Steamroller
Thumbnail image on website: AvelingPorter R10 SteamRoller rhs.jpg; author: Martinvl; used under license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en
Clare L. Hickman
St. Luke’s Episcopal Church
December 5, 2021—Advent 2C
Malachi 3:1-4; The Song of Zechariah Luke 1:68-79; Luke 3:1-6
To see bulletin cover picture, follow this link: https://www.autism-products.com/product/steamroller-advantage-line/
I found that picture on the front of the bulletin when I was looking for pictures of steamrollers. Because I was contemplating the passage from Isaiah that John the Baptist quotes for us today: that God will make the rough places smooth. And I was thinking about it in the context of the call to repent, and how sometimes it might feel as though that call, that insistence that you need to change your behavior and get right, is like a steamroller that’s rolling right over you.
And honestly, at the time, that picture felt like a lighthearted way to express that idea, a gentle nudge against our resistance to the work of repentance, to prod a willingness to admit our own rough places that are in desperate need of the actions of God to begin to smooth them out.
Because we all have rough places. Places of pain, places of “not good” within us. Heck, there are days that feel like we are nothing but rough places: nothing but the edges of our own unfinishedness. Not to mention, in a week like this week: nothing but the parts of us that are torn up by the pains of the world.
The shootings at Oxford High School (and indeed the shootings that happen every weekend in cities across the country) aren’t just a rough place; they are a huge jagged edge that tears at us. They are a reminder of a wound in the soul of our society.
Again and again and again… And each time, the hideous sense of vulnerability, the fear, the anger, the disbelief and horror of it all. So powerful that the force of it can leave us feeling numb.
But we’re not numb, exactly. We’re haven’t actually become hardened to it all, though we sometimes fear that we have. It’s shock, I think. Shock, that built-in self-protective measure that shuts parts of us down when traumatic events happen, so that we don’t simply pass out from the overwhelmingness of it all. Which means that it is shock, in some ways, that saves us.
The question is: where do we go, when we emerge from the shock? Which will we choose, when we are once again faced with that most Adventy of decisions, between denial, despair, and hope?
There’s a case to be made for denial. For trying to forget, and just continue on with our regular lives, trusting the odds to remain in our favor. Or perhaps taking a more active form of denial: minimizing the problem, refusing to admit the need or the point of any kind of repentance or change in our attitudes, our policies, our priorities. Many of us feel the pull of denial.
But despair comes a close second. After all, year after year, decade after decade. Such a huge wound, and in the face of so much denial and so very much resistance … despair is a reasonable response.
Hope, on the other hand, is utterly unreasonable. After all, hope continues to act, and to speak, and to feel, even in the face of overwhelming odds. It can do so, because the validity of hope does not depend worldly outcomes. Its only concern is the truth that is born of a deep trust in and desire for the dream of God, for the future God longs for. As such, hope draws on the mysterious, always creating power of God, and it is an active thing, not just a passive wish. Which is to say that hope is the thing that makes it possible to speak (and feel and act), but at the same time, it is the speaking (and the feeling, and the acting), even knowing the resistance you will meet, that brings hope into being.
Hope is the life-giving choice, the faithful choice. And if you’re ready for action, then our bishop invites people of all ages to join her in the work to combat gun violence. But if you’re still feeling your way towards hope, the bible tells us that the people of God often begin by singing!
As biblical scholar Amy Jill Levine points out, so much of the Christmas story is told in song. Today we heard the song that Zechariah sang, on the birth of his son, John the soon-to-be Baptist. Nine months before, an angel had announced that Elizabeth would bear a child, way past the time she and Zechariah had ever thought that possible. Zechariah was, to put it mildly, dubious. And even in the face of an actual angel declaring what God was about to do, he expressed disbelief. For this, perhaps as punishment, and perhaps just to encourage him to listen more, to trust more, to hope more, God struck him mute.
Nine months later, after God’s promise to them is born into the world, Zechariah breaks into song. Honestly, what else was he going to do? What else could possibly have expressed all that had grown inside him, all that he saw and felt and hoped for?
When the words are too big for us, when the feeling and the meaning of everything that has happened, is happening, and is about to happen is more than we can encompass … we humans? We sing.
We sing because it gives us the strength to do the work that this world calls us to. We sing because it opens up a channel through which God can enter the situation, and in which we can see the future God longs to bring about. And we sing because the emotions of a song somehow make it more possible to bear the emotions that it expresses. Song helps us to expand, somehow, to the joy; helps us to carry the sadness; helps us to focus and channel the anger.
All of these things make song our pathway to hope. But that last one is a crucial first step out of shock. Because we NEED to feel these feelings. We can’t just permanently shut down because it’s all too much.
Which brings me back to the roller on the front of the bulletin. It’s designed for autistic children, for whom touch can often be too much to bear: over-stimulating and irritating. Almost paradoxically, though, a very firm, steady touch is soothing. It eases the anxiety brought on by the constant stimuli and sensation of the world.
And that’s what song can do for us. It’s the emotional equivalent of those rollers, somehow allowing us to be in the rough places without being completely overwhelmed. Reminding us of God’s presence and power to smooth them out.
So I would suggest, when the world feels way, way too much, and denial and despair are the only paths you can imagine … that you listen to the invitation in scripture to look for the song, to find the music, to welcome the poem that can hold you like that. That can be the mental and emotional pressure that can hold you close and make it bearable, and give you back a vision of God’s dream for the world.
The one you need might well be different from mine, so I won’t share a poem or song. I’ll content myself with just a line from a favorite poet, Mary Oliver, who once said: “I believe in kindness. Also in mischief. Also in singing, especially when singing is not necessarily prescribed.”
May it lead us into hope. May it lead us into the heart of God. Amen.