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Jeremiah 1:4-10
Luke 4:21-30
Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor
Jesus came to Nazareth, his hometown, and did a fine job in the synagogue with the reading from the Prophet Isaiah. Everyone spoke well of him. Everyone was amazed at the gracious words that came from his mouth.
After the reading, as they began to discuss the text, Jesus seemed to be joking with the “home boys” at first. When Jesus overheard someone mention the old saying, “Doctor, cure yourself!” He said to them something like, “No doubt you are thinking “He grew up in this town just like the rest of us. Who is he to pretend to be so important? He’s just the son of a peasant carpenter who waits for the Messiah like the rest of us.” Jesus countered their thoughts with another familiar saying: “No prophet is accepted in the prophet’s hometown.”
Biblical Anthropologist Dick Rohrbaugh explains this story as a “Hometown Honor Challenge.” If Jesus was to retain the honor that he was acquiring as he preaches throughout Galilee, he had to deal, eventually, with the ascribed honor he was born with as a commoner from Galilee. No where would his honor have been more challenged than in his hometown.
An honor challenge was basically a series of escalating insults that were thrown back and forth until one of the parties backed down, letting the other party win. Honor challenges are part of everyday life in the Middle Eastern world even today. It’s a game of one-uping the other guy and is if one does not participate ones honor diminishes. The first insult thrown at Jesus in our story may have come when some started asking, “Isn’t this the son of village low life?”
The crowd went along with this bantering back and forth until Jesus pushed them too far. Everything was going just fine until Jesus reminded them of two of Israel’s prophets who ministered to Israel’s enemies instead of his own kind. Suddenly Jesus’ words began to feel downright antagonist to his hometown friends.
Imagine, if you will, that our Henry Hansen, Tony and Brenda’s son; Henry who played “Joseph” on Christmas Eve, grows up, takes off for college and about the year 2025 we start hearing that Henry has graduated from seminary with honors and is winning awards all over the country for his gifts in preaching and teaching. We hear that Henry is drawing people to public revivals by the thousands. Finally, we get word that he’s coming home to Portland to see his family and we prevail upon him to preach at St. Mark!
He arrives on Sunday morning and a throng of those who have heard about him on his very popular Blog arrives behind him. He stands up to preach and we are amazed at the way he has with words. He’s captivating and inspiring. We begin to smile and whisper back and forth about what a time we had with Henry in Church School and what crazy things he used to say during Children’s moments.
Henry’s quick wit turns the tables on our teasing as he says, “No prophet is every welcomed back into his home church.” We all laugh in agreement. But then Henry tells the crowds about what great job this Non-profit called BIRDS does with the Dalits in India and he talks about how God is blessing the ministry of Sunset Presbyterian and how he has enjoyed the worship at those dynamic Hispanic congregation that are being formed out in Gresham and Hillsboro. Finally, he announces that he’ goingl to help a group of young, professionals who live down in the new high rise apartments of the South Park development, start a new church.
What? Why would he go to those yuppies who don’t want anything to do with the traditions he was taught for so many years in this church? What’s all this talk about new forms of worship and house churches and mission centered small groups? Can you begin to sense the anger that finally overpowered those in the synagogue as they listened to Jesus
I’d like to share with you the words of David Ostendorf, the Executive Director of the Center for New Community in Ellsworth, Wisconsin as he considers this text. Ostendorf isn’t a pastor in a mainline church, or a seminary professor in one of our ivy league schools. He is the director of a new kind of spiritual community.
Ostendorf writes as if he may have know the experience of Jesus personally. He says, “The crowd was. . . incensed that one of their own had the audacity to sit among them and intimate that they would not be the vessels for the unfolding of God’s new narrative. Here now was the insider who suddenly becomes the outsider. Here, now, was God acting in the particularity of Jesus of Nazareth. Here, now, was the beginning of a new narrative out of the ancient narrative, out of and dramatically beyond the sold foundations of the people of faith upon whose ears it fell.”
