"A Message from God" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 17, 2023 (Fourth Sunday of Advent)
Scripture Reading:  Luke 1:5-20

(This year, our Advent theme is focused on midwifery and birth. Each week, we will hear the story from the bible of someone who was a midwife, or who encountered a midwife. The waiting, the longing, the pain of the “not yet” – all of our Advent themes – are captured in the metaphor of a midwife, in the metaphor of birth.)

 

 

My name is Zechariah, of the tribe of Levi, a descendant of Aaron, and a priest in the eighth division of Abijah. My wife, Elizabeth, is also a descendant of Aaron, and I suspect that she would be an even better priest than I am, except that our laws forbid women from entering the most holy parts of the temple where God-whose-name-is-holy resides.

 

We were married when we were very young, and we grew up together and we grew old together. When we were first married, we assumed that we would have a large family just like most of our neighbours, but as the years passed, that dream slowly faded.

 

Elizabeth was heart-broken. She told me that she felt as though she had failed at the most important thing that she was supposed to do. My heart broke to see her heart broken. I told her that I wasn’t angry with her, that it didn’t matter. I told her that God-whose-name-is-holy is mysterious, beyond our ability to comprehend, and that we might never understand why we hadn’t been given the gift of children.

 

We were determined not to let our grief drive us apart, and instead we let our shared grief bring us closer together.

 

I am speaking to you today, but there was a time – nine months to be precise – when I wasn’t able to speak. It began when I was serving in the temple in Jerusalem, and it was my turn to enter the holy of holies where God-whose-name-is-holy resides. I had been in there before, and it was always an honour, but this day was different.

 

Even though the events of that day are burned into my memory, it is hard for me to put words to what I experienced. I remember that the room was filled with flames and feathered wings and it felt like there were eyes in every corner of the space, watching me, and something was spinning that made me feel dizzy to look. I knew that it must be an angel, a messenger from God-whose-name-is-holy, and I felt terrified. I was sure that I was going to die, right there in the holy of holies.

 

And then I could sense this being speaking to me, though I’m sure that it wasn’t with human words. I was told, “Don’t be afraid.” As if I could leave my terror behind at the door! But maybe I felt a little less afraid, for I was able to work out the next part of the message, telling me that Elizabeth and I were going to have a son, and that he will be named John, and that he will go about the world, pointing all people towards God.

Now I know that angels are messengers of God-whose-name-is-holy, so I knew that this message must come from God-whose-name-is-holy, but still. I also know that according to the way of women, Elizabeth was at least 10 years past this being possible. We would have welcomed this news when we were young, but now that we are old, it felt cruel to taunt us with this.

 

But when I told the angel that I didn’t believe the message, these were the last words I spoke for 9 months. The angel told me that because I didn’t believe the good news, I wouldn’t be able to speak again until the good news was fulfilled.

 

And when I left the holy of holies, as hard as I tried, I wasn’t able to speak a single word.

 

I went home to Elizabeth. I told you earlier that she would probably make a better priest that I am… well, she had no difficulty believing what the angel had told me. Using the unspoken language that grows between people who are friends as well as spouses, I was able to tell her about the angel’s visit, and a few weeks later when she suspected that she was carrying a new life within her, she didn’t seem surprised at all.

 

We kept mostly to ourselves through the months of her pregnancy. I was ashamed that my voice had been taken from me due to my lack of faith, and Elizabeth was content to stay at home where it was just the two of us. Her kinswoman Mary paid her a visit, and I let the two of them spend time alone together, but for the rest of those 9 months, it was mostly just Elizabeth and me.

 

When the time came for our baby to be born, I was just as terrified as I had been in the presence of the angel. I know that even young women can die when delivering babies. I didn’t know what I would do if I lost Elizabeth. I ran out to find our village’s midwife, and even though I couldn’t speak, I was able to communicate what was happening… though I suspect that she already knew what was happening when I showed up at her door!

 

The midwife came back with me to our house, then sent me out of the house to wait for it all to be over. I believe that most men go share a drink with friends while they are waiting, but I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t abandon Elizabeth after all that we’d been through together. And so I sat down on the ground outside of our house to wait. And wait. And wait.

 

It's hard to wait for something that you long for and dread in equal measure. And I didn’t know how long the waiting was going to be. And even though the angel had told me that this child is going to be important to God, I still didn’t fully trust the angel’s message, and I was terrified that I was going to lose both Elizabeth and our baby.

 

I could hear Elizabeth’s cries inside the house through those long hours of waiting. The midwife sent her apprentice out a couple of times to fetch things – water, herbs, clean linens.

