W OODBROO K. a time for each one of us: we are, each one of us, told not to fear. Zechariah 3:14-20

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1 W OODBROO K B A P T I S T C H U R C H 25 Stevenson Lane Baltimore, MD Every member a minister. a time for each one of us: we are, each one of us, told not to fear Zechariah 3:14-20 an excerpt of the preaching experience at Woodbrook Baptist Church Sunday, December 16, 2012 a contribution to the conversation by the Rev. Dr. John Ballenger What a hymn, anthem and sermon title for this week. And I picked the sermon title last summer. We picked the hymn ( Comfort, Comfort Now My People ) and the anthem (Jeffrey Vanʼs Christmas Lullaby ) this past Wednesday. What a week. Of course, somewhere, most weeks are. Most just donʼt hit us as hard. Mom and Dad got back from three months in Germany this past Thursday, and when we dropped their car off at the airport, we left a CD of German Christmas music in it. The girls and I had been enjoying it the familiar tunes Silent Night, of course, originally written in German, Stille Nacht as was O Tannenbaum, O Christmas Tree, and Ihr Kinderlein Kommet, O Come, All You Children. And theyʼd be in the backseat proudly proclaiming, We know German Christmas songs! One of my favorite German songs of the season is actually an Advent song written by a lutheran evangelical pastor, Eduard Ebel, published in 1895 in his Collected Poems with the title Weihnachtsgruß Christmas Greeting and the epigraph: Ein Kinderlied, a childrenʼs song. The songʼs best known by its first line:

2 Leise rieselt der Schnee. Quietly drifts down the snow. Still and starr ruht der See. Still and frozen the sea or the lake. Weihnachtlich glänzet der Wald. Christmas like gleams the wood or the forest (the moon on the snow on the trees). Freue dich, Christkind kommt bald. Take joy, the Christ child comes soon. And the setting of the song the imagery the circumstances described snow and the woods, the frozen lake fit our expectations of the season a hushed, quiet winter scene of darkness-lit beauty. But that setting doesnʼt always match our own, right? Iʼve lived in places where it does, but itʼs kind of weird, if you stop to think about it, to have a particular geography and weather pattern so strongly identified with not just the season but also with our faith story set in the season. As if it was Mary and Joseph and not just Santa Claus walking in a polar winter wonderland on a sleighride with jingle bells whilst dreaming of great tidings of a white christmas and good news of toys for good little girls and boys. I was singing on the walk into work one morning this past week thinking about how geography is different everywhere and circumstances are different everywhere and different every year. And how maybe we need more locally contextualized detail. Leise regnet us heutʼ. Quietly it rains today. Laut und viel sind die Leutʼ. Many and loud are the people. Weihnachtlich wachset die Gier. Christmas-like grows the greed. Freue dich, Christ-kind kommt hier. Take joy, the Christ-child comes here. So, and what an important question for us this week, do we sing at this time of the year do we, as those of the God story, sing of ideal circumstances (of peace and justice and joy) ideal circumstances that do not match our own?

3 Or do we sing the truth of our so very real sometimes terrible circumstances yet somehow without losing Godʼs word of hope? Do we sing of some vision of how God will one day make things to be? Or do we sing of the way things are into which reality Jesus still comes? Amidst all that happens in big towns and little towns, our towns and their towns, old towns and Newtown, what does it mean to sing of peace and restoration? What does it mean to sing of love? Does that offer a much needed word of hope and faith? Or does it represent a disrespectful word of denial? One psychologist quoted in the news yesterday said, People in my neighborhood are feeling guilty about it being Christmas. They are taking down decorations ( If we have a word of hope and faith, it certainly canʼt be one ignorant of what happened..., and of what happened in Geneva County, Alabama; and Tucson, Arizona; Jonesboro, Arkansas; Aurora and Littleton, Colorado; Perry Hall, Maryland; Red Lake, Minnesota; Binghamton, New York; Killeen, Texas; Blacksburg, Virginia; Oak Creek, Wisconsin; and far too many more to name ( ( A word of hope is sometimes so desperately needed, no? In the midst of the way things are. A word of hope about how weʼre better than this. Except that weʼre not. Time and time again, weʼre not. Back to that German Advent song. In den Herzen istʼs warm. In our hearts, itʼs warm. Still schweigt Kummer und Harm. Care and harm are silenced. Sorge des Lebenʼs verhallt. Concerns of life are hushed. Freue dich, Christkind kommt bald. Take joy, the Christ child comes soon.