“In the midst of the global complexities of this era, this century, the church faces the daunting possibility – indeed, the reality – that God is unfolding a new narrative through the particularities of “outsides,” of edge-people who come to God and bear witness to God through God’s actions in edge-places, and occasionally in temple settings. Deserts. Drought-wracked lands. Famine. Struggling widows. Dying children. Disbelieving commanders. Servants. Isaiah, Elijah. Elisha. Jesus.” (Ostendorf, Feasting on the Word, Year C. Vol 1, pg 312)
Reb David, P’nai Or’s new Interim Rabbi said, during a Torah Study that I caught a bit of last week, something like, “You must hear this story as if it was written just today, just for you!” I thought to myself, “How often do we act as if scripture stories were written to help us see the faults in everyone around us when? Indeed, scripture stories are written only to shine light on our own lives! How easy it would be to focus this message on those other people we can think of who would still throw the new inclusive narrative of Jesus off the nearest cliff. I’ve preached that message many times.
Perhaps it’s time to think about those new narratives that we refuse to hear; the new narratives we refuse to imagine unfolding anywhere but here and in any manner other than the one we are used to.
What do you imagine that new narrative, that God is unfolding today, might be about,?
Is it a new narrative in which serving those in need is the central act of our faith and community rather than worship? Is it a new narrative that releases us from the boundaries of theological doctrines and draws us together, people of any religion and no religion, into a community of compassion and justice seekers? Is it a new narrative without labels or names or history or tradition? I don’t know. I really don’t know. But I do know that we had better be will to listen to the new narrative or we will be left behind.
The synagogue that day was filled with religious folk who would not listen. It suddenly became filled with vigilantes who came at Jesus with fists raised and forced Jesus out of the synagogue and out of the city. In an honor challenge, the one who first resorts to violence always loses honor. Even when they had him cornered on the edge of a cliff, Jesus walked right through the middle of them and went on his own way, away from his hometown, down a road that led to a new narrative.
Posted 7 months, 1 week ago at 11:06 am. Add a comment
Nehemiah 8:1-3,5-6,8-10
Luke 4:14-21
Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor
According to Luke’s gospel, when Jesus returned from being tempted and tested in the wilderness, (a story which we shall look at in a few weeks when we begin the Season of Lent) Jesus was filled with the power of the Holy Spirit and began to teach in the synagogues throughout Galilee.
Eventually he made his way to Nazareth, his hometown. In their synagogues it was highly unusual and even a bit offensive for someone to stand up to read from the scroll without previous permission from the elders. Whether Jesus received such permission or not we do not know. The story only tells us that when he stood up to read, the scroll of the Prophet Isaiah was given to him. Jesus unrolled the scroll until he found a certain text and began to read, probably reciting mostly from memory, the words he found there.
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind;
To let the oppressed go free;
And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
Last week we read the story of a Wedding Feast at which Jesus turned water saved for their ritual cleansing into wine for the celebration. This was John’s gospel story of the start of Jesus’ ministry and the revitalization that would be his central theme.
Today we read Luke’s gospel story of how it all began and the key to the entire ministry of Jesus, as Luke saw it. All three synoptic gospels tell this story of Jesus in the synagogue, but only Luke places the story at the very beginning of his gospel and only Luke gives the readers the content of what Jesus read and said.
For Luke, this is the mission statement; the moral agenda; the purpose of Jesus’ life and work. One preacher calls this the “plumb line” of Jesus’ teaching. Insofar as we measure our lives against this (“plumb line”), according to Luke, we are following Jesus’ ministry. (Carol Lakey Hess, Feasting on the Word, Year C, Vol. 1, pg 286)
It has become very popular in our culture for folks to work at knowing and clarifying the purpose of their lives. You remember the best-seller written by Pastor Rick Warren, A Purpose Driven Life, a few years ago. Pastor Ernest Hess finds it very disturbing that Warren’s book is filled with dozens of citations of scripture in every chapter, but that these words from Luke’s gospel are never quoted.
Hess writes, “For me it is axiomatic that a Christian’s understanding of his or her purpose, and the church’s understanding of its purpose and mission, should be informed by Jesus’ understanding of his purpose and mission.” (Hess, Feasting on the Word, Year C. Vol. 1. Pg 289.) Let’s read it again:
“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
because he has anointed me to bring good news to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind;
To let the oppressed go free;
And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.”
The passage from Isaiah that Jesus recited was well known. The words had been used by Isaiah in reference to the job description of the coming Messiah, but Jesus left out the last words from Isaiah. Christians do that even today when with readings such as the Psalms. We often leave out the parts about slaughtering our enemies, for instance. The Isaiah text ended with, “to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor and the day of vengeance of our God.” It seems that Jesus didn’t like the “vengeance” part but was focusing, instead, on the work of healing and justice.