 

And just when I thought that I couldn’t wait any longer, I heard Elizabeth give a loud cry, and then there was silence. And then I heard the most beautiful sound in the world – the cry of a newborn baby. And then I heard the voices of the midwife and her apprentice, and yes, Elizabeth’s voice too, singing a song of praise, and I knew that everything was going to be OK.

 

I wasn’t able to speak right away. I was able to hold my son, and look at his face and his perfect fingers and his tiny toes, but he wasn’t able to hear my voice at first. On the eighth day, according to our custom, he was circumcised, and Elizabeth insisted that his name was John. Our family tried to dissuade her, telling her that there was no one named John in either of our families, and wouldn’t she rather he be named Zechariah after his father? But she insisted, and then I found a writing tablet, and I wrote on it, “Elizabeth is correct. His name is John.”

 

And in that moment, once all that the angel had told me had come true, my tongue was released and I was able to speak and sing and praise God-whose-name-is-holy!

 

I am not a prophet. I had never before been given a God’s-eye vision of the world. But that day I was given a glimpse of God’s plan for the world. I spoke to all the people gathered, saying “Blessed be the Lord God of Israel, for he has looked favourably on his people, and has redeemed them. He has raised up a mighty saviour for us in the house of his servant David.” And then I spoke to my child, to John, saying “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 his people by the forgiveness of their sins.”

 

Because we are old now, I don’t know if Elizabeth and I will live to see the day when our son will prepare the way for God-whose-name-is-holy, but what we will do is raise him to know, to love, and to revere God-whose-name-is-holy, so that he can do his part to do whatever God-whose-name-is-holy calls him to do.

 

And isn’t that all that any of us can do; to serve God-whose-name-is-holy with whatever gifts we have been given?

 

 

 

Angels probably don’t look the way
the way they are usually portrayed!
After all, every angel begins their message with
“Do not be afraid!”
(Try searching Google for images of
“biblically accurate angels” – this was
one of the less-disturbing images I encountered!)

"A Midwifing God" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday December 10, 2023 (Third Sunday of Advent)
Scripture Reading:  Isaiah 46:3-11

(This year, our Advent theme is focused on midwifery and birth. Each week, we will hear the story from the bible of someone who was a midwife, or who encountered a midwife. The waiting, the longing, the pain of the “not yet” – all of our Advent themes – are captured in the metaphor of a midwife, in the metaphor of birth.)

 

 

I wrote those words that you just heard.  Are you surprised?  I suspect that you expected me to be a man talking to you, but I am a woman.  I am a woman from the tribe of Levi, a descendant of Israel, though I was born in the foreign land of Babylon.

 

I’ve taken a look through that book that you have named Isaiah, and it made me laugh. The first part was so clearly written by someone when our people were still living in Jerusalem, before we were taken into exile in Babylon. But then I recognized my own words, written in Babylon, in the middle part of the book. And the words at the end – they seem to have come from a time after I died, as I don’t recognize any of them. And yet your scholars have lumped us all together and named us Isaiah.

 

I am a prophet, and the daughter of a prophet. When my parents were only just married, the Babylonian army put their city of Jerusalem under siege, and eventually destroyed it. Because my father was a prophet, they weren’t allowed to remain there in the rubble, but instead they were carried off to Babylon along with all of the other people with power and prestige.

 

My father told me about those early years in exile – the years when I was too young to remember for myself. All of the people who had been carried away were in deep grief. They had seen their homes destroyed and their city destroyed. They had witnessed the deaths of their family members and friends and neighbours. They had even witnessed the destruction of the temple at the heart of the city – the temple that was the home of our God-whose-name-is-holy.

 

And now that they were living in exile, they didn’t even have a place to go to pray. And my father said that the deepest grief of all was that they were separated from God-whose-name-is-holy who lived in Jerusalem. My parents used to sing me the songs of those early years of exile:

         By the rivers of Babylon –

                  there we sat down and there we wept

                  when we remembered Zion.

         On the willow’s there

                  we hung up our harps.

         For there our captors asked us for songs,

         and our tormentors asked for mirth, saying,

                  “Sing us one of the songs of Zion.”

         How could we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land?

 

How can we sing the Lord’s song in a foreign land, when the Lord our God is buried under the rubble in Jerusalem?

 

I am the youngest child of my parents, yet I am the only child who inherited the gift of prophesy from our father.  I can’t remember a time when I wasn’t aware of the presence of God-whose-name-is-holy within me.

