Simeon

Simeon

Luke 2:22-35

Last week, we talked about epiphanies as moments of sudden insight, usually deep insight, into the meaning or nature of things.  This past Wednesday was the Feast of Epiphany.  We are now in the midst of the season of Epiphany.  However, personal epiphanies come in all shapes and sizes and in all sorts of moments in our lives.  They are the moments that make us go, “Hmmm…” or say, “A-ha!” or maybe just go, “Wow!”  A good epiphany can even leave us speechless every now and then.

We began to make the case last week that often what stands between us and an epiphany is the way in which we stubbornly cling to what we think we already know.  It’s hard work to set what we know aside and take a fresh look.  It’s a challenge to listen to what we’re sure that we’ve already heard.  It takes a lot of energy to stay awake and aware as opposed to slumbering our way into that “I’ve already seen it all” state of semi-consciousness.  Our eyes glaze over.  Our “earlids” slam shut.  Every now and then we think, “Wow, it’s been a while since I’ve been surprised, since I’ve learned something new, since I’ve had that ‘A-ha’ moment.”  Chances are, though, we’ll find someone else to blame for that.

We took a fresh look at the story of the wise men.  We challenged all the stuff we think we know:  where the wise men were from; how many of them there were; what they did for a living; what they rode.  We suddenly realized how strange their gifts were and what a risk it must have been to follow a star and how wise they must have been to see the child and humbly drop to their knees.  Finally, we watched as they listened to a dream and went home by another way.  A text which otherwise might not speak to us suddenly challenged us to be the kind of wise and faithful people who notice something that seems out of place and who are curious enough to find out what’s really going on.  We wonder if we could be wise and faithful enough to drop to our knees in humility when we discover that we are in the presence of the sacred.  Would we listen to a dream?

Of course, the challenge isn’t to watch for errant stars and to keep a dream journal.  The challenge is to be awake and aware and available. The challenge is to be open to something other than just what we expect to see or what we expect to happen.  The challenge is to believe that there is “something more” in this life and that an essential part of being human is watching for the ways in which that something more appears.

A number of years ago, there was a television show called, “Joan of Arcadia.”  Joan was a high school student who suddenly began having experiences of the “something more.”  The trick was that when the something more that I would call God spoke to her it wasn’t that God was speaking from a burning bush or parting the Red Sea.  Nope…for Joan, the cafeteria lady would look up from shoveling mashed potatoes onto Joan’s tray and say the most powerful thing or the custodian would look up from mopping and say something purely God-filled.  What the writers got right was that it was in the midst of Joan’s everyday, ordinary life that God spoke to her.  (Of course, this show was far too creative to last and was cancelled after a season or two…not that I’m bitter!)

One of the central lessons of Scripture about how God works in the world is that God works through the least likely people in the most unlikely of places and in the most surprising ways.  We really have to be paying attention or we will miss it.  Literally, the lesson of so much of the Gospels is that so many people who had a chance to literally stand and look at and listen to Jesus of Nazareth missed the profound importance of that moment.  They missed it for the same reasons most of us would:  because we were worried about something else and distracted; or because we were thinking about about what had happened a few minutes before or what we were sure was going to happen tomorrow: or simply because the disturbing truths that this man was speaking would really upset our world if we took him seriously and who really wants to change?

In baseball, if you get a hit three out of every ten at bats, then we will see you in the Hall of Fame.  I’m convinced that if you catch one out of ten of the potential moments of encounter with the “something more” in this life, we will call you a saint.  So many things blow past us like a 100 mile-per-hour fastball.  We swing and we miss and we realize that the ball has been sitting in the catcher’s mitt for a second before we ever decided to swing.

This is why our text this morning matters so much.  It is eight days after Jesus’ birth.  We know this because Luke specifies this.  However, we also know this because this was the custom for faithful Jewish parents.  When their son was born, they would go to the temple eight days after that birth to make a sacrifice in leu of sacrificing their son.  At this point, you should remember Abraham in a horrific moment taking his son, Isaac, up the mountain and building an altar on which he would sacrifice his son.  God stops this and has Abraham sacrifice a lamb instead.  As a tribute to that moment, parents go to the temple and sacrifice a lamb and a bird to God.  

Here’s the interesting thing, though.  Mary and Joseph sacrifice two birds instead.  Why?  The answer is pretty simple.  Lambs were expensive.  Therefore, arrangements were made for poor parents to offer the more affordable sacrifice of two birds.  In other words, the implication is that Mary and Joseph were relatively poor—faithful enough to go to the temple and fulfill their obligations but poor enough that they qualified for this alternative sacrifice. 

