Sermon: Sound and Fury

Luke 3:1-6

Sound and Fury

James Sledge                                                               December 6, 2015 – Advent 2

In the final act of the play, shortly before his own death, Macbeth learns that Lady Macbeth has died, prompting him to launch into a brief soliloquy ending with these famous words. “Out, out, brief candle! Life’s but a walking shadow, a poor player that struts and frets his hour upon the stage and then is heard no more. It is a tale told by an idiot, full of sound and fury, signifying nothing.”

Macbeth seems unimpressed by our sojourn through mortality. I hope he’s wrong about life being a poorly told tale with lots of noise, but ultimately meaningless. Yet we might well borrow his words to describe a great deal in our world.

 If you frequent Facebook or Twitter or other social media you know something about sound and fury. The internet overflows with bombastic speech with no hint of nuance. People hurl unequivocal statements at one another, apparently unable to imagine that their opinions could have the slightest flaw, or that their opponents’ opinions a sliver of truth. And right now there are many such posts about guns and Muslims and Islamic terror.

Social media are often just a less polished versions of the talking heads so prominent on so-called “news channels.” There is much sound and fury, but is sometimes difficult to say if there is anything more. And in the wake of events like Paris or San Bernardino, the sound and fury can be deafening.

But for the ultimate in sound and fury, nothing tops what passes for political discourse in our age. Such noise is bipartisan, but perhaps because of so many candidates, each needing to get noticed, the Republican presidential field surely pushes the sound and fury meter to absurd levels. This past week even more so.

In such a climate, where does one go to hear a word that is wisdom and truth? Where are we to find a word that actually signifies something? Who has a word to give meaning and hope and life?

I have long been struck by the way Luke’s gospel introduces John the Baptist. As ancient writers often do, it uses contemporary rulers as markers rather than the calendar dating we modern folks use. You see this in the story of John’s birth which happens in the days of King Herod of Judea, or of Jesus’ own nativity which takes place in connection to a decree from the Emperor Augustus, while Quirinius was governor of Syria. But when Luke announces the beginning of John’s ministry, he goes a bit overboard.

In the fifteenth year of the reign of Emperor Tiberius, when Pontius Pilate was governor of Judea, and Herod was ruler of Galilee, and his brother Philip ruler of the region of Ituraea and Trachonitis, and Lysanias ruler of Abilene, during the high priesthood of Annas and Caiaphas, the word of God came to John son of Zechariah in the wilderness. Surely one or two of those would suffice.

Actually, I think this is about more than the date. Think about who gets named. These are all the big authority figures of the day. We’ve got a governor, some tetrarchs (the NRSV calls them “rulers), a pair of high priests, and an emperor. You can’t get much bigger than that. All the power, all the authority that mattered in the Roman world, is here.

I should add that there wasn’t a separation of the sacred and the secular in those days. When Luke’s gospel is written, it was common for Roman emperors to claim divine status, and the goddess Roma was often associated with the emperor cult. Rome claimed to be the source of life and blessing, hope in a cruel world with much suffering and violence.

Of course Jews had real issues with the emperor cult. For many of them God’s power to bless, to give life and hope, was represented by the Temple, and the high priest was at the center of the Temple apparatus. The power of God that spoke creation into existence, power to bless or to curse, was understood to dwell in the inner sanctum of the Temple.

And so surely if God was going to speak, if God was going to do something grand to fix the world, it would emanate from the Temple, or perhaps from Rome. Yet in the midst of Roman power, emperor and governors and tetrarchs, in the midst of the elaborate edifice and rituals of the magnificent Temple, the word of God, the power to bless and give life, came to John in the wilderness.

When God begins to renew all creation, the word arrives at the edge, on the margins, far from the halls of power or the fancy churches. When God comes into the world, it is easy to miss. Perhaps it must be so.

I saw this quote from Thomas Merton posted online shortly after the San Bernardino shootings. “Into this world, this demented inn, where there is absolutely no room for him at all, Christ comes, uninvited.” Perhaps God’s word can only arrive in the wilderness, away from much of our lives, because our world has no room for it.

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Many churches conclude scripture readings with, “The word of the Lord.” The word, the power of God to call forth life, the Word that became flesh in Jesus, is here, we say. We can’t say exactly where the living Word resides amongst all the words we read and hear. But it is here, something more than sound and fury, a Word with power to transform and give life.

We long for God’s life giving word. We need it desperately, especially right now. Amidst all the sound and fury and tales told by idiots, we need a clear word to guide and direct us. But can we hear? Is there any room in our lives for it? The word often resides in unexpected places, and when we are afraid and fearful, we seem more attracted to sound and fury.

Has the word of the Lord come to you? I know that I miss it a lot… because I’m busy and won’t stop, because I think I already know what it says, because I’m not willing to hear certain things, because it might overturn my neatly ordered notions about God and life, because I’m afraid of what it might ask of me.

The Word became flesh and lived among us. It is this Word we hope for and prepare for and wait for. It is this Word whose coming we celebrate at Christmas. It is a living Word with power to give life, who speaks and calls us to live into the ways of true and abundant life. O Lord, give us the courage to hear and to answer your call.