Advent 22…Perpetual Problem

The perpetual phrase of the people of God:

We've never done it that way before….

To be fair, any organization of human beings falls into the same trap. Once we've organized, which we must do to be together in large (or small) groups, we practice the perpetual phrase:

We've never done it that way before...

So today out of the readings, hope for me comes not from the glorious psalms, but from the next chapter in the ongoing saga of Elizabeth and Zachariah: (Luke 1, beginning at v. 59)

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.

Zachariah said to the angel (OK, in slightly different words), Elizabeth can't have a baby! It's never been done that way before! And he could say nothing else from that moment on as God's work was accomplished. You'd think that would be a lesson for God's people, but apparently not.

Waiting time is over and the baby is born. On day 8, God's people gather to do what they've always done, circumcise and name the baby after his father. And the people say to Elizabeth who insists the baby be named John, "We've never done it that way before. No one in your family is named John." Zachariah backs her up with a writing tablet. It's a new thing. God wants a different path. Old Zach and Elizabeth actually stopped talking at God long enough to listen to what God wanted to do.

And Zachariah's "mouth is opened" and his words are praise to God. Doxology.

Most of us today travel paths we have never traveled before. Especially in churches where things don't go as they have always gone, we are in positions of wondering what next. We often think we know and we spend much time telling God or other people what should happen next.

Perhaps the art of Advent is the silence (she says as she talks…irony noted). Perhaps we should listen to God's plan without talking. It's my experience that when we see God at work our response is praise.  God's work and plan is always beyond our imagining…thanks be to God!