Why does this matter?  In part, this matters because Luke is going to go out of his way to show us that when Jesus grows up, he cares first about the poor.  This is a rebuttal to everyone who thought that poor people must be poor because they deserve to be poor and that God must have been the one to decide they deserved this. Of course, no one still today ever looks at the poor that way, right?  No one today would promise you that if you’re faithful then God will make you rich—would they?

Joseph and Mary’s status also matters because it makes what happens next all the more unlikely.  Just as they are about to arrive at the temple, something happens.  Somewhere nearby, there is a man named, Simeon.  We are told several things about this man.  Luke tells us that he is “righteous and devout” in the New Revised Standard Version or a “good man” in the translation we read this morning.  The implication is that Simeon was a man of his word, that he would have done the right thing, that his yes meant yes and his no meant no, that he would have been trusted in business, that you could have counted on him as a friend.  This was a person of character and integrity.  At the same time, he was devout.  He was in the right relationship with God.  It’s been said that a good man is hard to find.  If you looked Simeon in the eye, you would have found one.

Now, in the spirit of Epiphany, let me also point out what Simeon was not.  You may think—possibly because I may have told you in the past—that Simeon was an old man.  Interestingly, that is not in the text at all.  So, I’m going to say three of the most important words we can learn to say, “I was wrong!” Luke doesn’t tell us how old he was or how handsome he was or how eloquent he was.  He just tells us that he was a good man.

Well, actually, he tells us one other thing.  He tells us that the “Holy Spirit was upon him.”  Let’s be honest here.  We all like a good guy until we run into the moment when we just wish he would lighten up, right?  And, when it comes to religion, most of us don’t mind a religious person as long as they don’t take the whole religion thing too far, right?  Here’s the thing about Simeon.  He took the whole God thing so seriously that he was convinced that God had made a promise to him.  That promise was that before he died, he would see with his own two eyes the one who would be the consolation of Israel, the Messiah, who would make things right for the nation.  You have to suspect that anyone he shared that little secret with would have thought, “Poor Simeon, now he’s crossed the line.” Except Luke tells us that all of this is true.

So, Simeon is not only a good guy and a faithful guy.  He is also a hopeful and patient guy.  (Really?  Hopeful and patient? That’s almost beyond human…)  On the day when Mary and Jospeh and the baby are heading to the temple, Simeon is patiently and hopefully available, just like he had been probably for years:  “This could be the day!  In the meantime, I’ll go about my business.”  Hope and patience turn out to be what makes a person available, awake and aware enough to be led by the Spirit.  Luke doesn’t explain but I’ve imagined this to be less about a heavenly voice and more about a nagging sense that I just need to get to the temple…now!  The point is that it doesn’t matter whether we are led by a star or by a nagging voice.  What matters is that we show up.

Simeon shows up.  As I said, I’ve always imagined at this point an old man, hobbling up to Mary and Joseph and cradling the baby in his time worn arms.  However, what if he was relatively young?  This would make it even more strange for him to approach Joseph and Mary.  The old man could seem so benign, softened by the years.  However, since when do young men approach strangers to hold their baby?  Stick with the young man for a moment.  He takes Jesus in his arms and immediately blesses God and declares that now he can die in peace because he has seen the Messiah.  Doesn’t this moment become even more powerful if this is a young man with his whole life in front of him, instead of an old man already in his final days?  He says a thing or two about how this child will be light for the Gentiles and the Jews and then he hands the baby back to Mary.  And Mary and Joseph are speechless…

Then, Simeon continues.  First, he blesses Mary and Joseph, which, in and of itself, pushes the envelope since the folks who were in charge of blessings were supposed to be the professionals—the priests.  After all, this is only a good and devout man who also is hopeful and patient and the Holy Spirit rests upon him.  Where does he get off thinking he could bless someone, right?  Then he says the strangest thing of all.  He looks Mary in the eye and tells her that this child is going to break her heart.

Simeon sees who this child will become and he realizes that this child will one day challenge people to the core.  He will be misunderstood and contradicted.  He will be mistreated and utterly ignored.  He will reveal to the world who the faithful and unfaithful people truly are.  And as he looks Mary in the eye, he can’t help but see how hard it will be to love someone this much and have to watch the world abuse him.

For Simeon, though, he had seen everything he needed to see.  In fact, as he gazes into that child’s eyes, he can already see what so many will fail to see for decades to come—that God has acted, that the Messiah has come. That’s all it took for a good man full of hope and patience to become a good man who found some peace.