The “year of the Lord’s favor” in this text Jesus recited, referred to the Year of Jubilee. Every 50 years, according to the laws of Moses, the fields were to rest and become reinvigorated for future harvests.
In this Jubilee Year, debts were also to be forgiven. Releasing captives and setting at liberty those who were oppressed referred very specifically to those in prison or held in slavery for their indebtedness. Some scholars think that the year that Jesus spoke these words may have been the actual Year of Jubilee, around 26-27 CE. “The Jubilee Year,” writes Professor Walter Brueggemann, “is God’s way of intervening in the vicious cycle of indebtedness and poverty which is kept going by inhumane practices of land, taxes, and debt.”
I’m not sure how long or if the actual observance of the Jubilee Year was ever really followed and we can understand why it was conveniently ignored. We know, all too well, the cycle of indebtedness and poverty that is growing larger and larger in our own economic culture. During our recent recession an “interest-cap movement” started which was supported and highly influenced by people of faith. Such a movement is strongly rooted in Hebrew scripture’s teachings against usury. Throughout our history, the church has spoken out against those who charge high interest rates, especially when it enslaves the poor.
Yet we also stand by and watch while those in financial corporations get rich through unethical and immoral policies that our culture allows. When a law was signed last May requiring companies to give 45 days notice before raising rates and providing bans on rate hikes, many lending organizations responded by raising their interest rates an average of 20% before the deadline.
We have created our own “debtor’s prisons” these days. Think of all the ways that people are imprisoned, enslaved, held captive, in our culture. What comes to mind?
When Jesus finished reciting from Isaiah he rolled the scroll back up and handed it back to the attendant. He sat down, as was customary after the reading, and everyone waited eagerly, straining their ears to hear how he would interpret the text. After all, word was that this Jesus was no ordinary rabbi. His words were said to have the power to heal and everywhere he went he drew large crowds who were captivated by his message.
Jesus said only, “Today this scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.” Whether these are the actual words of Jesus, or the agenda of some enthusiastic first century evangelist, the gospels continue to declare that liberation of the impoverished and oppressed was the mission Jesus claimed for himself.
Whether Jesus was claiming to be the Messiah or whether he had decided that these words were God’s call upon his life, and perhaps even upon the lives of all the faithful, we’ll never know, but Jesus came proclaiming, demanding, the year of the Lord’s favor. That was his mission statement.
St. Mark had to do a mission study and write a new mission statement seven years ago, as you began a search for your next pastor. Lots of folks worked long and hard on this, I expect, and it is a wonderful statement, but I doubt if anyone can recite any of it, by heart.
I looked for the active verbs out of St. Mark’s mission statement; those verbs that relate to what we see ourselves as called to do (rather than who we are) and I found three basic but profound statements. St. Mark believes its mission is:
To apply the radical teachings of Jesus;
to be nurtured by gathering at his table, and
to live out his example in every aspect of our lives.
Jesus clearly declared how he was going to live out his life in these words. So these words become St. Mark’s mission now:
“The Spirit of the Lord has anointed us to bring good news to the poor.
The Spirit has sent us to proclaim release to the captives
And recovery of sight to the blind;
To let the oppressed go free;
And to proclaim the year of the Lord’s favor.
Following worship, at our congregational meeting, you will receive the budget that your session has approved for 2010. This budget reflects the mission goals of the church. It’s a wonderful coincidence that we set our congregational meeting to look at our budget on the Sunday that the lectionary suggested this gospel text.
There are index cards in your pews. As you reflect on the gospel lesson today and receive our operating budget, I’d like you to write down just one idea for how St. Mark might fulfill our mission, which is to follow the mission of Jesus. You can leave the cards on the table in the foyer after our meeting.
Let us pray that the spirit will lead and enable us to fulfill our mission this year.
Posted 7 months, 2 weeks ago at 12:10 pm. Add a comment
John 2:1-11
Isaiah 62:1-5
Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor
An abundant wedding feast in ancient Israel signified abundant hospitality, the highest of virtues in this culture. Just hospitality demanded an unending supply of fine meat and other delicacies and instead of water, wine had to flow freely during the festivities.
The gospels of Matthew, Mark, and Luke agree, for the most part, on how Jesus’ ministry began. Each of these synoptic gospels records that after Jesus was baptized he spent time in the wilderness alone, where he faced many temptations. Returning from the wilderness, Jesus called disciples to follow him and began to preach the good news throughout Galilee and also to cast out demons and to heal the sick.
