His name is John

Sir Christopher Chope MP is, I imagine, the usual mixture of good, bad and indifferent that most of us are, even members of the House of Commons. However, for at least the next short while, and maybe longer than that, he’ll be remembered as the man who halted the progress into law of a bill designed to protect the freedom and safety of women. It seems he wanted to make the point that laws of this kind should be made by government bill rather than by using up the precious time allowed back-benchers; but if so he picked the wrong time and under-estimated both the importance of this particular issue and the strength of public feeling around it. One foolish word and the whole world was suddenly against him, or that’s certainly how it felt, by his own admission. He may even wish now that at that decisive moment he’d been struck dumb.

Zechariah at the start of our Gospel reading this morning had been struck dumb. Zechariah was an old man with no children, and by now no expectation of children. As a temple priest, born into one of the priestly families, he held a position of honour. And at last his turn had come to have the greater honour of being chosen to burn incense in the inner court of the temple. But as Zechariah took his turn to perform this work, he too spoke out of turn, and his world came crashing down around him.

This is how it happened: an angel spoke to him, and told him he was to be the father of a son. A message from heaven that promised to fulfil Zechariah's deepest longing, a son to bear his name! The  last thing he should have done was to answer back. But he did: No, he said, that can’t happen! My wife’s far too old, this is surely some kind of joke. No it’s not, said the angel, and promptly struck Zechariah dumb. Which meant he couldn’t fulfil his temple duties or any of the rest of his work as a priest.

So our Gospel reading starts with Zechariah off work and unable to say a word. Meanwhile, the angel's promise has come true, and the child’s been born. It’s the eighth day, time for his son to be circumcised, and also named. By tradition the first born son would be named for the father, or perhaps he’d be given another close family name. So that’s what the folk gathered there expected. But the angel had said that the child should be named John, so that’s the name Elizabeth tells them. ‘Hang on,’ the people say, ‘this isn’t a name in your family!’ Squadrons of angels - as I imagine it - are all holding their collective breath, as the people turn to speechless Zechariah, who surely won’t let his wife do something so foolish. He’ll put her right! Zechariah calls for a writing tablet, and what he writes is: ‘His name is John.’ And just as suddenly as it went, his voice returns.

Zechariah did what he should have known to do all along. A priest is supposed to trust and obey the word of God. And his moment of trustful obedience leads to the return of his voice, so that any instinct for protest or ridicule there might have been among the onlookers is instantly defused, and turned to amazement and wonder. A miracle has happened.

In fact this is a story shot through with miracles. An elderly childless couple blessed with a son, a temple priest struck dumb, and his voice miraculously restored; and God using Zechariah’s initial doubt and subsequent faith to proclaim his divine purpose and power. The name John actually means ‘God is gracious’ – giving this name to the child acknowledged him as God’s gift and special. And John wasn’t God's gift just to Elizabeth and Zechariah, he was a gift to everyone. Everyone was talking and wondering about these events. Everyone must have expected great and wonderful new things to spring from this birth.

And one thing I take from this story is that God has a way of bringing good results out of bad stuff, and of transforming human weakness and stubbornness and failure. Those months unable to speak must have been torment for Zechariah, but it was nobody's fault but his own. If only he’d not spoken out of turn; if only he'd kept his doubts to himself. His priestly ministry had been disabled, God had smitten him, and who knows, maybe God had permanently written him off? What if he could never be a priest again? He must have wondered. It happens all the time in human relationships: we fall short, make a mistake, let someone down, and we’re marked with a permanent blot, labelled by our mistakes.

Well, we may treat each other that way, but God never does. What about the times when I’ve blown it, wanted my own way or refused to listen to advice? The times I’ve decided for myself what can be done and what can’t without asking God, gone where I wanted to go, and not where God wanted to send me? God’s word to us: ‘Trust me for what you need, and work for my kingdom’ - Jesus is always saying things like that. But it’s easy not to trust, not to believe it can be done, to look down when we should be looking up.

Basically God said to Zechariah: ‘Who are you to tell me what I can or cannot do?’ - and that’s when he struck him dumb. So Zechariah the priest learned humility and obedience the hard way, as we often have to do. But here’s something I see, looking back through my life: when I’ve made mistakes or wrong decisions, failed to trust as I should, cut God out of the process, in the end I find that’s not the end, and God still brings good out of it all. Things we regret may in the end serve to deepen our spiritual awareness and our knowledge of ourselves, and God can start to use us in new ways. Our doubts, once worked through, may lead us to a stronger and more vivid and worked-out faith.

John isn’t my given name, and yet in a way it is my name, and it’s yours too: for the declaration that ‘God is gracious’ lies at the heart of our shared faith. To say God is gracious means God gives more than we deserve, and loves us though we don’t merit it, and that God renews and keeps his promises to us, even when our first reaction, like Jonah in the Old Testament, has been to rush off in the opposite direction and go our own way instead of his. We Give up on each other, and we may well give up on God, but I believe that God never gives up on us.

‘His name is John,’ said Zechariah, or at least, that’s what he wrote, as his son was circumcised and named. And in our own naming and baptism we become members of the community of John who was himself the first baptizer. In baptism we’re made members of the company of folk who know God is gracious, and who - even if they don’t always get it right - are learning and striving to trust in his divine and holy love. And as I look to whatever lies ahead for me and for us, who can tell where God in his love might be leading us?