Dec 23 | “The Spiral Journey,” (Blue Christmas Sermon, December 23rd)

Several weeks ago I gathered with other youth workers of many denominations to complete Godly Play training. Godly Play, as you know, is a Christian education program we use here at St. Philip’s. Developed by an Episcopal priest, it seeks to empower children by giving them space to “wonder” about God and introducing them to the stories, words, and concepts we encounter in church.

To complete our training, each of us had to tell one of the stories to our classmates. I chose “The Circle of the Church Year,” which teaches about the different feasts and seasons we celebrate in church.

I wanted to share with you just one (slightly adapted) piece of this story today, and I’ll explain why afterward.

So, if you’ll permit me, let’s talk a little bit about time.

“Time, time, time. There are all kinds of time. There is a time to get up, and a time to go to bed. There is a time to work and a time to play. But what is time?

Some say that time is a line…but what would that look like? Oh! What’s this? Time. Time in a line. Look at this – this is the newest part. This is just being born. This is brand new.

Oh, now look. The newest part has become older. Now this is the newest part. Hmm. Oh, and it keeps going. Does it ever end?

Oh! It ended! Look at the ending.

Now the part that was once brand new has become old…and the ending is the newest part. So we have a beginning that’s like an ending, and an ending that’s like a beginning.”

What a mystical thing, time: something that moves forward but also spins. Sound familiar? The earth makes its yearly journey around the sun, and yet every year is slightly different than before. Likewise, the earth spins on its axis, giving us night and day: same journey, slightly different every time.

This truly is what it means to be “a soil creature,” the literal translation of “a’dam.” We are born and progress through stages of development: learning to walk and speak, learning to reason and doubt and hold faith. We move forward and yet often shed pieces of ourselves only to pick them up again. Cells die and reproduce. As children we speak truth and learn to share with others and clearly express our needs only to so often shed the instincts and then pick them up again later.

I think our most powerful emotions can play with our sense of time. They can make it stand still or go whipping by. Ultimately, like the seasons and our planet, our emotions dance within the space between “time in a line” and “time in a circle.”

We really see it in the experience of emotional pain. We move through the journey and yet we so often circle back and forth through the accompanying emotions: sadness, anger, joy, acceptance, and back again, for our entire lives.

As a couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah are well-respected people from the sacred house of Aaron. But they have no children. Ancient Near Eastern folk would have seen that as a source of shame – for Elizabeth, not Zechariah.

Elizabeth begins the cycle of this story in a place of dishonour and sadness.

And then, she finally conceives and bears a son. She cycles out of shame and into a place of honour among her peers, and they rejoice with her.

Zechariah’s story is a little different. He is the honoured one, the priest performing the most sacred duty at the Temple. He receives the good news of his coming son from an angel with doubt. This reaction causes the angel to take his voice away.

He cycles out of privilege into imposed disability.

Now although the people of the ancient Near East interpreted many disabilities as punishments, obviously it’s not appropriate to do that today. So for our purposes in the 21st century, let’s say that this muteness is not punishment for Zechariah, but an opportunity for Elizabeth.

It is an occasion of cosmic balance.

The one who had previously enjoyed honour is now dis-abled. The one who had endured shame is now exalted.

The one who had a voice has lost it, and the one who had no voice has found it. In the story it is not until Zechariah is made mute that we get to hear Elizabeth speak. She rejoices with Mary, and in today’s passage names her child John.

The cycle continues, and yet progresses. Elizabeth will never be the same, and neither will Zechariah, having had this experience.

See, there is something really amazing about this passage that I didn’t realize until I’d read it several times through. During Zechariah’s earlier meeting with the angel, he is informed that the child will be called John. Shortly after this, before he leaves the Holy of Holies, he loses his voice. This means that he is unable to share the content of the vision with others before the child is born.

But in today’s passage, the people are about to name the child Zechariah, and Elizabeth says, “No, he is to be called John.”

How does Elizabeth know that the child’s name is to be John?

Did the angel also visit her? Did Zechariah write it down for her? Or did she choose it for her own reasons?

Either way, Zechariah affirms his wife, and once he does that – once he knows what it means to be without a voice – he regains it again, and immediately praises God.

They are both changed.

Now we don’t see what happens to them after John grows up. He is affirmed in his wisdom by the text, but the next time we see him he is on his own, wandering in the wilderness.

What did his father, the priest, think of this? What about Elizabeth? Did they cycle through shame again at his weird antics? Did they remember the circumstances of his birth and defend him to the skeptics? Did they simply accept that their service had been rendered and step back to make room for him? Did they also become advocates and prophets? Did they have other children?

We don’t know. The apocryphal Infancy Gospel of James claims that Zechariah was killed after hiding baby John and refusing to surrender him to Herod’s soldiers during the slaughter of the innocents.

From honoured priest to executed criminal. Another cycle.

This cyclical progression is an utterly necessary balancing act. In the times of deep sorrow and pain, we cannot be too focused on progression forward. This does not allow us to heal fully. But likewise we cannot be too focused on the cyclical nature of the experience. This may trap us in unhealthy patterns.

Balance is key. Reminding ourselves that we are in a cycle will help us from feeling too down when we feel we are not moving fast enough down the road. Reminding ourselves that we are on a spiral path outward helps us not to get trapped in our spinning.

With the Earth we all turn on an axis, and move around our sun.

My sun, my anchor, is Christ, the one who cycled from the greatest height to the deepest depth; the one who walked the road knowing full well that it ended in pain, degradation, and death, and chose it anyway to close the gap between heaven and earth – son of God, son of Mary.

You will have your own sun – and like Earth you’re affected by the gravity of other bodies. This community is one of mine, as well as my family and my friends. In the deep space of loss, it can be difficult to see these other bodies. Like Neptune they may affect our orbit invisibly at first.

But they are there.

Time in a line – time in a circle.

For every beginning, there is an ending, and for every ending, there is a beginning.

When Christmas hurts, reach out to your sun…and reach out to one near you, one who loves you.

I’m here.

Thank God you are.

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