Zechariah and Mary of Arcadia

Luke 1:5-38

Today we enter the Season of Advent, which is a season of waiting, a season of hope, a season that remembers the sacredness of time. Yes, I said the sacredness of time. You see, the Bible distinguishes between two kinds of time – chronos time, which is chronological time, and kairos time, which is the transforming moment. Chronological time, taken from the Greek word "chronos," is concerned with the linear accounting of seconds, minutes, hours and days, weeks, months and years. But the transforming moment, taken from the Greek word "kairos," is a moment pregnant with possibility, a moment when time stands still, a moment when the world changes forever, a moment that, even if we wanted to take it back, we cannot, for it has happened and our lives will never be the same. When Jesus entered the scene as an adult preaching, “The time has come. The Kingdom of God is near. Repent and believe the good news,” he was telling us about kairos time, the transforming moment.

People used to ask, "Where were you when Kennedy was shot?" Hearing that news changed our nation forever; we began to bleed innocence in that kairos moment. The other side of the Kennedy legacy occurred at the end of that same decade. With the nation awash in Vietnam and protest and other assassinations Neil Armstrong took "One small step for [a] man, one giant leap for Mankind" and our hope was rekindled; we were changed that day. I remember my dad waking me up so that I could watch the astronauts' land on the moon. There was a sense of wonderment in my parents' voices: "Can you believe that? Anything is possible." It was a transforming moment. A kairos moment. And, of course, in our own most recent time, September 11, 2001 was a kairos moment when the world changed forever. I remember thinking how sad it was for the victims and their families, but also for an entire generation of children who would grow up with the war on terrorism in the same way we adults grew up with the Cold War.

Many of us can talk about personal times that were transforming moments. A child's first successful cartwheel or a teenager's first time behind the wheel of a car, these are not merely chronological moments to mark the ages of six and sixteen. They are kairos moments. I remember when I proposed to Laura; we were in an Italian restaurant in San Antonio. I pulled out the ring, popped the question and just then the waitress walked up to our table and asked, "Would you care for any dessert?" I could not get rid of her fast enough! "No, we're both fine. Please go away now. We're in the middle of something important." I turned back to Laura, and she still had not responded to my question. After much begging and pleading, (not to mention some deep, sincere groveling), she (finally!) said yes. I knew then that it was a transforming moment, a letting go of one way of being to grab hold of another, a letting go of singleness to grab hold of togetherness, a letting go of my autonomy to grab hold of something which, for me, was a bit slippery. I didn't really understand what I was getting myself into, but I was clear that it would be transforming. It was a kairos moment.

I suppose being visited by an angel would qualify as a kairos moment. We have two such moments in today's Scripture: Zechariah and Mary both were visited by Gabriel, the angel who stands in the presence of God. What is striking in these stories is how ordinary everything is. Both Zechariah and Mary were minding their own business, going about their lives as if nothing unusual was about to happen. Zechariah was burning incense in the Temple, doing his job, while Mary was in her tiny village of Nazareth presumably preparing for a wedding. Neither realized that anything extraordinary was about to happen. Neither realized that a transforming moment was right around the corner for them. But then, that's usually the way of kairos moments; they're tough to plan or prepare for, impossible to manage or manipulate. Often they just happen. And so it was with Zechariah and Mary.

Zechariah’s response

What is striking to me in these stories is the differences between how Zechariah responds to the angel Gabriel versus how Mary responds to the angel Gabriel. Zechariah is the old pro in the things of God. Literally old, of course, "well past the age of childbearing." And also a pro, literally a professional, a priest whose job it was to go into the Temple to offer sacrifices, burn incense, perform the duties of a priest who had trained his entire life to understand the Word of God and the ways of God. Yet Zechariah was surprised and terror stricken when the angel appeared.

This is one of the moments of high irony in Scripture and a peculiar problem for us religious professionals: Zechariah was so busy working for God he had neglected the possibility that God also was hard at work. But here it is: God at work. But notice Zechariah's response.

Instead of asking himself, "What is God doing? How can I participate in what God is doing?" Zechariah doubts the word of Gabriel: "How can this happen? Elizabeth and I are old, well past the age of childbearing. What you say doesn't make sense to me." Zechariah was so sure of himself. He was so certain that he knew what he knew and that what he knew was all there was to know, or at least all that was important to know. Zechariah who knew so well the Word of God and the ways of God, yet he could not recognize the work of God when it was right there in front of him.

