Sermon Archive
Weird and Wonderful
Sermon preached by John Armes at Holy Communion on 2 February 2003
Hebrews 2.14-18 ; Luke 2.22-40
Have you noticed that the church seems to attract weird people? Thank God for that, that's what I say. Because, for one thing, it means that the Christian church hasn't entirely lost touch with Jesus given his special affinity with outcasts, sinners and other misfits. And, for another thing, it makes us feel at home.
Besides, if you look at Christian history you will find that weirdness and holiness are close friends, so close they form only one shadow. Which one you see depends on where you happen to be standing at the time. As Kenneth Boyd described for us at Epiphany, what brings one person momentarily to breathtaking insight leaves another quite unmoved. It is to do with our capacity, created by circumstances and the mysterious workings of our inner selves, for wonderment. So I find it to be true of our more awkward brothers and sisters in Christ that they are one moment weird, the next wonderful.
What about Simeon and Anna? Were they weird or wonderful? Or both? You see I can't help but see them in my mind's eye as a couple of those eccentric people who you find hanging around any large religious building. The Temple in Jerusalem was the perfect place. It may be they had an overdeveloped attachment to religious ceremonial. Perhaps they liked attention, or were lonely. Or was it a way of making ends meet - hard enough for old people in those days before pensions and health service.
And who better to tap for funds than all those dewy-eyed young couples with baby sons, who have come for the rites of purification after childbirth, full of goodwill towards everyone?
Simeon: Ah, I can die content now I've seen such a lovely baby. Mary: Aw go on, I bet you say that to everyone, don't you! Anna: Would you like a poor old woman to read your baby's future. Ooo what a little charmer! Here's a fine strong lad. He'll show those Romans what for, I can tell. Won't you? Won't you? Yes you will! Mary: Come on Joseph, give the lady something, she must be a prophetess. Joseph: I'll give her a shove if she doesn't get out of the way.
But this is not, you'll have noticed, how Luke tells the story. These are two people who have so filled themselves with the sense of God that they are able to speak God's words. They speak from an old world and yet are capable of realising that a new one has now arrived. This child, says Simeon, is to be the salvation, the light of all peoples, not just Israel. Indeed, in him Israel finds its true calling and glory. Whilst in Matthew's Gospel the Epiphany, the shedding of the light for the gentile world is heralded by Wise Men from the east, in Luke it is proclaimed by an old man from Jerusalem.
Quite clearly, these are no bland twitterings over a bouncing baby, for Simeon then turns to Mary. This child will bring challenge and opposition and, he says, 'a sword will pierce your own soul too.' We can look ahead in the story and remember Mary's puzzlement at the behaviour of her son, her fear that he was mad. We can see the forlorn figure by the cross.
In short, Simeon explains that Jesus represents a pivotal moment in history. Something new not just for the Jews but for everyone. And at such moments in history, when one person sees or does things differently, challenges others, brings them a moment of judgement or decision, suffering almost inevitably follows. From our vantage point we can see that this is a crisis still being worked out in our age where the life of Jesus still disturbs and unsettles and his words are used to excuse inhumanity and where religious practice still gives rise to conflict. The call to take up our cross rings as true as ever.
Candlemas gets its name from the time when candles for use in church were blessed. But it clearly also refers to the Presentation of Christ in the Temple, when Simeon spoke to us of the light for the whole world. It marks the end of the ancient Christmas cycle of prayers and readings, but it points us beyond Christmas and hints at sorrows to come. For this was a real human being born in Bethlehem, presented in the Temple, as the writer to the Hebrews underlines - he was like us in every way. Luke makes the same point - 'the child grew and became strong.'
This child has become our light and inspiration. He gives meaning to our lives, helps shape our characters and forms the things that matter most to us. He it is whom we worship, and his death and life are made present in the bread and wine of this communion service. All this is familiar to us, perhaps so familiar that we do not always stop to remind ourselves that if he was the light to enlighten the nations, then we too, as the church, now carry that light for him.
When two weeks ago we gathered with the West End Churches and collected for the work of the Raven Trust, (working in a clubland culture), when last week we reflected on the injustice of which homelessness is a part, and gave to that cause too, when yesterday some of you met to express dismay and opposition to the prospect of war in Iraq, that was the church seeking to be light for the world. Not light to those who live in ignorance or doctrinal error, not light to those who refuse to accept our authority, but the light of love, compassion and the fire of justice.
This is our primary call as the church, to make a difference to people's lives: to follow Jesus in reaching out to those whose lives are damaged by a world that is out of kilter, distorted, broken; and so to become part of the process by which this world is transformed, liberated and made whole. To follow Jesus, in other words, has its consequences. This means that we cannot ignore the great issues of international politics that cause someone to die in Iraq or starve in Zimbabwe, we cannot turn aside from the homes tormented by drug abuse in our own city, we cannot overlook the person struggling with bereavement or illness in this congregation.
Speaking for myself, I reckon that I am on the Way, but that Jesus has to walk pretty slowly to keep pace with me. And although I glimpse the light as it were at early dawn I have yet to grasp what high noon in the glare of God's love might really mean. I can speak of a transformed world, dream of the possibilities of peace, yet find that I myself am a barrier to that transformation and a hindrance to peace. And if I, then, I hazard a guess, the church as a whole is probably less the city set on a hill and more often the lamp hidden under the basket.
So I thank God once again for all Simeons and Annas who both witness to and exemplify the grace of God. Luke's Simeon and Anna were not priests or theologians, they did not belong to the staff of the Temple. But they spoke to God and God spoke through them. And Luke tells us that, astonishingly, they understood, in a way we still struggle to comprehend, that in one child, already overshadowed by a cross, the world had changed.
We are the inheritors of this changed world; the peoples on whom the light of Christ has shone; we, of all people, are now the bearers of this light of hope. Weird - but wonderful.
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