 

My father tells me that I, and the other prophets of my generation, were important to the elders in exile. At first, they weren’t able to sense God’s presence there in a foreign land. The voice of grief drowned out the voice of God-whose-name-is-holy. But then they were able to hear my voice, and the voices of the prophets who hadn’t known Jerusalem. They heard how God-whose-name-is-holy was still speaking to us. And all of the people began to realize that God-whose-name-is-holy wasn’t limited to the pile of rubble that had been the temple, but that God-whose-name-is-holy is with us wherever we are.

 

The message that I and the other prophets began to receive was that our people were going to eventually be able to return to Jerusalem. God-whose-name-is-holy was going to make the mountains bow low and the valleys rise up so that our pathway through the desert would be smooth. God-whose-name-is-holy was going to give us wings like eagles so that we would be able to soar over the miles that separated us from the place that we call home. We would run and not grow weary; we would walk and not feel faint.  God-whose-name-is-holy was going to usher us into new life.

 

God-whose-name-is-holy was going to be like a midwife for our people, birthing us from a life in exile to a new life back in the Promised Land.

 

Which is why you shouldn’t be surprised that I am a woman. This image of God-whose-name-is-holy as a midwife, it is much more likely to be given to a woman who has known the pain of childbirth than to a man who has only witnessed it.  And yet God-whose-name-is-holy is very much like a midwife, accompanying her people through a time of pain and danger, encouraging her people, and keeping us safe, until the danger has passed and new life is here.

 

And I don’t think that my voice is the only female voice in scriptures, even when our names have been concealed.  If you look closely, you will be able to find us.  Some of the psalms that our people sing – words that are attributed to our ancestor, King David, they speak of God delivering us from our mother’s womb. 

 

So many of the other prophets speak of God-whose-name-is-holy delivering us to safety as a warrior does; it’s good to balance out this image of a Warrior-God with the image of God-whose-name-is-holy delivering us to safety as a midwife does.

 

And just as there is rejoicing when a midwife has safely delivered a baby, there will be rejoicing when God-whose-name-is-holy has safely delivered us back to Jerusalem. There will be rejoicing and celebration and joy and singing and dancing beyond imagination when that day comes. For the pain of labour is only temporary, and God-the-Midwife is delivering us from our pain and from our suffering.

 

And then, won’t you rejoice with me?

 

 

What “tools” would a Midwifing-God use

to deliver us from our pain and suffering?

Image Credit: Direct Relief onflickr; used with permission

"Peace Be With You" (sermon)

Two Rivers Pastoral Charge
Sunday November 26, 2023 (First Sunday of Advent)
Scripture Reading:  Genesis 35:16-21

(This year, our Advent theme is focused on midwifery and birth. Each week, we will hear the story from the bible of someone who was a midwife, or who encountered a midwife. The waiting, the longing, the pain of the “not yet” – all of our Advent themes – are captured in the metaphor of a midwife, in the metaphor of birth.)

 

 

My name is Miriam, and I am a midwife in the town of Ephrath, also known as Bethlehem. I was the first-born of 8 children, and when I was a child, I watched the midwife come to our house again and again to deliver my younger siblings. When I was just 6 years old, I began to assist her, fetching her water and clean cloths. She told me about the herbs that she was using, and she had me hold my mother’s hands as my mother strained and pushed.

 

When my 9^th sibling was being born though, my mother died, along with the baby. The midwife cried as she bundled up the wee body and covered my mother’s face with a blanket. I was only 13 years old at that point. My father didn’t know what to do with all of us, and he talked about finding a husband for me, so that I would be one less child he had to worry about.

 

But then the midwife came and spoke to him, and offered to take me on as an apprentice. She would put a roof over my head, and put food in my belly, and teach me everything that she knew.  I knew right away that I didn’t want to get married. I had seen what had happened to my mother, and I didn’t want babies of my own. But instead, I wanted to learn how to help other women and keep them and their babies safe.

 

And I did learn all this.  I learned the rhythm of labour, how it ebbs and flows.  I learned how to use different herbs to lessen the pain, to speed up the labour, to slow down the labour, to stop the blood flow.  I learned how to feel the baby in its mother’s womb, and how to use the pressure of my hands to change the position of the baby. I learned what prayers to pray to help a mother through the birth. I learned how to deliver the afterbirth, how to cut the cord, how to clean up after the messiness of birth.

 

I still remember the first time that a mother named her child after me. It had been a long labour, more than a day, but when her baby was safely lying on her chest, the mother smiled at me and told me that she was going to name her Miriam, so that she would never forget how I had helped.