Mary’s response

Mary on the other hand is young and clueless, which is to her distinct advantage. You know, of course, that being clueless can be quite helpful in the things of God. When we are clueless, we have no built up bias, no presumptions of what can and cannot happen, no assumptions that God can only work in one particular way. Mary is young and clueless and blessedly so.

Still, when the angel Gabriel appears to Mary, she is shocked and shaken, and Mary, like Zechariah, does not understand what is happening. But unlike Zechariah, Mary does not turn away from what she doesn't fully comprehend. She remains open to the possibilities of God. She is willing to ask herself, "What is God doing? How can I participate in what God is doing?"

Mary's response to the angel is so subtly different yet so significantly different from Zechariah's. Whereas Zechariah asked, "How can this happen?," Mary asked, "How will this happen?" Zechariah questioned the possibility of God to be at work. Mary questioned the process by which God was going to be at work, but her presumption was that of a fresh, innocent openness to God. Mary believed the angel's words, "Nothing is impossible for God; nothing is impossible with God." Ultimately, Mary said yes to God's call upon her life: "I am God's servant. May what you say happen as you say it. I am willing." As I said: sometimes being young and clueless is a distinct advantage.

Our response

Most of us are not young and clueless, which is an obstacle we will have to overcome, but I believe we can overcome it! I believe we can respond to God in the manner of Mary. I believe we can be open to the possibility of God at work in our world, open to the possibility of God at work in our church, open to the possibility of God at work in our lives. I believe we can learn to ask ourselves, "What is God doing? How can I participate in what God is doing?" I believe we can learn to be open to those kairos moments whenever and wherever we discover that God is at work.

If there is anything I believe, it is that God is constantly at work in the world: redeeming the lost, saving the sinner, giving peace to the bereaved, giving hope to the despairing, giving love to the enemy, giving food to the hungry. I believe God is at work. The difficulty though is learning to see God at work. After all, not many of us get to talk with an angel face to face. Also, we are misled by our interpretation of Scripture, I think, into believing that God is only at work in the big things: the Passover and the parting of the Red Sea, Christmas and Easter. Yet, consider Zechariah and Mary: no trumpets sounded, no seas parted, no one else was even present. There is nothing in the text to suggest that the angel Gabriel looked any different from an ordinary man. If we were to make a TV show about them, we might call it “Zechariah and Mary of Arcadia” instead of “Joan of Arcadia.” Either way, it is not only in the big events, but in the little encounters as well that God is at work. Perhaps God is at work in all those little kairos moments of our lives, when we least expect to encounter him, yet those may be the times when God touches our lives in a transforming way.

The story of Jesse Owens winning three gold medals at the 1936 Olympics in Berlin, under the Aryan eye of Hitler himself, is well known. What is less well known is how Owens' chief competitor in the long jump, a German named Luz Long, gave some advice to Owens during the preliminaries when Owens was having trouble. Owens beat Long later that day. The two cemented their friendship in the Olympic village, talking late into the night about race and religion, art and politics. Watching these two competitors of different races, with different allegiances, finding common ground, one can easily imagine that God was at work in that small encounter. One can imagine that moment in which the seeds of friendship were planted was a kairos moment in which the kingdom of God touched the human soul.

Or perhaps it is not too far a stretch to say that God was at work in bringing to my office a man in his mid-fifties who had recently had back and neck surgery, and so he could not do the manual labor to which he was accustomed. I talked with him about job retraining, and he looked at me with a bit of shame in his eyes and said, "I only have an eighth grade education. What am I going to do, learn computers?" This man is in for a rough ride to be sure, but through the Cooperative Care Center we were able to get him connected with local food programs. At least he will not be hungry. Was God there? Is it too much to say that the possibilities for this man's life changed forever the moment he stepped into our building? Is this too much to believe?

I know God was present in the girlfriend who invited me to church when I was 17. I didn't want to go to church, and I told her so. I told her I had been before and didn't need to hear it again. But she stuck with it, and we made a deal: "I'll go once and then I don't want to hear anymore about it." Kairos moments. You never know when one is just around the corner. But when they happen, you know you are changed forever.

in spite of us. Sometimes God works through us. Always God prefers the latter.

A few years ago, and I guess even now to a certain extent, it was popular to ask the question, “WWJD?” What would Jesus do? It is a good question to ask, to be sure, but as important, perhaps even more important, is to ask the question, “WIJD?” What is Jesus doing? During this Advent season, will we have the eyes to see and the ears to hear what Jesus is doing? Will we have the kind of fresh and open faith to be able to respond, "I am God's servant. I am willing." The moment is upon us. God is calling. How will we respond?

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