4 Definitely some kind of an ideal imaged here, no? Sing a song that sounds nice a promise thatʼs truly more a wish for things to be other than they are. And in the midst of circumstances such as these, to promise other circumstances unrelated to whatʼs happened with no bearing on what is just on what we wish were what we hope will be pie in the sky by and by in the name of God is blasphemy the word of God unfleshed. If thatʼs what weʼve got, take down the decorations. The trick to integrity in our faith affirmations is never to dismiss real circumstance in all its raw harsh horror, but to also not lose the assurance of a word of hope and promise. Within realism not to turn to escapism, but to hope and the possibility in the work of transformation. So it was in the days of King Josiah of Judah (more than six hundred years before Jesus) that the call of God came to Zephaniah ben Cushi Zephaniah son of Cushi. Now in Scripture Cush was a great empire in Africa, so Zephaniah may well have been a son of Africa more than six hundred years before Jesus receiving a word of God a word that still, we believe we proclaim resonates today with power and relevance a word way back from the days of King Josiah. The central motif of the book of Zephaniah is the coming of the day of the Lord as a time of terrifying judgment against Judah and all the earth... (Robert A. Bennett, The Book of Zechariah: Introduction, Commentary, and Reflections in The New Interpreterʼs Bible: A Commentary in

5 Twelve Volumes, Volume VII [Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1996] 664). Now most of you know my view of prophecy. Speaking of what will be in order to name what is in order to name the truth of what is. So Zephaniah spoke to the tears and the terror of his day Zephaniah spoke to the news of his day the fears and horrors of his day. But the name Zephaniah is made up of the letters of the divine name Godʼs name, and a form of the Hebrew word whose meaning is to hide or to protect (Bennett, 659). So, very subtly, itʼs suggested not boldly stated suggested subtly that Yahweh protects in the midst of the truth of what is. Now that pretty much has to be subtly suggested because it begs the question just how and just whom does God protect in the midst of the way things are? And, just because itʼs being said out there by ignorami (how often do you get to use that plural?!) Godʼs protection has nothing nothing to do with whether or not there is legally sanctioned corporate prayer in schools. Now I donʼt need to tell you that. I donʼt need to tell you that thatʼs absurd offensive, shallow, ridiculous, reprehensible, blasphemous idolatry. Yet apparently popular. My experience of the people of God consistently reaffirms that what we make of God constitutes one of our greatest sins. Kyrie elaison. God have mercy. Our text this morning comes from the third and final section of the book of Zephaniah following words of judgment directed against Judah and Jerusalem and the foreign nations following words of judgment and yet offering words of hope and promise and precisely for those judged: Judah, Jerusalem and even the foreign nations. And the image at the end of the book of Zephaniah is of those who survived the judgment and are gathered into a new reality. Sing aloud, shout, rejoice, exult, Zephaniah exhorts, for God is with us. God is in our midst.

6 Do not fear. Do not be afraid. Itʼs repeated. God is with us as king as warrior. Pick your powerful metaphor. The greater truth simply God with us. And God will rejoice over you with gladness. God will renew you in divine love. Okay. Translation issue. Big time translation issue. God will renew you in Godʼs love is the translation of what literally means: God is silent in Godʼs love. Okay, now thatʼs admittedly a little harder to deal with, so, as happens, it doesnʼt get translated, but gets interpreted in a way easier to understand. But I invite you today to consider our context and our text. Weʼve been told to what? Sing, shout, rejoice and exult because God is in our midst. Then amidst being told that God will exult over us sing loudly and rejoice, we read that God is silent in Godʼs love. So does God do what God told us to do (right?) rejoice, exult, shout, sing the verbs are all the same. And if so, then Godʼs silent love makes absolutely no sense. Or or is God present and is God at work in our obedient response to God in and through our singing of the songs of festivals in and through the singing of the faithful the songs of faith in the midst of circumstance? The familiar liturgies the stories and prayers in our Advent and Christmas words of expectation and waiting and hope in our commitment to them, God speaks even through Godʼs silence the silence the prophet assures us is the silence of Godʼs love the silence given voice in the lives of the people of God. What a profoundly prophetic word one that honors what so many hear as the silence of God, and the horror of what is, and then asks of us, So, today, are you singing the songs of faith? Are you singing the songs of love and grace of forgiveness? Are you telling the stories of Jesus? Rejoicing in the good news even today? Because it never means bad things wonʼt happen.

