Elder Disciples: Simeon, Anna and Us 1/19
Today’s text begins with the circumcision and naming of the infant Jesus eight days after his birth. Our Lord was a Jewish child raised as an observant Jew by his parents. (Some of the worst distortions of who Jesus was and is have come from a denial of his Jewishness). He was, per instructions of the angel, named Jesus which means “God has come, is coming, will come to save.” What are the ways God comes to save? We shall see.
I
Then Mary and Joseph brought him to the temple in Jerusalem for the rite of purification. They offered a sacrifice, “two turtle doves”—which was the sacrifice you offered if you were among the poorer classes and could not afford a lamb. Zachariah and Elizabeth, Mary and Joseph—and as we shall see—Simeon and Anna were among the Anawim, the “poor of Israel”. God could have placed Jesus among the rich, powerful and wise, those of high station, but instead God placed him among the poor. Why? Southern writer Flannery O’Connor gives us a clue. She wrote: “You accept grace the quickest when you have the least.” 1
II
Now we have the entrance of two faithful elders of the faith: Simeon and Anna. I call them “elder-disciples”. They possess what I call “long-sight”—which could have been the title of this sermon. They have the long-sight of many years of experience, and they have the long-sight which centuries of religious teaching have given them. Their eyes were trained to see how God is at work now because they had learned how God had acted in the past. In the Chartres Cathedral in France one stained-glass window depicts the four gospel writers, Matthew, Mark, Luke and John each sitting on the shoulders of a Hebrew prophet: Matthew on Isaiah, Mark on Daniel, Luke on Jeremiah and John on Ezekiel. They could see farther, clearer because they sat on the shoulders of the prophets. So do we.
This is what our elder-disciples offer us in church: long-sight based on life-experience and a long conversation with Jesus which encompasses centuries of Christian teaching. We honor everyone in our church today and through the years who have offered us long-sight.
III
Back to the story. Led by the Holy Spirit, Simeon came to the temple that day. Called “righteous and devout” he was among the poor of Israel waiting, as the text says, “for the consolation of Israel”, for the deliverance, the salvation of Israel.
The Spirit had told him that he would not die before he had seen the promised Messiah. When he entered the temple and saw the infant Jesus, he picked him up and held him in his arms. Then comes another song! He said, or chanted, a poem that has been sung throughout the centuries. We call it the Nunc Dimittis, from its first words, “Now I depart.” He sang:
Now let your servant depart in peace
for my eyes have seen the salvation
which You have prepared for all peoples,
a light of revelation to the Gentiles
for the glory of Your people, Israel.
He is quoting scripture, he is improvising, he is seeing salvation right before his eyes; it is a universal salvation, and now he is ready to leave his post and be released into God’s eternal arms.
Then Simeon blessed them, all three. Here is what elder-disciples do, they bless us and guide us on our way.
Then Simeon looks into the future and sees suffering coming for the boy and his mother. This child will be opposed, and this opposition will reveal our hearts. Our hearts. Do you remember the solo often sung at Christmas, “Sweet Little Jesus Boy?”
The world treat you mean, Lord,
treat me mean too,
but that’s how things is down here
We didn’t know who you was.
We still don’t. We don’t know he is every child, the littlest and the least, from Syria to Guatemala to Statesville. Christ waits for us in them. God’s salvation is never unopposed in our wayward world. It challenges the way things are.
IV
Now comes Anna. She is given the title “prophet”, a spiritual title of great distinction. God, Luke tells us, raises up prophets both female and male, and she is one. Anna had been widowed after only seven years of marriage and was now 84. And she had then devoted most of her life to living in the temple, fasting and praying day and night. Now she sees the child and begins to praise God and tell others about him, those who like her were waiting for the consolation, redemption of Israel.
V
Now let me return to the elder-disciples in church. You give us long-sight, a longer sight than we have with our younger eyes.
When we turn around fifty or so, our eyes begin to change. We begin to develop what doctors call presbyopia. We need bifocals. Presbyopia is not having Presbyterian eyes.1 But the root word is the same. In the New Testament elders were called presbyters. They had elder-eyes; they give us a kind of elder-sight that is improved sight, sight gained by experience, steeped in scripture, led by the Spirit. Insight.