 

I’m now an old woman. I’ve been working for many years now, and I have started to deliver the children of the babies I delivered when I first started out. The midwife who taught me died last year, but before she did, she told me that my skills were even greater than hers. The student has surpassed the teacher.

 

Last night was one of the hardest nights I’ve had to face.  I had been called out a day and a half earlier to attend a birth at a caravan that was passing through Ephrath. The woman’s name was Rachel, and her husband was Jacob.  I’ve seen some strange families in my time, but I have to say that this was one of the stranger ones. Rachel was Jacob’s favourite wife, but her sister Leah was his first wife and the one with precedence in the family. Jacob had 12 children so far – 11 boys and 1 girl. Leah, the first wife, had born 7 of the children. Rachel, the favourite wife, had only born 1 son so far. I’ve you’re doing the math so far, you know that there are 4 children left – two of them had been born by Bilhah, the slave who belonged to Rachel; and the other 2 had been born by Zilpah, the slave who belonged to Leah.

 

We had many hours to talk, Rachel and I, as she laboured through the long days and nights.  One of the things that we do as midwives, the first time we meet a woman, is to find out her history of childbearing. Rachel told me that childbearing didn’t come as easily to her as it did to Leah, Bilhah, and Zilpah.  Even though she was the favourite wife, she hadn’t conceived a child for many, many years of marriage, and her heart broke every time she saw the birth of another child to her husband.

 

She also shared with me, as she rested between the contractions, that when her first son, Joseph, had been born, it hadn’t been an easy passage for either of them. It had been another long and difficult labour, and when he was born, she felt as though she was being ripped in two.  It had taken her weeks before she was able to get out of bed and move around her tent, and months before she was able to care for her new baby on her own.

 

This labour was also a slow one. I could see her energy waning as she entered the second night of labour.  I didn’t know if she was going to have the strength to push out this child when the time came. I kept talking to her, and encouraging her, and giving her cups of tea that would hopefully keep the labour moving forward.

 

And finally it was time for her to push. The pushes were weak at first, but then her body seemed to remember what to do, and the pushes became stronger.  Finally, there was a rush of fluid and blood, and I caught this tiny baby before he could land on the straw that had been laid out. He was blue at first, but I knew what to do. I rubbed his little back until he let out a cry, and then I wrapped him in a cloth and laid him on his mother’s chest so that he could feel her breathing, in and out, in and out.

 

Poor Rachel was exhausted, and she kept slipping in and out of sleep. I sat back to wait for the afterbirth, and I knew that I might need to wait a while after such a long and exhausting labour. There was no hurry to cut the cord until the afterbirth was delivered.

 

But then everything seemed to happen all at once.  Rachel gave a loud shriek which, of course, started the baby to cry. And then there was blood. So much blood, coming fast and bright red.

 

I kept my voice calm, and I told Rachel that she had to nurse this new baby of hers. She had to focus all of her attention on this new life that she had just brought into the world. And she did. After that first shriek, she talked quietly to her baby, despite the pain and the fear that she must have been feeling.

 

I tried putting pressure on her womb. I prayed every prayer that I knew. I gave her a tea of herbs that might stop the bleeding. But none of them worked this time. I could see the life fading from her eyes as her blood continued to flow out of her. The last words that she whispered before falling unconscious were to name this new child Ben-Oni or “Son of My Sorrow.”

 

It is hard to tell a husband that his wife has died. I remember how inconsolable my father had been when my mother and baby sister died. This time, at least, the baby had survived. I went out of the tent to search for Jacob, and found him sitting right outside. He had heard everything, and he had already guessed what had happened. I watched the tears stream down his face when he heard that his beloved Rachel was gone.

 

But then I was able to tell him that his son was still alive, and the most incredible peace seemed to pass through his body. I’m amazed at how, at a time of such deep grief, peace can still be given as a gift.  I placed his son in his arms, and told him that Rachel had named him Ben-Oni. Jacob said no – this child wasn’t going to carry the name of grief, and instead he was going to be called Benjamin, or Son of My Right Hand.

 

Rachel is going to be buried here, outside of the walls of Bethlehem, near the tent where she had died. And yet her son lives, and the cycle of life continues.

 

I pray that the peace that was given to Jacob that day might be the sort of peace that lives in all of our hearts – a peace that endures, no matter the circumstances that we face. May this peace be yours, today and every day. Amen.

 

 

 

Rachel’s Tomb, just outside Bethlehem, is now a mosque,

and is located near a checkpoint in the wall that separates

the West Bank from Israel. There are so many layers of irony

in this tourism poster near that checkpoint.
And yet the message of peace abides.

Photo Credit: James Emery on flickr