift for your brother.”
In reflecting on the moment, Elizabeth said, “I felt God telling me, „You don‟t have to carry the weight
of this worry anymore. It‟s mine. Leave it me.‟” Elizabeth was blessed. And so was her family. And so
was the old man in the story. And so was God.
It‟s not just a song for the ancients, a canticle for cloistered monks at Morning Prayer. What good
would it be, if it were not also the song of our lives? A hymn to the God who redeems us where we
are, who celebrates our progress while shaping us in holiness, who forms us as holy vessels
emblazoned with the good news of God‟s grace, even in our imperfections? A lullaby that puts our
fears to rest and awakens in us the very best of what we have to give to each other?
What‟s your song this holiday season? Of whom do you need to ask—or to whom to you need to
extend—forgiveness? Kindness. Mercy. Having been blessed, for whom might you be a blessing?
Tune our voices, O God, as we prepare the way for the one true King. Loosen our tongues and
guide our feet as we, together with old men and angels, noisy infants and nosy neighbors, young
mothers and matriarchs, imperfect prophets and the priesthood of all believers, herald the good
news of the kingdom come and coming. Amen.
i
http://www.workingpreacher.org/preaching.aspx?commentary_id=3069