Acknowledging our Weariness
Luke 1:1-23
Emmanuel Baptist Church; Rev. Kathy Donley
December 1, 2024
Note: A recording of the worship service in which this sermon was preached may be found here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=98cE3VookDY
There is a book by Dr. Seuss that is sometimes read to children and parents on the last day of preschool and often given as a gift to high school or college graduates. The book is Oh, The Places You’ll Go. You are probably familiar with it. You may remember one area which is described as the most useless place, and that is the Waiting Place.
Dr. Seuss’s narrator says, “The Waiting Place (is) for people just waiting. Waiting for a train to go or a bus to come, or a plane to go or the mail to come, or the rain to go or the phone to ring, or the snow to snow or waiting around for a Yes or a No or waiting for their hair to grow. Everyone is just waiting. Waiting for the fish to bite or waiting for wind to fly a kite or waiting around for Friday night or waiting, perhaps, for their Uncle Jake or a pot to boil, or a Better Break or a string of pearls, or a pair of pants or a wig with curls, or Another Chance. Everyone is just waiting.”
Advent is the Waiting Place of the church year. It is the season when we anticipate and wait for the birth of the baby Jesus. It is also the season when we await the second coming, that time when all is fulfilled and God’s justice and love reign on earth as fully as they do in heaven. Advent is a structured 4-week season with a predictable emphasis on waiting, but of course we know that we can be thrust into a posture of waiting at any time, without warning and without knowing if or when or how the waiting will end.
The story of waiting in Luke’s gospel begins with fulfillment. Zechariah the priest has been waiting for his whole adult life for his turn to make the afternoon incense offering. It is the greatest privilege of his office. A priest can only do it once in a lifetime and some never get the opportunity.
Zechariah is old. He has been waiting for this for a long time. Just like he and his wife Elizabeth have waited a long time, a lifetime, for a child.
In the ancient near East, a woman’s God-given role was to bear and raise children. Their understanding of biology led them to believe that if a couple couldn’t conceive, it was always the woman’s fault. And it was believed to be a sign that God was displeased. So, a woman who couldn’t bear children was a considered disgrace to herself and her husband. But Zechariah and Elizabeth are described as “righteous” and “blameless” to tell us that their childlessness is not a punishment from God.
Let us take a moment to recognize that infertility is still a source of great pain for women and men. Let us say out loud that whether a person has children or not, whether by choice or circumstance, it is not a requirement for full participation in this story or in God’s story more generally. People are whole and beloved by God regardless of whether or not they reproduce.
Zechariah was probably not expecting to be chosen for special service in the Temple. Just like he probably no longer expects to become a father. It is a constant heartache and a disgrace he tries to shield Elizabeth from, but it is also settled reality. The dream has died. Zechariah has stopped waiting for an answer to that prayer. In his weariness, he no longer hopes for much, no longer expects anything.
If you are joyful this season, if you are full of hope and energy and living your best life, then celebrate that and we will celebrate with you. We will lean into your joy.
But I know, you know, that many of us are weary. We are weary because of our age, because our physical bodies are letting us down. We are weary of propaganda and disinformation. We are weary because we have tried hard to make the right decisions and act for the good of others and we are still waiting to see the fruit of those labors. We are weary because we have faced the same routine, honored the same traditions for years, and seemingly watched nothing change. We had expectations which were never met and we are weary with disappointment.[1]
Zechariah is so weary that he cannot hear the good news delivered by the angel Gabriel. He cannot risk believing it. Zechariah wants assurances. He wants certainty. He is not going to set himself up for disappointment again.
Brené Brown is a researcher and storyteller who studies courage, vulnerability, shame, and empathy. She writes, “There are too many people in the world today who decide to live disappointed rather than risk feeling disappointment. This can take the shape of numbing, foreboding joy, being cynical or critical, or just never really fully engaging.”[2]
People choose to lower their expectations, living with a status quo of disappointment rather than letting themselves hope for more and not get it. Brené Brown calls this foreboding joy. It is the experience of joy immediately followed by worry or dread about losing the joy.
