Sermon for Sunday, December 16, 2007SIMEON AND ANNA SENIOR CITIZEN HEROESBy Rev. Dr. Harvey C. Martz |
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Scripture: Luke 2:21-40 21 After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child; and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. 22 When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord 23 (as it is written in the law of the Lord, "Every firstborn male shall be designated as holy to the Lord"), 24 and they offered a sacrifice according to what is stated in the law of the Lord, "a pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons." 25 Now there was a man in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon; this man was righteous and devout, looking forward to the consolation of Israel, and the Holy Spirit rested on him. 26 It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord's Messiah. 27 Guided by the Spirit, Simeon came into the temple; and when the parents brought in the child Jesus, to do for him what was customary under the law, 28 Simeon took him in his arms and praised God, saying, 29 "Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; 30 for my eyes have seen your salvation, 31 which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, 32 a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel." 33 And the child's father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him. 34 Then Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, "This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed—and a sword will pierce your own soul too." 36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, of the tribe of Asher. She was of a great age, having lived with her husband seven years after her marriage, 37 then as a widow to the age of eighty-four. She never left the temple but worshiped there with fasting and prayer night and day. At that moment she came, and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem. 39 When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. 40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him. We are jumping ahead in the Christmas story to look at a scene we rarely look at: it is the time forty days after Jesus’ birth when Mary and Joseph bring the baby to the temple in Jerusalem to present him to God as the first born son. They bring an offering as part of that ritual-the sacrifice of two doves or pigeons. It was the offering of poor people. This was a blue collar family. Jesus was born among the working class, the poor. As we said last week, his father Joseph was a builder perhaps more with stone than wood because that is what people built with in first century Israel-stone, because there was so much of it. In this encounter in the temple Mary and Joseph meet two senior citizens, two old people who become very important in this story-heroes if you will. And one of them makes some predictions about the baby that are amazing and troubling to Mary and Joseph. Before we look at the entire story, let’s learn something immediately from what I just said: the first thing we learn is that Simeon and Anna, the elders in the story, are good and devout and very faithful Jews. They come to the temple to worship God on a regular basis. They know the importance of practicing their faith in worship. Worship is paying attention to God, taking time to think about God and to thank God, remembering God. Most of you know the importance of that practice of worship because you have been taking time for worship. We can take time for God at any place in our days. We can pray anywhere. The question is whether we intentionally do so, and historically people of faith have had a personal prayer and listening time AND we have gathered together weekly to read from the Bible and to sing songs and hymns, pray for each other and to apply the scriptures to our lives. That is why we have church buildings-so we can meet for those purposes and so we can teach and learn and pass on our faith to others. It is why our new building committee is in full swing planning for more space because we are out of room in this wonderful new building already after less than three years and God wants us to make room for each other and for people whom God will send and is sending to us!! Simeon and Anna are regularly in worship in the house of the Lord. They are faithful Jews. And Joseph and Mary were faithful and devout Jews. They followed faithfully the tenets of their religion. And, as we said last week, Jesus was a good and faithful Jew. Joseph and Mary were devout practicing Jews. Two ten year old boys were talking about their respective religious beliefs. One was Catholic and the other was Jewish. The Jewish boy was reminding his friend as the friend talked about Jesus - “Well, you have to remember: after all, Jesus was Jewish." The second boy feeling a little defensive and thinking about his own faith, said, “Yes, but his mother was Catholic.” We are going to talk more next week about Jesus’ mother Mary, and one thing we will see is her strength. She has the audacity to engage the angel Gabriel in a dialogue-she asks impudently how she can become a mother when she has never been with a man? Mary is one of several strong and visible women in the gospel of Luke. Two sisters, Mary and Martha, are mentioned in this gospel, and what is significant about them is that one of the sisters, Mary is sitting at the feet of Jesus listening to him teach-just like the men were doing. It was not typical. This was a very patriarchal culture. Luke also tells us that there were several women among Jesus’ larger group of followers and some of those women gave money so Jesus could continue his ministry! Today we meet another visible and strong woman-Anna. She is 84 years old and she is a Prophet. She has status and standing in the Jewish community and Luke recognizes and praises her leadership. There are these and other examples of female leaders in the Bible and I don’t know how they get ignored even today even in churches like the Episcopal church in America where three dioceses still refuse to ordain women as Episcopal priests-one of those dioceses in California just withdrew from the American Anglican church to join a maverick bishop in Africa. When Mary and Joseph come to the temple they first meet old man Simeon who has been coming to the temple and hoping and waiting and longing for-these words are important-the CONSOLATION AND REDEMPTION of Israel. Consolation and redemption. The first Greek word is paraclesis-it can also be translated as comfort. Think about Isaiah speaking to Israel 500 years before Jesus while the Jews are captive in Babylon-Be comforted my people; God says that your time of servitude and oppression is over now and you will be free. Comfort and consolation are words we use but redemption is not part of our vocabulary usually. What did the Jews need to be redeemed and saved from in the time of Jesus? They were horribly, horribly oppressed by the cruelty of