4th Sunday of Advent                      

Luke 1:57-79

Now the time came for Elizabeth to give birth, and she bore a son. Her neighbors and relatives heard that God had shown great mercy to her, and they rejoiced with her.

On the eighth day, they came to circumcise the child, and they were going to name him Zechariah after his father. But, his mother said, “No; he is to be called John.” They said to her, “None of your relatives has this name.” Then, they began motioning to his father to find out what name he wanted to give him. He asked for a writing-tablet and wrote, “His name is John.” And, all of them were amazed. Immediately, his mouth was opened and his tongue freed, and he began to speak, praising God. Fear came over all their neighbors, 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?” For, indeed, the hand of God was with him. Then [John’s] father Zechariah was filled with the Holy Spirit and spoke this prophecy:

“Blessed be the God of Israel,

who has looked favorably on the people and redeemed them.

God has raised up a mighty saviour for us

in the house of the servant David,

as he spoke through the mouth of the holy prophets from of old,

that we would be saved from our enemies and from the hand of all who hate us.

Thus, God has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors,

and has remembered her holy covenant,

the oath that was sworn to our ancestor Abraham,

to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies,

might serve God without fear, in holiness and righteousness

before her all our days.

And you, child, will be called the prophet of the Most-High;

for you will go before the Lord to prepare his ways,

to give knowledge of salvation to her people

by the forgiveness of their sins.

By the tender mercy of our God,

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.’

Speak Up and Listen 

For most of my life, I wasn’t very good at speaking up for myself. Through many trials and tribulations, I have gotten better at it, but I still have a lot of work to do. Not saying anything at a time when I should have has caused quite a few problems in my life. I know I’ve spoken of the time when I had a cheesecake bakery. I was working on designing a logo for us, which my business partner knew. But, she contacted a sign company to put up a logo on our window with some Clipart she had slapped together, without talking to me, first. I didn’t really say anything, and it set the tone for our whole relationship after that. I eventually had to leave because I was never able to effectively communicate with her, and because of how our relationship started, I think she never felt the need to include me in any of her decisions.

My inability to speak up for myself even set me back in my ordination process. Getting ordained takes a long time. There’s school and testing and meetings, evaluations, reporting to committees, going before an ecclesiastical council. It’s hard enough in a well-organized and disciplined denomination, which the UCC is not, or at least that was my experience in the Northern California Nevada Conference, where I went through my process. I would often get no responses to my emails, and long periods of time would go by with no contact from the conference office, which, as a person with ADHD, I was mostly okay with. Processes and paperwork are the bane of my existence, and it was easy to just let things slide and tell myself that they would reach out when it was time to do something. Out of sight, out of mind.

The problem is, though, that in a denomination like ours, a lot of the ordination process depends on the candidate being more of a self-starter, more self-motivated. And, yes, that is largely how much of the world works, but not everyone is built that way. So, my process dragged on and on, and when it was time to meet with the Committee on Ministry, I was excited to be moved along in the process to the next step. Only, they thought I wasn’t ready. When they asked how I intended to serve as a minister, I said that I didn’t have any specific role in mind, and that I would be open to the calling of the Holy Spirit. They interpreted that as a lack of direction, which I didn’t agree with. But, I didn’t say anything, because it felt like their decision was final, and that there was no room for discussion. They told me I needed to do a year of spiritual direction, and then come back for reevaluation. They basically put my process on hold for an entire year.

Our gospel reading today is about speaking and listening. For nine months, Zechariah had been unable to speak, because he voiced his doubt when the Angel Gabriel told him that his wife Elizabeth would bear a son. Gabriel said that he would be able to speak again, once his son was born, but it wasn’t until eight days after his son was born, that he was able to speak. When the time came to name the infant, everyone in the room assumed he would be named Zechariah, after his father, but Elizabeth said, “No, he is to be called John.” Instead of accepting what the child’s mother wanted, instead of listening to her, they asked Zechariah for his opinion, proving that humanity’s problem of not listening to women has been with us for a very long time. Zechariah writes on a tablet, “His name is John,” and Zechariah’s tongue was freed, and he began to speak.

Speaking and listening. How are we supposed to live as community if we don’t listen to each other? How are we supposed to live as community if we silence each another? Zechariah was silenced because he didn’t listen. He spoke instead of listening. Sometimes, in order to make space for the voices of others, we need to silence ourselves. Zechariah was a respected member of the community, a priest, a leader; getting people to listen to him would have been easy. It was his job to say things that people would listen to. I wonder what it was like for Elizabeth, to be married to such a man, always relegated to the background, her only power being that she was the wife of a priest. Her standing was further diminished because she was eighty years old and didn’t have any children. How much was she able to say? How much consideration was given to her opinions? In a way, during her pregnancy, she would have been the voice of her household, as Zechariah was unable to speak. I wonder how their power dynamic changed during this time.

When the people in the room ignored what she said about the child’s name, she was silenced. Her opinion didn’t matter; they weren’t listening. They wanted to hear what Zechariah had to say, even though Zechariah couldn’t speak. It was only when Zechariah amplified what his wife said that speech returned to him. He spoke the truth, and the truth set him free.

I’m sure everyone in this room can think of a time in their lives when they should have spoken up, defended someone, corrected an error, stood up for what was right, but didn’t. Maybe you didn’t want to draw attention to yourself. Maybe you were scared. Maybe there was too much peer pressure or too many people who would be upset with you. Maybe you thought that even if you did say something, no one would listen. Most of the time, we know when we’re supposed to say something. The Holy Spirit is inside of all of us, always nudging us towards the holy and righteous path. But, there are so many reasons why we don’t speak up…so many.

This holding back, this refusal to speak, has led to so many problems over the course of human history…so many atrocities. How many people refused to say anything as Jews were rounded up into concentration camps during World War II? How many people refused to speak up as United States citizens of Japanese descent were gathered into concentration camps, right here in the United States?

And, when people do speak up, why aren’t we listening? So many people dismiss or even belittle Greta Thunberg because she’s speaking up about climate change. Is it because she’s a girl? Is it because she’s young? Is it because she might be on the spectrum? Millions of highschoolers all over the world marched to make their voices heard about climate change, and still, there are so many people who won’t listen.

Amazing things can happen when we speak up and when we listen. I recently heard about the Russian submarine officer who apparently saved the world on October 27, 1962, during the Cuban Missile Crisis. While in international waters, US destroyers started dropping depth charges on a Russian submarine, in order to force it to surface for identification. This submarine had not heard from Moscow for several days, and they were too deep in the water to monitor radio traffic. They didn’t know if war had broken out or not, but the captain decided that the attack against them must have meant that it had. He wanted to launch a nuclear torpedo in retaliation. Doing so required the approval of three officers: the captain, Political Officer Maslennikov, and Executive Officer Vasily Arkhipov. Arkhipov would not give his consent to the nuclear launch, averting the likely nuclear war that would have followed if they had fired. Arkhipov spoke up, and the others listened.

Just last week, the Montana Supreme Court upheld the Held v. Montana decision that our constitutional right to a clean and healthful environment is being denied because state agencies are failing “to take climate change into account when evaluating projects and related permits for approval.” The youth of Montana spoke up, and the court listened.

God needs us to speak up when it’s time to speak up. God needs us to listen when it’s time to listen. In this time of Advent, we listen to all of these stories about the birth of Jesus and how his coming directly affected the lives of so many people. We listen to stories about what the birth must have meant, and what it means to us now. So, pay attention. Be alert. And, let these stories come alive inside of you, so that you can speak up when God needs to you to…so that you can listen. Amen.

~ Rev. Charles Wei