Shirley Caesar sings a gospel song which says “This joy that I have, the world didn’t give to me and the world can’t take it away.” Austin Channing Brown is a Black author and speaker who describes a spirituality in the Black community born of hardship and joy. She says that this phrase, “the world didn’t give to me and the world can’t take it away” is a staunch declaration that if the world will take from her, it will only do so once, not twice. It cannot have both tragedy and her joy.
She writes, “After generations of horrific oppression, after a century of second-class citizenship, after a host of atrocities from colonization to genocide and all manner of horrors, we have learned that the only thing white supremacy would love more than taking our lives is for the lives we have to be diminished, less than human, filled with despair, containing only fear. But our community has learned that even the darkest depths of human evil cannot snuff out our experience of joy – of laughter and love, of good food and good conversation, of family legacy and hope for the future, of creative endeavor and the pursuit of justice.”
She continues “In the words of poet Toi Derricotte, ‘Joy is an act of resistance,’ and so we will lean into that joy, knowing that our humanity demands that we fully partake of this magical experience.”[3]
Those of us who are fearful that we may be in for a long
weary season that may last some years, especially those of us who are White may want to learn from our black siblings this resilience of joy.
Zechariah does not lean into joy. In the weariness of prolonged disappointment, he cannot take yes for an answer. He wants evidence, proof of the angel’s promise. Instead he is rendered mute, unable to speak. I know some folks who think it would be just right if what happened to Zechariah happened to every man who starts pontificating about women’s reproductive issues. We tend to think that Zechariah’s silence is a punishment for his lack of imagination and disbelief. But maybe it isn’t.
I was riding a bus to an airport recently when two strangers struck up a conversation with each other. It quickly became political. Fortunately for them, they had supported the same candidates in the recent election. Unfortunately for me, they were not the candidates I had supported. I tried not to listen, but they were loud. For close to an hour, they listed all the wonderful things about their candidate and what he is going to accomplish. Every once in a while, they got in a dig at the opposition – how worthless they are, how ridiculous their supporters are. Nothing they said was new. I wasn’t sure why they needed to say it to each other – complete strangers, on a public bus. Many of us use words and logic as a way of asserting control over our lives. But words and logic only take us so far. We keep repeating ourselves to those who already agree with us or arguing again with those who disagree. And we are so very weary of it all.
What if Zechariah’s silence was not punishment, but a healing for his weariness, as Barbara Brown Taylor suggests, “the angel’s gift to him—an enforced sabbatical, a gestation period of his own during which the seeds of hope were sown again in his hushed soul.” [4]
At the top of my favorite Christmas carols list is It Came Upon a Midnight Clear which was written in the wake of the Mexican-American war and at a time of personal hardship for the author. Verse four says, “O ye, beneath life’s crushing load, whose forms are bending low, who toil all along the climbing way with painful steps and slow, look now for glad and golden hours come swiftly on the wing. O rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.”
What if, this Advent, we acknowledge that we are weary, if we are, and we name what causes our weariness. But what if, at the same time, we also acknowledge that joy is resistance. For some of us, that might mean being sure to laugh out loud every day. For others, it may mean singing in the shower or dancing with abandon in the kitchen. But for those of us who are weary like Zechariah, I wonder if we might seek a season of silence, a quiet season in which we simply watch for the subtle signs of God at work? Perhaps if we quiet ourselves, “we can listen to what God is saying and try to hear where God is still-speaking in our lives and in the world. Maybe it’s there we can hear the things that matter most: like the promise that we are loved, that God’s creation is good, that justice is our calling, and grace is our gift.[5] And perhaps joy will creep in as we rest beside the weary road and hear the angels sing.
[1] This paragraph adapted from the Sanctified Art commentary for this season written by Rev. Cecelia D. Armstrong
[2] Brené Brown, Atlas of the Heart: Mapping Meaningful Connection and the Language of Human Experience (New Yok: Random House, 2021) pp. 121-122
[3] This Joy I Have by Austin Channing Brown in You Are Your Best Thing: Vulnerability, Shame Resilience, and the Black Experience – an anthology, edited by Tarana Burke and Brené Brown Excerpted at
[4] Barbara Brown Taylor, “The Silence of Angels” in Bread of Angels, Boston: Cowley Publications, 1997), p. 93-94
[5] Rev. Jenny Gleichauf in her sermon on the same passage at Covenant Presbyterian Church in Racine, WI on 26 November 2023.