7 It means bad things wonʼt define us. It never means bad people donʼt cause unimaginable grief. It means good people sing goodness even in response. God will protect us in the truth of what is. God knows in Jesus, God knows that doesnʼt mean weʼll be kept safe. It does mean we might be kept good. Singing. Believing. Hoping. Loving. Bald ist heilige Nacht. Soon itʼs the Holy Night Chor der Engel erwacht; Choir of angels awake. hört nur wie lieblich es schallt, Listen how lovely it sounds peals rings. Freue dich, Christkind kommt bald. Take joy, the Christ child comes soon. Now I like this: the phrase choir of angels awake can be heard as an indicative statement the angel choir is awake and singing, but can also be heard as an imperative the demand for the angel choir to awaken. Therein lies the integrity of our word for the world simultaneously testimony and prayer. For we are the choir of angels Godʼs messengers in our world (or weʼre not). We are the singing in which God is manifest the stories in which God is incarnate the living in which God is made flesh (or not). We read Scripture at this time of year that proclaims, Do not fear! But thereʼs so much of which to be afraid. So much that is and so many who are out of balance not receiving the care and attention needed. So much numbness and anger. So much immaturity in our culture and self-centeredness. So much bad theology. So much uncaring attention seeking. So few good healthy models of confrontation and disagreement. So much of what it means to be strong defined in stories of vengeance, not grace violence, not forgiveness. So much fear. And God weeps.

8 And we are a culture that has determined guns and bombs and violence will protect us and make us safe, and those are the stories we promote and tell even though we have all of human history to testify that it is not so. And God weeps. When God said, Do not fear, itʼs not because God was issuing licenses to carry. And Godʼs strategy for living fearlessly wasnʼt arming the disciples so they could kill anyone who threatened God incarnate. The one disciple who actually tried that (with the technology of the day) was rebuked. The technologies of violence do not overcome fear. They sustain it. And anyone will only give up their gun when itʼs pried from their cold, dead hands, lives afraid in loud rhetorical compensation. And God weeps. Hear me well. Hear me carefully. A gun is a tool. Some are wondrously made beautiful. Like all tools they can be used for good and for ill. Please donʼt hear me saying guns cannot be and should not be good and useful tools. But some guns are not necessary for good, and some tools do not belong in some hands. And freedom is not validated, ignoring wisdom, but abused. And God weeps. Can we be a community as those who own guns and those who donʼt can we be a community that models a conversation not about some absolute ban

9 not about taking guns away from responsible gun owners, but about figuring out together what common sense steps we can take to protect our children and our goodness. Gun regulation, I know, isnʼt the only step needed. Of course it wonʼt solve our immense problems by itself. But it is one step we can and must take. Along with, as those who follow God in the way of Jesus, living ever more like Jesus. Do not fear, weʼre told. And yet we do. So weʼre not there yet? Weʼre not yet to that time that time when God will make all things right? Or weʼre not there yet weʼre still on the way to becoming who God calls us to be in the midst of the way things are as God calls us to be. And God is silent in Godʼs love. Godʼs word was made flesh among us. God spoke the definitive word of love already, and now itʼs up to us to sing the songs of our festivals of Advent now of Christmas coming of waiting and expecting and living into what we await and expect. In the Saturday night online preachersʼ forum last night, I wrote at one point, If we have nothing to say today if we donʼt have a good word today, we have nothing to say. Youʼve heard the story of the monastery that was in trouble? Loss of morale of interest of commitment. Until a word of prophecy indicated the Messiah was there to be found in their midst. And each one began to treat the others as if they might be the Messiah, and the monastery flourished survived the judgment of what was and regathered into a new reality. Thatʼs a key component of our faith understanding, is it not? Thatʼs part of what incarnation continues to mean that Jesus is in our midst.

10 And our gospel texts indicate that Jesus the Messiah is identified as the least of us is to be found among the least of us. And so Jesus is born, again, and even in our country of great privilege, dies of hunger. Jesus is born again and, even here, is the victim of violence on the street, at a movie, the mall, at school. Jesus is still born into the way things are, and the way things are still kills him. Our proclamation is not of an assurance of circumstance but of trust not the promise of what will be or even who will be but the assurance of who is and who is always coming to us in the truth of what is to remind us of the story to tell the songs to sing the love to trust that in the face of what is the worst of what is, angels might sing, wiping tears from their faces, but singing of joy and of peace of hope and faith naming the profound love of Godʼs silence made incarnate even here and now. Quietly tears fall again. Things must be different but when? Christmas comes bringing Godʼs word. Let us live so it is heard.