So today we praise our elder-disciples, like Clara and Sarah, like our parents who taught us the faith, like those in church who taught us the wisdom of the years with their lives, and with their words. They have blessed us like Simeon, and guided our paths. Who comes to your minds this day? We remember and thank God for them. Michelle Obama in her new book Becoming, writes of those who have “waved me forward.” Who in your life have “waved you forward”?
Paul says to young Timothy: “Let no one despise your youth.” We say to our elder-disciples, “Let no one despise your age.” Keep teaching us how to see.
Eckhart Tolle has become a famous writer teaching us how to live in the now. There is wisdom here. We can become pre-occupied with the past, especially past mistakes, and we can be fearfully preoccupied with what the future may bring. But we need more than the now. The “now” has its own blinders.
There is an ancient Chinese story which teaches this lesson.
There once was a Chinese farmer who had worked his fields for many years. One day his horse ran away. It was his one horse, vital to his life and livelihood. Days passed, and his horse did not return. Upon hearing the news his neighbors came and tried to express their sympathy.
“Such bad luck”, they said.
“Maybe”, the farmer said. “Good luck, bad luck, who can say?”
The day after the horse returned, bringing two wild stallions with him.
The neighbors returned. “Such good luck!” they exclaimed.
“Maybe”, said the farmer, “Good luck, bad luck, who can say?”
The next day the farmer’s son tried to train one of the wild horses, was thrown off and broke his leg.
The neighbors returned. “Such bad luck”, they said with true sympathy.
“Maybe”, said the farmer, “Good luck, bad luck, who can say?”
A few days later military officers came to the village to draft young men to fight in a war. It was a terrible war, and many young men never returned. Seeing that the farmer’s son had a broken leg, they passed him by.
“Such good luck!” cried the neighbors.
“Maybe”, said the farmer.
We never know what the present fortunes of our lives will bring. But those with long-sight help us live with faith and in the faithfulness of God. Do you know the old gospel song (it was most recently sung by LeeAnn Rhimes):
There are things about tomorrow
that I don’t seem to understand.
But I know who holds tomorrow
And I know who holds my hand. 2
Old hymns give us long-sight.
Great is thy faithfulness, O God my Father.
There is no shadow of turning with Thee.
Thou changest not, Thy compassions they fail not
as Thou has been Thou forever will be.
Summer and winter, springtime and harvest
sun, moon and stars in their courses above
join with all nature in manifold witness
to Thy great faithfulness, mercy and love.
There is a faithfulness at the heart of things.
Paul said it this way:
We know that in all things [the good and the bad]
God works for good with those who love God, who are called according to God’s purposes. (Romans 8:28)
V
These are for many anxious times—for our nation, for our planet and for our households. We wonder if the center will hold. We feel like the character in Green Pastures: “Everything nailed down is coming loose.” But those with the long-sight of faith can help us. Reinhold Niebuhr, perhaps America’s greatest theologian, wrote these words:
Nothing that is worth doing can be achieved in a lifetime; therefore we must be saved by hope. Nothing which is true or beautiful or good makes complete sense in any immediate context of history; therefore we must be saved by faith. Nothing we do, however virtuous, can be accomplished alone. Therefore we are saved by love. 3
Long-sight.
VI
Simeon and Anna saw the child and saw the salvation of God. They saw in him all the ways God has come in the past, is coming now and will come to save. Here are some.
Salvation as deliverance from oppression, from anything and everything that oppresses us.
Salvation as justice, as truly good news to the poor.
Salvation as “being wanted” and “coming home”, as I spoke of on Christmas Eve.
Salvation as reconciliation, with God and one another.
Salvation as forgiveness, forgiveness that goes all the way down and all the way back.
Salvation as peace, between nations, within nations, in relationships and inside our own skin.
Salvation as wholeness and healing—that is the root meaning of the word, as the salve we put on wounds.
And Salvation as love, the love that came down at Christmas, the love poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit, the love that came as a child, pure gift, a love neither earned, nor deserved, but ours forever in Christ.
Let us with Simeon and Anna give thanks and praise to God.
_______________________________
- Flannery O’Connor, The Habit Of Being (N.Y.: Farrar, Straws, Giroux, 1979), p. 241.
- Lyric by Ira F. Stanphill.
- Reinhold Niebuhr, Justice and Mercy, ed. Ursala M. Niebuhr (N.Y.: Harper & Row, Publishers, 1974), frontspiece.