DATE: December 16, 2012
SCRIPTURE:
LUKE 3:1–5, MATTHEW 2:13–18
©Rev. Alison J. Buttrick Patton
LUKE: 3:1-5
“A voice crying out in the wilderness, ‘Prepare the way of the Lord.”
MATTHEW 2:13-18
A voice was heard in Ramah, wailing and loud lamentation, Rachel weeping for her children; she refused to be consoled, because they are no more.”
A voice crying out in the wilderness, “Prepare the way of the Lord. Make his paths straight.”
A voice was heard in Rama, wailing and loud lamentation.
A voice rising from the parking lot of Sandy Hook Elementary School, “Where is my child?”
A voice. A voice. A voice…
What do you say, on a day like today? How do we give voice to our shock, our grief? What words could possibly describe the distress we feel? It is like, it is like… it is like a rug pulled out from under our feet… again; it is like our hearts pulled out of our chests. “I am hollow, stricken like a bell,” writes Rabbi Rachel Barenblat. It is like empty; it is like fog; it is like numb. Even those of us who watch from a relative distance, Newtown’s neighbors, even we cannot dodge the horror; even we do not escape the pain. Our own losses resurface, and our own fears. We are, perhaps, a bit raw today.
So maybe it would be better to remain mute. To just keep silent.1 To honor those losses and the utter lack of words with our whole, silent selves. To show that it’s OK, sometimes, not to speak. Because some things are unspeakable. Like a jealous king who slaughters all the children in and around Bethlehem, just to get at one. Or like a troubled young man who murders a classroom full of 6 and 7 year olds… These things don’t belong, they are incomprehensible, we cannot wrap our minds and hearts around them. And yet, there they are, rending a gaping hole in the universe, and in our midst, and in our hearts.
So maybe silence is the place to start. To hold holy space for tears; to allow the Spirit to intervene for us, with sighs too deep for words.
Sooner or later, though, we need to find our voices. If only to cry at first, like Rachel: to weep and wail and refuse to be consoled. Even to rail at God, to demand some response, like the singers of Psalms, to pray, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken us? Why are you so far from helping us, from the words of our groaning?” (Psalm 22:1)
In the film The Apostle, Robert Duvall plays a Pentecostal preacher whose life is unraveling. One night, alone in his room, he storms and rages, until he wakes up the neighbors: “I’m gonna yell at you, Lord, because I’m mad at you. I can’t take it. Give me a sign or something. Blow this pain out of me…. Give me peace… I don’t know who’s been fooling with me, you or the devil… but I’m confused. I’m mad. I love you Lord, but I’m mad at you. I am mad at YOU!”
Like that modern-day apostle, like Rachel, like the psalmists, like generations of God’s people, we lift our voices because we’re mad; because something is utterly amiss and we expect God to care, to DO something, because after all: isn’t this the God who sent a rainbow, who promised to keep covenant? Isn’t this God who loves us as faithfully and fiercely as a mother loves her newborn child? God who so loved the world…?
In our United Church of Christ, we have a slogan: “God is still speaking.” It’s meant to affirm that God is alive and at work in our lives right now. A member of Saugatuck Church asked on Friday, “If God is still speaking, what in the world is he saying?” It’s a fair question. Where is God’s voice in all this, in the midst of such anguish?
I think I’ve heard God’s voice echoing in the gut-wrenching sobs of parents… and in pitch-perfect prayers of lament. In invitations to prayer vigils and in requests for prayer shawls; in shouts for help and in tender, whispered words of comfort. It may be hard to discern, with the sirens and our own hearts wailing; but like the deep, rich tones of the orchestra’s upright base, I have heard that Holy Voice reverberate in the darkness. “Comfort, comfort, O my people…” …I have heard it, like one more beating heart, and realized that God IS doing something, something awesome: is filling up that darkness, is holding together all the broken pieces, all the countless fragments of shattered lives and slowly, tenderly stitching them back together.
I’m certain also, that I’ve heard that Holy Voice in the cries of, “No. Not again! Enough! No more! This crooked path we must make straight; this rough way, we must make smooth.” I know I have heard God in the voices of modern day prophets. Prophets: those clear-voiced folks that stand on the edge of the wilderness and call out the gap between the way things ARE and the way God intends them to be.
They are the ones who call us to transform our grief into action; to prayerfully, persistently grapple with thorny issues like too much access to guns and not enough access to mental health care. “Something’s got to change,” they say. “We’ve got to change.”
My children remember and can name the last three shooting sprees that have gotten national coverage in this country. They are seven and ten. So why is it so difficult to get a national ban on assault rifles? Or healthcare for those so desperately in need? Or an honest national conversation about the violence that riddles our society – or the isolation? How many tragedies does it take, before we decide that protecting children is more important than protecting guns?
It turns out: some things must be said out loud. Some circumstances demand that we find our voices. This Advent, God’s world needs prophets. Thank God we have them here, in our midst. Thank God we have voices, faithful, compassionate, courageous voices: voices who have been singing God’s praises at Saugatuck Church for nearly 75 years, and voices that are just joining our chorus today. Discerning how to use our voices, discovering where we are called to speak – and when; finding the words that will change hearts, heal wounds, restore communities, bridge the gap…that requires that we listen again for God’s voice, God’s heart-broken, outraged, gracious, love-filled voice.
In the listening, we may indeed find what we long for: comfort during this heart-wrenching time; counsel to guide us; hope to the light the way. And something else, something precious, something like joy. It may seem elusive today. After the weeping and the railing, we may feel like there are no words left to speak of anything like joy. Then again, we may find that we DO have the words, after all:
It is like…it is like… It is like a child born in a barn, healthy and whole – despite perilous circumstances; it is like ten tiny fingers and ten tiny toes. “Fear not,” sings an angel. “For I bring you good news…” It is like flash; it is like leap; it is like, ‘Yes!’ It is like a song that persists in the night, a light that shines in the darkness.
This Advent season, may you know that joy: the joy that outlasts despair, the persistent joy that is the promise of God’s abiding love, the light-in-the-darkness reminder that God tenderly mends the broken pieces; the angelic news that God will be born in us. And may that joy be the source — powerful, life-transforming source — of all the prophetic words we speak, and all the songs of praise we sing. Amen.