Only the author of John’s Gospel uses the setting of a wedding feast to inaugurate the public ministry of Jesus. Instead of the serious backdrop of temples and synagogues, the author of John has a party going on. In John, Jesus is not surrounded with those who are possessed with demons or disease, but with enthusiastic party guests. John’s gospel replaces the theological questions and debate with the sounds of joy and laughter.
The story is told that at some point in the celebration, the wine provided for the guests ran out. Mary, Jesus’ mother, said to her son, “They have no wine,” and Jesus said back to her, “Is that something we should be concerned about?” Their conversation ends and Mary, trusting that Jesus will make things better, says simply to the servants, “Do what he tells you to do.” When the servants pour out fine wine for their guests, all are amazed that they saved the good wine till last.
The gospel of John presents a Jesus who was fully aware of what God had called him to be and do from the very beginning of his ministry. According to John, Jesus always knew that he had come to die for the sake of the people, even though he did not reveal that future to his followers until much later.
Like most of the stories of the life of Jesus, it is not the event itself, but the symbolism of images within the event, that tell the real story. The original audience of this story knew that the story was really not about a wedding celebration but about an old religious system that lacked both hospitality and vigor, a system that Jesus came to change.
The six pots of water that Jesus turned into wine didn’t hold ordinary drinking water. This was the water that would have been used at the wedding feast for ritual cleansing. Jesus took what the old order insisted be used to magically purify the people, and changed it into wine, a rich symbol in the biblical tradition for prosperity, abundance, and joy. Instead of water, which reminded the people of their sinful and unclean nature, Jesus provided the wine of joy and wholeness.
The wedding feast in John’s gospel proclaims, from the very start of Jesus’ ministry, that Jesus has come to bring vitalilty, meaning, fulfillment to an old religion that has run-out of provisions for its guests.
Last Sunday we baptized Ellie and watched as her mother danced and her father sang of our God who is there to hear the cry of every birth. A guest trumpeter filled our sanctuary with inspiring sounds of praise. It was a day of joy and vitality that brought many of us to tears.
But, you know, I have to admit that it isn’t easy to find that sort of vitality in most churches on Sunday mornings, including St. Mark. We know by watching the membership numbers drop that most mainline churches today lack the kind of vital nature and message that might draw new people into their community. If you asked people in this neighborhood if St. Mark had a vital message or provided a vital service to this area, what do you suppose they would say?
Without a doubt St. Mark feels vital to many within this community, but what sort of vitality do we exhibit outside these walls? We have welcomed new folks into this community in recent months and years, but not many. If there is vitality here we’re not getting the word out very far and wide.
As I chatted with a colleague a few weeks ago, he told me that he had retired when he did because he realized that if he stayed in ministry for another 5 to 10 years, he would need to completely “re-tool” himself for ministry. With ten years left in my own ministry, he gently suggested that I begin focusing on such retooling myself.
The tools that I received for ministry in seminary in the early 1990’s are no longer enough. I need to “re-tool;” to learn about new forms of communication, (blogging for instance). I need to “re-tool” to understand the culture that was just being born as I finished my seminary training.
The author of John’s gospel believed that this is what Jesus ministry was all about. Jesus came to “retool” the old religious system; to give them new tools to understand the old religious purity laws; new tools for faith in a God that demands compassion rather than purity.
As news and images poured in from Haiti this week, I began to wish that we could “retool” our thinking about disasters and suffering. It was hard enough to listen to the typical responses of “I was saved by the grace of God” but I knew that many in Haiti were simply at a loss for words. It was infuriating to listen to Pat Robertson claim to know God while stating that God was somehow avenging the sins of these poor people.
We are using some of the tools available to us in helping the people of Haiti; our compassion, our resources, our training, but we need more. We need tools to help us understand why this earthquake killed so many people and what we can do to change the results next time. It was economic and political poverty that took the lives of so many human beings in Haiti, not just a powerful and unpredictable act of nature.
The drama of such tragedy and suffering catches our attention and suddenly now we want to help, but we could have cared less about the poverty in Haiti a week ago. When will we have the tools of understanding that lead us to compassion even without the drama we are fed by Hollywood leading the way?
And while we’re at it, let’s admit that the church needs to be “re-tooled” as well. The tools that worked for us when came to the church may still work for us, but they don’t work for those with whom we are called to share Christ’s message of hope and peace.
