“And, listen: you will be silent and unable to speak until the day your son is born; because, you didn’t think about the truth of what I told you, what’s going to happen just as I said it would” (Matthew 1.20).
I have for many years read the story of Zechariah in the temple and thought that it was really unfair. Zechariah, you remember, is a Levite, one of the priests of the Temple. It’s his turn to offer incense, and while he’s doing his job an angel appears. The angel tells him this amazing news: Zechariah and Elizabeth are going to have a son. He and his wife have long given up hope of this, but it’s going to happen. And, I have always taken it that Zechariah’s a little surprised by this. He’s flabbergasted. So, he asks the angel “Really?”
The angel responds by robbing Zechariah of speech until his son is born. That seemed unfair to me. Mary, after all, asks a question of the angel and she isn’t punished. And not being able to speak means he can’t carry out his duties as a priest. He’s, basically, sidelined for the next nine months.
But these past few weeks, I’ve been wondering if maybe Zechariah had been thinking more about what he was going to say than really listening to what was said. Maybe that’s because I’ve realized how often I do that. I’m so convinced I have something to say, I stop listening to the other person.
Listen again to his question. “How will I know this? I’m an old man, and my wife is not a young woman, either.” Sounds kind of like that question was already in his head. It sounds like before the angel finished speaking he was ready to say, “Now, wait a minute. Me and the wife, we’re not spring chickens anymore.”
And that’s what I believe got the angel so annoyed—Zechariah was more concerned with his words than the angel’s. So, the angel decided that Zechariah needed to learn to think less about what he was going to say and what others were saying. Perhaps, for a season, he needed to spend some time being quiet, paying attention, and considering that maybe he didn’t have all that much to say.
We have crossed the threshold from one year to the next and found ourselves again in Advent. The pandemic rages on as do the disagreements about how to deal with it. The election has ended, but the divisions and arguments that preceded it have not been resolved. And, if you’re like me, you’re wondering why people just don’t understand.
Maybe Zechariah’s story, then, is here to invite us to a season of silence. Perhaps we have come to this new year with the challenge of listening rather than thinking of what to say. We should, indeed, speak for those who have no voice, but we might also hold back from using our own.
It might mean hearing things we don’t like or with which we disagree. But it’s possible we might hear something we never would have expected, something we haven’t even dared to hope.
We might, when it’s done, find we have something to say.