Anyone who had been assigned to
read the lessons on Pentecost Sunday or at an Easter Vigil liturgy had to smile
a little smile this morning when you heard me stumbling over the names for the
regions presided over by Philip, brother of Herod. “Ituraea?”
“Trachonitis?” “Abilene” is
rather easy to pronounce, but what of the guy who ruler of this city – “Lysanias?” Like the readings on Pentecost, difficult
names to pronounce, of places and people we have long since forgotten. If you were the lay person asked to read on
those other occasions, you had to be thinking this morning, “About time one of the
pastors had to read the difficult list.”
Why are all those names included
in Luke’s text? I had this discussion
earlier in the week, with the pastor at Walhalla, Frank Honeycutt. I asserted that they were there in order to
document the year when John begins his ministry. “One reference would have done that,” Frank
replied. Besides, this reference only
confuses the time line. While each of
the persons mentioned eventually figures into the unfolding story, their reigns
don’t align as purely as Luke 3 would have us believe.
“No.” Frank insisted. “They are mentioned so Luke can drive home
the point that all these powerful people are passed over when God has a word to
share.” Look right there at the last
phrase of verse 2. The word of God
came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. The word of God does not reside in the
structures of power – whether that be structures of political power or
structures of religious power. The word
of God goes where it will – and God wills it to go to John, out there, in the
wilderness.
Luke will employ such a tactic
many times in his writings. And we had
all better get used to it, because we are in the year of Luke. From now till next Christ the King Sunday, we
will be reading from Luke on Sunday mornings.
And throughout Luke there is a theme of God passing over the rich and
powerful in favor of the lowly and powerless.
Such a message was an added “good news” to Luke’s readers. I guess it is yet to be determined if we will
accept this aspect of his presentation as good news.
Emperor Tiberius, Governors
Pontius Pilate and Herod and Philip; high priests Annas and Caiaphas – the word
of God is spoken to them, but not by them.
The word of God is spoken by John, the guy living out there along the
river bank.
Or I should say, it will be
spoken by John, eventually. Did you
notice or realize that John doesn’t speak in today’s readings. He is spoken about, but he does not
speak. Others speak about him.
The first to speak about him was
his father. Zechariah’s song is in Luke
1. (Luke 1:68-79) It serves as our Psalm for today, and is
printed on the bulletin insert. The lines
of this song are unique, a collection of verses and thoughts from various
Psalms. The message is clear and
straight forward – God has looked with favor upon His people and is sending to
them one who will save them “from the hands of our enemies.”
Zechariah’s speech is notable for
other reasons. Do you remember that when
a messenger from God told him that he and Elizabeth would have a child;
Zechariah doubted that such a thing was possible. Elizabeth was old and considered barren. Zechariah lost his ability to speak. It is only at the naming of the child, when Zechariah
affirms that he is to be named “John” that he regains the ability to talk. And Luke 1:68-79 is what he says.
As Pastor Hartsell noted in his
sermon last week, God sees us and remembers His promise to us. God comes to us, giving us reason to hope and
then fulfilling our hopes. Zechariah’s
song addresses this, “The dawn from on high will break upon us, to give
light to those who sit in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our
feet into the way of peace.”
That is what Zechariah has to say
about John. In Chapter 3, we read what
Luke has to say about him.
These lines are borrowed from
elsewhere in our bibles. Do you remember
where? I think I pointed this out in the
E-news note to prepare you for this morning.
We talked about it around the dessert table at last night’s progressive
dinner. Luke quotes from Isaiah 40: The voice of one crying in the wilderness: Prepare the way of the Lord. Again, high hopes and welcomed promises. Luke remembers the words of Isaiah, spoken to
people who had lived through some of their darkest days. Luke repeats Isaiah’s assurance that God will
come and set them free from the hands of those who hate them, the tyranny of
those who oppress them.
In Luke’s day, it was the ruler
of Rome – all those folks mentioned in verse 1.
In the time of Isaiah, it was the Babylonians.
If you turn in your bibles to
Isaiah 40, you might have footnote, similar to the one in my bible. Isaiah 40 begins what is sometimes called
Isaiah II. There are three sections in
Isaiah: one which speaks to the time just prior to their being overrun and
carried off into exile; one (the one that begins at Chapter 40) which is
offered during the time of transition in their fate; and a final section which
speaks of the rebuilding of their lives and their religious practices. Isaiah 40 was an assurance that God had not
abandoned His people. They were sitting
in darkness and may have feared that they had lost their status in God’s
eyes. “Not so,” God assures them.
Same situation, same message,
some six-hundred years later. This time
it is Rome who rules over them; this time the message will be none other than
the long expected Messiah. Tiberius and
Pilate and Herod and Lysanias and Annas and Caiaphas – these are not your
liberators or redeemers. The one who can
save you is the one whom God is sending.
This is the John Heyer
moment. Whenever he critiques my
sermons, which he does practically every week, he asks me, “What do you want me
to do?” Here is what I understand this text is
telling us to “do.”
We are too often enamored with
the power structures of our world. We come
to rely on the alliances we have made and the systems we have put into
place. They usually function very well –
particularly for those who created them, because in the creation process we
tend to make them favor us as much
as possible. But the message of Luke 1
and Luke 3 is to remind us that we cannot find our salvation, or our hope, or
any reason to be encouraged in such structures.
The word of God goes to the wild-eyed guy living in the wilderness. It goes to the one who cares not what happens
to the rulers of the state or to the rulers of the religious structures. It goes to the one who isolates themselves from
all of that and listens for the word.
This is an established pattern –
for God and God’s word. And what we need
to do, today, as we go home is to consider the degree to which God is also
saying this to us and to our structures.
Is Christmas about what God did
back there, in that place and time; or is Christmas the perpetual arrival of
the One who turns the tables in the Temple, angers those in authority, upsets
the social norms, and is eventually executed at the insistence of the crowd who
had once welcomed his word but turned on him when they learned the
ramifications of accepting that word?
I join the majority who like the
way things are. I live rather
comfortably in the configuration as it is.
But all week I have struggled with the question of whether the rest of
the world’s populations would accept my complacency.
That list of difficult to pronounce
names were the who’s who of Luke’s day. All
of them are gone. The only reason their
name are remembered is because they are included in someone else’s story. The nations and regions they fought so desperately
to control – wiped off the map and given different names by new rulers who were
themselves eventually overthrown.
But the word of God
continues.
This is the John Heyer
moment: when we decide whether we will remain
wedded to the systems of our day or if we will find a way to place ourselves in
the wilderness where we might silence the noise long enough for the word of God
to come to us.
I hope so.
Amen.
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