That’s a very scary thing to acknowledge. None of us likes to think about having to change things, especially when things are working perfectly well for us as they are. We’d much rather work futilely to convince other people that they can work perfectly well for them also.
We’d just as soon hold onto our six jugs filled with water, even if the water seems somehow a bit stale to lots of folks. We are willing to settle for offering people a place to wash their hands, while Jesus would have us offer them wine to drink and a party in which to celebrate.
We are comfortable with the jugs of water, or at least with waiting for Jesus to provide some better wine when it’s time. We look at suffering; at images of death and destruction in Haiti, for instance, and like his mother, we want to tug at Jesus sleeve and say, “They’ve run out of wine!”
Pastors do not win any popularity polls preaching change. If I had written the story of the Wedding Feast, I might have included a bit about those who angrily confronted Jesus with their concerns about the resulting lack of water for ritual cleansing after he changed it all into wine.
If we do not work together to insure the future of the unique and powerfully vital message that this community has to share, St. Mark may soon find that all the wedding guests have headed home and the banquet hall is empty.
But, the party is not yet over. Jesus has come to change the water into wine. We just have to work together, quickly, to do as he tells us, and to share the wine and the abundance and joy, with all the guests at the party.
Posted 7 months, 3 weeks ago at 12:04 pm. Add a comment
Luke 3:15-22
Isaiah 43:1-7
Barbara J. Campbell, Pastor
We get to baptize Ellie today! It’s been a long time since we’ve come to the font; waded into the water together; since we’ve “done” a baptism. Whether we understand its meaning or not we innately find great joy in the act of baptism. The joy of family, of belonging, the joy of a individual life being held up in the light of God’s love and grace, the joy of remembering our own naming and claiming by God.
If you saw the play or movie, “Lion King” you will remember the celebration of the entire jungle community when the Lion family’s new cub is marked with coconut milk and lifted toward the heavens by the medicine man monkey. The crowd roars and hoots and screams and the music sings of the circle of life!”
Baptisms draw families together and make us want to continue celebrating long after the service ends. There’s so much joy in baptisms that it’s almost like Christmas, you really hate to get too theological at the risk of ruining the simple, unexplained joy of it all.
So, I beg for your pardon for just a few minutes, as I reflect on baptism just a little cautiously. I have, in fact, always dreaded having to explain baptism, especially to children. I worry about those children in the group who are not baptized, or aren’t sure if they’re baptized, and if they will feel left out, or different, or less worthy somehow, than the other children.
I also worry that some people may still think that baptism, like church membership, changes people in the eyes of God; qualified people somehow for special privileges or separates people into categories.
To most of our culture, the Church is seen as little more than an exclusive club, complete with initiation rites and secret creeds and rituals. This is what keeps some folks far away from exploring religious faith. Too often, misunderstanding of the act of baptism simply reinforces the concept that the Church places itself above others as some sort of moral watchdog, judge and jury.
The story is told of a mother who noticed her daughter doing something that both of them knew was not right. When her mother confronted her with the possibility of a time out, the little girl drew herself up to her full four feet of height and said proudly, “You can’t touch me! I’m baptized!”
Let’s be clear about what we’re about to do here today as we baptize Ellie. The relationship between Ellie and God; a relationship of love and grace that began mysteriously far before she came to visit this world; that relationship could never change through anything we might do or say.
So what does it mean to be baptized? William Willimon writes that when he was in high school and ready to head out for a date night, his mother would offer these weighty words: “William, don’t forget who you are!” She wasn’t concerned that her son might suddenly develop amnesia. She wanted him to remember his heritage, his family and community and the values they stood for, and act accordingly.
That is what baptism is about. The act of baptism reminds us who we and who our children are created to become. We are filled with joy at baptisms because we remember that all humanity has been named and claimed by God. We have a purpose, a role, an identity. We are created, as human creatures, with minds and bodies and spirits that make us uniquely responsible for one another. Every living creature on earth is equally valuable; equally precious, but humanity has been transformed throughout time, into creatures whom our God calls by unique names; names like “peacemaker,” “story-teller,” “friend,” and “steward.”
The 43rd chapter of the Prophet Isaiah contains words that were spoken during the lowest point in Israel’s history; during that time when the people were living in exile in Babylonia. The Israelites must have reasoned that either their God, Yahweh, had been defeated by the Babylonian gods, or that they were being punished by Yahweh for their sins. In either case, their future looked dismal indeed.
