February 2, 2020

Helen Jacobi

Feast of the Presentation     Malachi 3:1-4     Luke 2:22-40

Video available on YouTube, Facebook

Anyone feeling chronologically confused this morning? Our gospel reading has Jesus as a baby again – over the last month we had Christmas, then the visit of the Magi, then his baptism as an adult, and last week he was out and about calling disciples for the team.

So what’s going on?

Well, today is 40 days since Christmas; and Jesus would have been presented in the Temple 40 days after his birth so this feast day gets dropped in where it belongs, 40 days after Christmas, and this year it happens to be a Sunday.

In the account, the gospel writer Luke actually seems a little confused about Jewish rituals – the 40 day rule was actually for the “purification” of the mother after childbirth. (It would have been 80 days if Jesus had been a girl – the mother of a baby girl was doubly unclean – but let’s not go there.) So Mary and Joseph go to the Temple for Mary’s purification ceremony; and to offer a sacrifice in thanksgiving for their firstborn son, (they offer two birds rather than a lamb which tells us they were people of limited means).

Waiting for them at the Temple are two people: Simeon and Anna.

Both in their senior years; both we are told people of prayer and devotion to God. Luke says they have been waiting for God to reveal the Messiah – the one who would save the people – to them.

But I imagine it was not really as clear cut as that.

I imagine Anna and Simeon were ordinary people going about their lives. Anna spent a lot of time at the Temple, she may have lived there as one of the women attendants; Simeon lived in Jerusalem.

Think of older family members you admire – or some of our congregation in their senior years – Anna and Simeon would have been like them.

Anna and Simeon were alert and watching; observant of the world around them; seeing God at work in their daily lives and the lives of those they met. They noticed things, they gave thanks, they prayed. They brought the good and the bad to God. They would have been reciters of the psalms which offer praise and lament, joy and sorrow, in equal measure. They would have listened to the words of the prophets who promised a better future.

They were Advent people, expectant and hopeful. They would have seen the Temple rebuilt in their lifetime, the Temple of Solomon that had been destroyed in 587BC was rebuilt by Herod in 20BC, so it is still new in the minds of the people when Jesus is born. The building of the Temple was seen a sign that the Messiah might be near. And so they watched and waited.

How well do we do at watching and waiting? How well do we do at noticing and naming God at work in our lives and in our world?

We have been to the beach at Long Bay Beach twice in the last week – yesterday for our families’ bbq and last week on Akld Anniversary day. On Anniversary Day the beach was pretty crowded by NZ standards, but still plenty of room for everyone! A gorgeous day and as we walked along the beach I would have loved to be able to take a census of the people – Moslem women dressed modestly from head to toe, with heads covered, swimming next to pakeha girls with virtually nothing on! A group of Sikh men playing beach soccer in their turbans; Chinese people wearing the widest brimmed hats against the sun; large family groups of people of Polynesian descent; 

children of all ethnicities digging sandcastles ….

An amazing array of God’s rainbow people as Desmond Tutu would say. Everyone happily enjoying the day – an image of the way God created the world to be if ever there was one.

So I give thanks for that day and the image I now carry in my head of God’s creation.

During the week, here at the church, we were reminded of how tough life can be as a group set up camp in the church garden and despite help from the City Mission we had to call on the police for help to move them on. An example of how we fall short every day of delivering on the world God has created for us.

Like Anna and Simeon we can offer words of praise and lament, joy and sorrow, in what we see in the world around us.

Next Sunday our reading is about salt and light – us in particular being called to be salt of the earth and light to the world (no pressure). 5 of our parishioners are going to offer a short reflection on how our worship and life as a community supports the work or volunteering that they do. When I asked, a couple of people responded to me saying – I am not sure I have ever really thought about that – all the more reason to, I said! Our worship and life of faith is not something that exists on its own, as a segment of our life. My prayer is that our worship life is usefully connected with the rest of your week. That it helps you with the task of being able to notice God at work in the world.

Barbara Brown Taylor says our liturgy is training and practice for our lives

“We pray, we listen to God’s word, we confess, we make peace, we lift up our hearts, we hold out our hands, we are fed, we give thanks, we go forth. We practice the patterns of our life together before God, rehearsing them until they become second nature to us.” [1]

Then we go out and do the same in the world: We pray, we listen to God’s word, we confess, we make peace, we lift up our hearts, we hold out our hands, we are fed, we give thanks, we go forth. That is what Anna and Simeon did and they were blessed to see God in the form of the baby Jesus.

Lucy Winkett, the vicar of St James, Piccadilly in London puts it like this;

“there is no way for a Christian community to become clear sighted without committing itself to prayer – every day for some, most weeks for others - to return to the source of life in Christ – and …, pray in the knowledge that everything – all the tragedy, joy, confusion, hubris, kindness, fury and violence – all of it – is held in the clear sighted gaze of God; the only one who sees us and everything as it really is.” [2]

God sees us clearly and we are called to see God – clearly or not so clearly as best we can. The important thing is to be waiting and watching and looking and noticing.

What might you notice this week? Your task for the week is to notice one thing – one time or place or person that you give thanks for; and another time or place where you and others have fallen short, or where we as a society have fallen short.

Like my examples of Long Bay and people camping in the garden.

And bring those images in your head with you to church next week.

God sees us clearly and we are called to see God – clearly or not so clearly as best we can.

Like Simeon and Anna in the courtyards of the Temple, the important thing is to be waiting and watching and looking and noticing.

[1] p 64 The Preaching Life 1993 

[2] Jan 2020 HeartEdge Resource Email