Rome! They were being ground down into the dirt by a government overcharging them, torturing and killing them if they dissented, and they were longing to be free of that cruel regime. There is a scene in the Nativity film that shows the Romans’ approach to taking the taxes from Mary’s family. FILM CLIP Simeon and Anna had been coming to the temple to worship God and they had come with some expectation that something would happen-that God would hear them and reach out to them. They expected something to happen when they came to worship. What do we expect to happen when we come to worship? Is our best expectation that we just, please, God, find a parking place!! What do you expect? Do you expect God to offer you spiritual nourishment and guidance and comfort and strength? Do you pray for that ahead of time? The other worship leaders and I pray for that for all of us. The preacher of the morning goes through the chapel and sanctuary each Sunday morning about 7 AM and touches each row of chairs and says a prayer for the people who are here to have a chance to meet God and to know God and to leave with something new and good. The worship team-liturgists and I-meet together in one of our offices before we come in and pray for God to get us out of the way and for God to use this time of worship-the words, the music, the scripture, the prayers, the silence-to speak to each person’s heart and to give each of us what we need so we can leave encouraged and inspired and instructed to be the persons God has created us to be and to be the presence of Christ in the world this week. Simeon and Anna came to the temple expecting something. And what they saw was a mother and father and a baby who would provide consolation and salvation and freedom from oppression. We will talk more about those words next week, but that word salvation did not mean life after death when we die-a ticket to heaven later on in the bye and bye. It had to do with the here and now. It starts now. This child, old Simeon says, will be a light to all people. We could not celebrate Christmas without lights. We hang lights on and in our houses. We light candles. We do this to celebrate the light that God has sent, the light of the world who shines into our discouraging darkness because sometime we are like children in the dark of night who need to know that we are safe and that we are not alone and need to hear the good news of Christmas-that God is Emmanuel-God with us. Simeon offers some encouraging words to Joseph and Mary about this child being a light and a savior of Israel. His words are surprising to the young couple. They are amazed and surprised. Why? More than that: they are disturbed-by the rest of what he says: Your child will be a sign that some people will reject and oppose. He will reveal the inner thoughts of many and will cause destruction and revival. And because of his life, sorrow like a sword will pierce your soul. How would you like to hear that about your new born baby? A sword will pierce your soul. In the second chapter of the gospel of Luke we are already being told how upsetting and controversial this Jesus will be. If you have never been upset or unsettled by the person and the teachings of Jesus you may not understand him yet. He was and is challenging to the status quo. In his first public appearance and his first sermon later on in Luke’s gospel, the folks there in his home town synagogue take him out of the building to throw him off a cliff!! He questioned their smugness and their small notion of God. He criticized their tribal religion and said, God is bigger than you think, and God is not just limited to you-God loves and accepts other people, people you think are outcast and inferior and sinful and pagan! It was not a promising response to his first ever sermon in his life. It was revealing. Jesus questioned organized religion. He had his most trouble with “organized religion”. If you have ever wondered about “organized religion”, you are in the good company of Jesus of Nazareth who saw a religion that had lost its way and was a bureaucracy and had turned into going through the motions and was organized for the benefit of the priests and not the people. He criticized and even attacked the leaders of that religion and called them phonies and hypocrites. They were so threatened, and they were so far off from God, that they engineered his death-his execution. Jesus had his most trouble with organized religion. There is much controversy in more conservative churches right now in our country over the just released film “The Golden Compass”. The controversy is not as much about the film but about the three books that are the basis of the film. Author Philip Pullman is quoted with various statements about his own faith, but it is clear that in the books he is criticizing the same expression of authoritarian and controlling religion that Jesus is criticizing. Some say he is anti God and wants to destroy God. Others say the notion of God he is questioning and rejecting is the same inadequate idea of God that you and I have grown out of also if we have thought much at all about our faith. Some people when they say they don’t believe in God really are thinking about a child hood picture of God-the old man living in the sky-that you and I don’t believe in either. Remember the Russian Cosmonaut from many years back who said after his journey in space that he didn’t see God when he went into space, so there must not be a God. You and I would not think of God in that way either. Jesus criticized and even condemned some practices of organized religion and he asked them to change and do what her prophets said: Jesus really asked them to care about the least and last and left out-he welcomed people who were outcasts, and so he was killed. We need to hear the consolation that Christ brings to us-the comfort and hope of Christmas-and we need to hear the challenge and the assignment as well. We will talk together on Christmas eve about how we celebrate the message of Christmas as a way of life-not just in December but by practicing compassion and kindness and justice all year long. Our final hymn will remind us of what Christ calls us to do at Christmas and all year round-to really care for the least and the last and the left out. To care for children in a nation where still every child who needs medical care may not get that. One of the more compassionate statements from a presidential candidate last month was asking us to look at the kind of nation we want to be and whether we want to be a nation that punishes children for what their parents have done or have not done. We will sing at the end of the service about children-
Can we this year as we celebrate the birth of this star child, this go between of God, this lightning rod Jesus, also vow to care for each child, every child, so that the kindness and justice of Christmas may continue past December 25?
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