Yet, the prophet Isaiah, made the audacious claim that Yahweh had already redeemed them; that God had called them by name and, as they belonged to God, God would protect and restore their lives.
The gospels each tell the story of Jesus’ baptism a bit differently. Luke, has the Baptist John already in Herod’s prison when Jesus is baptized and John’s gospel doesn’t even mention an actual baptism. What is common in all four stories is the naming and claiming that took place at some point in Jesus’ life. In all four stories witnesses declare that “the heavens were opened” and Jesus, at least, “saw the Spirit of God descending upon him like a dove.” Each of the gospel stories declares Jesus to be God’s son, God’s beloved, with whom God is well pleased.
As God began to claim Jesus’ life, Jesus heard God saying, “I made you. You are mine. I love you and I am proud of you!” In the waters of his baptism, Jesus was named and claimed as God’s beloved. This naming and claiming was the affirmation that would sustain Jesus during his temptations and the joys and trials of his ministry on earth just as the prophet Isaiah wrote, “When you pass through the waters, I will be with you; and through the rivers, they shall not overwhelm you.”
John offered a baptism of repentance; a baptism with water, but he told his followers that one was coming after him who would baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire. We baptize with water, fortunately, but the words we say baptize with the Holy Spirit and fire, in the name of our God, who is known as father, mother, creator; who is revealed to us as son, Jesus, the Christ; and who is experienced as the Holy Spirit, the “breathe,” of God.
In baptism we are named; reminded who we are; who we are called to be and to become. We are named and claimed as God’s beloved children and this both calls us and empowers us, just as it did Jesus, to bring good news to the poor, release to captives, and sight to the blind. That is who we were created to be. That is who we must be. That is who we can be. In God’s grace and love, that is who we are.
Imagine what could come to pass in this world, if every human being upon the earth heard God saying these words to them personally: “You are my child, whom I love; with you I am well pleased.” Those are the words we declare to Ellie this morning as the waters of baptism are placed on her head. Those are the words that light are hearts on fire with joy! Listen to those words again. Listen carefully, for God is speaking these words to you. “You are my beloved; with you I am well pleased.”
Posted 8 months ago at 11:34 am. Add a comment
SERMON: “How Did He Know?”
Isaiah 60:1-6; Luke 2:22-35
Dr. John M. Salmon
January 3, 2010
Most of us, if presented with a newborn baby, especially if we didn’t know the parents, might perhaps offer a comment something like “What a cute baby!” Or if we were a bit more adventurous, we might remark that “She has her mother’s eyes” or “He has his father’s brow.” Not Simeon. Simeon sees in this little infant, resting in the arms parents who are strangers to him, the culmination of all his hopes and dreams, even of his life. What a remarkable story!
What can Simeon have possibly seen in the face of this eight-day-old child, brought by his poor parents to the temple for the prescribed dedication to God, to evoke from him such a hymn of praise to God as the Nunc Dimittis – “Lord, now let your servant depart in peace…” – followed by an oracle of what the future would bring for this child and his mother? What is there that tells this old, pious Jew that in this tiny, wrapped-up bundle of vulnerable humanity the salvation of God had finally come to Israel, and even to the world? What was there in those infant eyes, those infant features, that spoke to him of the fulfillment of all the promises of the Messiah, all the hopes of Israel, all the longings of those who had remained God’s faithful people, waiting for God’s deliverance? How did he know? How could he know?
Luke, the Gospel writer, attributes it to the Holy Spirit – mentioned three times in three successive verses. “The Holy Spirit rested on” Simeon, he tells us (Luke 2:25). It was the Holy Spirit that had “revealed to [Simeon] that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah” (2:26) – a special privilege accorded this devout man, a tribute to his special devotion to God. And then when the time finally came that the promise was to be fulfilled, it was, Luke tells us, no mere chance occurrence that brought Simeon to the Temple on the day that Jesus’ parents presented him to the Lord. Simeon was “guided by the Spirit” that day into the temple where Mary and Joseph had brought their child to be dedicated (2:27).
Certainly the Holy Spirit is the guiding presence behind what is going on here. But I think there’s something more, something about Simeon himself, that is involved in this story, and in Simeon’s experience. And that something more is that Simeon was not simply a passive recipient of this revelation about this child. He was reaching out for such a revelation, looking for it, hoping for it, expecting it.
