At the Edge of the Rubble Pile--December 11, 2024
(Zechariah said:) "Thus (God) has shown the mercy promised to our ancestors, and has remembered his holy covenant, the oath that he swore to our ancestor Abraham, to grant us that we, being rescued from the hands of our enemies, might serve him without fear, in holiness and righteousness before him all our days." (Luke 1:72-75)
These words hit differently when you remember where they came from and when they were spoken. Even though the church has borrowed and refitted these words of Zechariah to become a part of its timeless liturgy (Zechariah's song, sometimes called the "Benedictus" from its Latin translation, is traditionally used as part of Morning Prayer or Matins services around the world), Luke doesn't give it to us as just a random song that plopped down out of heaven. These are words that come from the experience of a people living under the power of a brutal and bloodthirsty empire, which was actually just the latest in a long line of conquerors and oppressors who had occupied the land and dominated the people for centuries.
By the time Zechariah lived, there had been basically five hundred years of foreign rule, from the Babylonians to the Medes and the Persians to the Greeks, and then the Romans came along as the latest bully on the block to play King of the Hill. Each empire had different ways of profaning the worship life of the Judeans, too. The Babylonians had destroyed the Temple back in 586BC or so and likely plundered the Ark of the Covenant; the Greeks had turned the site of the Temple into a pagan altar for their god Zeus and even sacrificed a pig on its altar; and the Romans boasted about Caesar as a "Son of God" and a "Savior," and declared that his birth was "good news for the whole world" (sound familiar?). Each of those empires brought waves of violence and intimidation, through the legions of soldiers they marched through the streets, through the taxes they extorted from the peoples they conquered (which went to enrich the Empire, not to build schools and libraries or roads and bridges, like we might think of today), and with the threat that they could torture or crucify anybody they saw as a threat--even just to make an example of some poor unlucky person. All of that stands in the background as Zechariah sings about God delivering them from fear and enemy empires. He had seen the cruelty of the Romans firsthand. He had heard the stories of the empires that had come before. For as far back as anybody could remember, there was always some threat, some dominating power, breathing down their necks. Of course he--and all of his people--longed to be free from the fear of them. Of course they all prayed for God to keep the ancient promises to Abraham and Sarah and their descendants of a land in which they could live in peace and justice (the word translated "righteousness" here is the same word they used for "justice" in Greek--they are synonymous concepts in the world of the New Testament).
The right way to hear Zechariah's words, then, is from the underside of the world. The perspective from which Zechariah sings is a place on the margins--on the edges of society--not from a position of power, prestige, or privilege. He sings with a hope that things could be better, that the powers of greed and violence will not always win the day, and that they will not always have to live in fear. If we try to take these words and make them our own without forgetting that they come from the experience of oppression, we will be distorting and abusing their power. If we forget that Zechariah's prayer comes from someone who had certainly seen occupying armies marching past his door, and who had likely lost friends or neighbors at the hands of their soldiers, we misunderstand the meaning of his words. Zechariah longs for a life without the constant fear and persistent trauma of having people who wouldn't think twice about killing him goosestepping around every corner. He sings of a life where people who hate him just for existing will no longer have the power to terrorize, brutalize, or dehumanize him and his people. And he brings all of this to God, confident that God cares and that God is moving in history to free them.
It is easy to forget on this day that there are many who still share Zechariah's longings. There are still many who tremble when they hear the sound of planes overhead, because the roar of those jets does not signify friendly travelers or helpful protectors, but incoming bombs and drones. There are many who have only known fear under the rule of brutal dictators, and who are also yet frightened about what will replace the tyrants when they are deposed (as many Christians with ancient roots in Syria are feeling right now). There are many who fear missiles from the sky or their homes crumbling to rubble beneath them. And by contrast, I live at the height of comfort and safety, complaining about gas prices or long lines at department stores bustling with people buying more stuff to be exchanged and opened in a flurry of consumerism under Christmas trees in a couple of weeks. I have a lot to learn if I want to hear Zechariah's words honestly--much less to sing his words as my own.
These days, when I hear the sound of Zechariah's song, I hear echoes of a contemporary Palestinian poet named Marwan Makhoul, who wrote these haunting lines:
I must listen to the birds
and in order to hear the birds
the warplanes must be silent."
It is probably difficult for any of us who are used to hearing Zechariah's song chanted harmlessly in suburban congregations where everyone knew their houses would still be standing when they got home from church to know, truly, what he meant by praying to be "rescued from the hands of our enemies." But if we want to understand his words, we need to hear them coming from a voice at the edge of the rubble pile.
All of this reminds me that the Bible's words are not simply slogans or mantras to be pulled out of context and turned into vaguely inspirational catch-phrases. We don't have the right to yank lovely sounding words out of Scripture and separate them from the pain of those who suffer or the cry of those living under threats of violence in order to make them into memorable praise choruses or Hallmark card sentiments. To hear Zechariah's song rightly is to hear it as both a cry of trust that God cares about the plight of all who are oppressed and a lament that so many continue to suffer at the hands of a long line of enemies.
If we dare to mouth his words after him, we cannot avoid caring about those who still suffer like this today. We cannot sing his words with hearts that are numbed to apathy.
Do we dare to take up Zechariah's song on our lips today?
Lord God, move us out of our complacency to care for all who suffer today and who cry out to you.
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