Hope for the Despairing

Sermon

The prophet Isaiah once wrote, “Sing, O barren one who did not bear; burst into song and shout, you who have not been in labor! …my steadfast love shall not depart from you, and my covenant of peace shall not be removed.”

And from those verses came this reflection from the Iona Community in Scotland.

“She was childless – but in no way was she barren.
It was just the way life had worked out:
No life-long partner, though several strong and lasting friendships.
No children, though years of congratulating and encouraging
Folk of her own generation who did become parents.
Yes, there was a sense of what might have been,
Month by month her body had prepared for the possibility of new life –
She knew it was in working order.
But the right relationship, the right time, never happened.
She believed that she would have been a good mother
So sometimes, in low moments, she felt incomplete.
And yet… no one would have called her barren.
To her friends’ children she was an adoptive aunt:
…
She offered unconditional love.
How could she be called barren? Her adult friendships were creative:
In them she and others grew through a sharing of interests
And care for each other.
…
All her life she has been a source of life.
She is childless, but she is not barren.
And God is not finished with her yet. (Advent Readings from Iona; Brian Woodcock and Jan Sutch Pickard, Wild Goose Publications, 2000)

Luke brings us this story of Elizabeth and Zechariah, one among many couples in the Bible who do not have children, who, through the miracles and plans of God, have a child whose life changes the arc of the story of faith. Their story is the beginning of Luke’s gospel, the story of an old couple who had their feet firmly planted in their Jewish faith, the descendants of priests, and they themselves considered righteous and loved by their God.

Now it’s interesting that Luke begins his story with a problem; actually, he begins his gospel with a few problems. The first is King Herod himself. Most scholars agree that by saying, “In the days of King Herod,” the author is putting his story in a specific historic time, and Luke is doing that. But with the name of King Herod, the original hearers of this story would feel a little shiver. Herod was no benevolent, kind king. Indeed, Herod ordered the massacre of children in Bethlehem in an attempt to kill the newborn Jesus – so Matthew tells us in his gospel. Herod killed his own sons; he killed his wife and brother-in-law and mother-in-law. So this story of birth begins with one who brings death.

And then there’s the problem of Zechariah. In those days, one was a priest not by coming under care of the congregation and taking ordination exams, but simply by having a father who was a priest. It was not a paying job as much as it was an expected expression of faith for some men in the Jewish tradition. There were a lot of priests hanging out in those days, and once in a lifetime, a village priest like Zechariah would get his turn to serve in the great temple in Jerusalem. So Zechariah goes, and then, the unbelievable happens.

The angel Gabriel comes to him, gives him unbelievable good news, and Zechariah, understandably, doesn’t believe him. So for his unbelief, he is struck silent, unable to speak, reduced to charades and writing out notes.

I’ve often wondered what Elizabeth thought of this silence, if she missed his dulcet tones or if she relished the quiet. Elizabeth, too, brings a problem to this story. She is not the problem; societal expectations are the problem. In those days and in that society, a woman’s primary purpose was to bear children, specifically to bear a son, and if she didn’t, she bore the brunt of disgrace. She was blamed, as it was thought back then that fertility was related to women only, that men had nothing to do with it – their parts worked fine and it was the woman who was broken. Being a childless woman also meant that she had no standing in her community.

So even though Elizabeth and Zechariah had some social status, being as they were from the priestly line, they did not have a child. Perhaps they were pitied; perhaps they were looked down upon. We don’t know.

Bearing children – or not bearing children – is still a tender topic. Though we have a better understanding of the biology of conception (it takes two to tango), the range of expectations both cultural and personal can bring pain. There is the suffering of infertility, the suffering of miscarriage, the complexity of adoption and foster care. There are familial expectations, and honest statements both of not wanting to have kids and of wanting but being unable to have children. In our congregation, we have people who can speak to all of these things, and I have learned that sometimes, like Zechariah, it’s best to keep my mouth shut and just listen.

There are all sorts of emptiness we can experience; not having children is but one. There is the emptiness of grief, of unanswered prayer, or dreams that have died.

Still, so many of us here have so much: we have this community, and that is something. Most of us have roofs over our heads at night and comfortable beds to sleep in. We have food and we are able to donate food to those in need. We have access to healthcare. We have the freedom to

vote, and to protest, the freedom to donate to causes of our choosing. We have the freedom to worship a God who loves us, who calls us into a particular way of being.

But even we who have so much can know the despair of a barrenness, of an opportunity that never came our way, of a love lost, of an emptiness that we can name so specifically or an emptiness that we can’t quite identify but that we carry around with us like Atlas lugging the world on his shoulders.

Do you believe that God fills those empty places? Do you believe that God can promise us crazy, unimaginable, unbelievably joyful things? Do you believe that you – even you – have a role in this ongoing story of faith?

I do. I do believe those things, though I have had moments and stretches of not believing them. But generally speaking, I believe in those things because I believe in the unrelenting grace of God.

God was unrelentingly gracious to Elizabeth and Zechariah, as God was gracious to all those couples awaiting a child in early scripture stories – Sarah and Abraham, Hannah and Elkanah, the mother of Samson. God was gracious to Elizabeth and Zechariah in the birth of their son, John. And grace can be found elsewhere in the story.

God was gracious in giving life in the midst of the death-dealing power of King Herod. God was gracious in keeping Zechariah silent and then unstopping his mouth and filling his voice with a song. God was gracious in Elizabeth’s five months of pondering her pregnancy all by herself. God was gracious in naming this child and filling him with the Holy Spirit. And because God sees what will happen, God was gracious in carrying out the prophecies, in bringing to life this prophet, John the Baptist, who will announce the arrival of the Messiah.

Do you believe God fills the empty spaces? Do you believe God promises us joyful things? Do you believe that you have a role in the story of faith?

Many of us have discovered that over time, God fills the emptiness of grief not only with memory but also with gratitude. Some have discovered that missed opportunity can lead to something unexpected. Most of us know the ache of unanswered prayer, only to understand that a different prayer was answered instead.

And then sometimes, we don’t see the gratitude, the unexpected, the answered prayer, and we remain in a kind of barrenness; we sit in the empty place. There is a call in that, too, to sit in the emptiness. Zechariah and Elizabeth had decades of living with their prayers unanswered. But even after she conceived, Elizabeth sat silently for five months, waiting.

If you were to sit in silence for a minute or two, you would learn that silence is rather unquiet, really. Sitting with whatever emptiness resonates in us may help us discover that the emptiness

is not a barrenness but something that contains unexpected grace. Silence is not a no; it is a waiting to hear what comes next. We choose to have hope that God will answer graciously. Even in our emptiness – whatever that may be – we can still offer life and hope.

Because, friends, in whatever emptiness or fullness we find ourselves in, God isn’t finished with us yet, either.

To the glory of God.