Not that an experience of the Holy Spirit may not come to people who are not looking for it. Luke has already told us about such unexpected experiences in this very birth narrative of his Gospel. Think about Zechariah, who was literally struck dumb by the news that he and his wife Hannah, who had never been able to have children, were to have a son in their old age, who became John the Baptist. Think about Mary herself, surprised by a vision of the angel Gabriel saying to her, “Greetings, favored one! The Lord is with you.” (Luke 1:28) Luke tells us that Mary “was much perplexed by his words and wondered what sort of greeting this might be.” (vs. 29) And the news that she was to have a child, the promised Messiah, certainly came as a surprise to her: “But I’m still a virgin,” she says. Lots of folks have been surprised, shocked, perplexed by an experience of the Holy Spirit of God they weren’t at all expecting. The Spirit blows where it wills, the Gospel of John tells us.
But there’s something different going on here, and maybe we can learn something from this old man. Maybe there is something about who Simeon was, or what he did, that can bring the Holy Spirit more actively into our own lives.
For one thing, Simeon was a watcher, “one who looked forward to the consolation of Israel,” as Luke says about him. “The consolation of Israel” was a way of referring to the messianic age, the time when faithful Jews believed God would deliver his people. And Simeon’s whole life turned about this watching and waiting, this looking forward to the time when God would bring to fulfillment his promise of salvation. Simeon lived in that expectation, and he was convinced that God had promised him that he would indeed live to see the fulfillment of God’s promise of salvation, that he would live to see the Lord’s Messiah.
Not too many of us, I think, are watchers. Not like Simeon. We take things as they come, or perhaps try to make things happen – one or the other, depending on our personality. But we are not given to waiting to see the future that God is making happen, and waiting not passively but eagerly, expectantly, with our eyes peeled to catch sight of some sign of God’s promised redeeming action, living lives built around that hope of seeing God’s salvation come to fulfillment. What would our experience of God be if we were more like Simeon, eagerly watching and waiting for God to touch our lives?
Simeon was also one who was “religious and devout”, as Luke describes him – a model of faithfulness and piety. He was not one to be haphazard or negligent in his worship and his devotion to God, but instead was deeply committed and constant in the practice of his faith. And of course, I’m talking about Simeon, not about any of us.
That didn’t mean that every time Simeon went into the Temple he had a transforming experience. Simeon had been waiting a long time, and yearning for a long time, for the revelation of God’s salvation that finally came to him in this little child. A long time. Some days, it must have seemed to him, as it must seem sometimes to anyone who is faithful in worship, that nothing much was happening; the hand of the Holy Spirit was not to be seen; it wasn’t very inspiring. But Simeon was constant; he was faithful. And because of his faithfulness and constancy he was blessed.
Perhaps there were other reasons that God chose to reveal the truth about this little eight-day-old infant to Simeon. God keeps God’s own counsel about such things. But those two qualities of Simeon – his attitude of watching and waiting, looking forward to God’s blessing, on the one hand, and his faithfulness and dedication to the practice of his faith, on the other, I think were necessary prerequisites to that happening. And if we truly desire the power and joy of the Holy Spirit to enter our lives, if we want something from our faith that so far has eluded us, then a similar watchfulness and faithfulness must be part of our lives as well.
There’s one thing we need to recognize in all this. Outwardly, nothing much changed for Simeon, or for Jerusalem, or for the world, once he had seen God’s salvation. Herod was still king, Roman troops were still nailing up patriots on crosses, Jerusalem still overflowed with beggars. But somehow Simeon sensed that, though to all outward appearances little had changed, under the surface everything had changed. For him, and for the world. Somehow he sensed that in this unprepossessing baby boy of a poor peasant couple, a new force had arrived in the world that changed everything, while it seemed that nothing at all had changed.
This sacrament is much like that. Outwardly, it is just bread and grape juice – not even wine. But somehow, when we consecrate it to this special use, it changes – not outwardly, not physically or chemically, but in a way that makes it, for us, more than just bread and grape juice.
And when God’s Holy Spirit comes into our world, our individual worlds, it is often much the same. Outwardly, life goes on much as before. There is still work to be done, routine to be followed, troubles to be overcome, temptations to be avoided, sorrows to be borne. And yet, somehow, everything has changed. Somehow, the world is different, because we are different. And sometimes, sometimes, it feels as if we have discovered the purpose, the meaning, the very culmination of our lives.
Amen.
Posted 8 months, 1 week ago at 9:59 am. Add a comment