SImeon and Anna (noon healing mass)

 

Simeon and Anna--Hoping for Consolation

30 December 2021

Thursday in the Octave of Christmas

Homily preached at Trinity Episcopal Church

Ashland, Oregon

12:00 noon Healing Mass

The Rev. Anthony Hutchinson, SCP. Ph.D.

1 John 2:12-17; Luke 2:36-40; Psa 96:7-10

 

1 John 2:12-17

¹²I write to you littlest ones:
    your failings have all been sent away on account of who Jesus is. 

¹³I write to you oldsters:
    you know the One who is from the beginning.
I write to you youngsters:
    you are victorious over the evil one.
¹⁴I write to you little ones:
    you know our heavenly Parent.
I write to you fathers and mothers:
    you know the One who is from the beginning.
I write to you young adults:
    you are strong and God’s word abides in you,
        and you are victorious over the evil one.

¹⁵Do not love the world’s ways or the world’s goods.  The love of the world squeezes out the love for the Father; ¹⁶for almost everything that is the world’s—excessive desire for sex, possessions, and wealth—draws you not to the Father but rather separates you. ¹⁷The world and all its ceaseless wanting is fading away—but whoever does what God wants will abide into the new age.  (TAB)

 

Psa 96:7-10  Cantate Domino BCP 726

7	Ascribe to the Lord, you families of the peoples; *
	ascribe to the Lord honor and power.
8	Ascribe to the Lord the honor due his Name; *
	bring offerings and come into his courts.
9	Worship the Lord in the beauty of holiness; *
	let the whole earth tremble before him.
10	Tell it out among the nations: “The Lord is King! *
	he has made the world so firm that it cannot be moved;
	he will judge the peoples with equity.”

 

Luke 2:36-40

²⁵Now there was a person in Jerusalem whose name was Simeon. This person was quick to give alms and devout, awaiting the consolation of Isra’el, and a Holy Spirit was upon him. ²⁶It had been revealed to him by the Holy Spirit that he should not die before he had seen the Messiah of the Noble One. ²⁷He came in the Spirit into the temple; and as the parents brought in the little child Jesus to perform for him what was customary in law, ²⁸he took him in his arms and blessed God with these words: 

²⁹“Now, Master, you may set your servant free
    to go in peace, as you have promised,
³⁰for these eyes of mine have seen your salvation,
³¹     prepared by you for all the world to see,
³²a light to enlighten the nations,
    and the glory for your people Isra’el.”

³³The child’s father and mother were amazed at what was being said about him; ³⁴then Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “See:  this child is destined for the fall and rise of many in Isra’el, and to be a symbol rejected by many—³⁵indeed, you yourself a sword shall pierce—thus revealing the thoughts of their hearts.”

 

³⁶There was also a prophetess, Anna, the daughter of Phanu’el, of the tribe of Asher. She was elderly, having lived with her husband after her marriage for seven years, ³⁷and then as a widow for another eighty-four. She never left the temple, but worshiped night and day with fasting and prayer. ³⁸And coming forward at that very time, she gave thanks to God and spoke about the child to all who were awaiting the redemption of Jerusalem.  ³⁹When they had fulfilled all the prescriptions of the law of the Noble One, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. ⁴⁰As the child grew up, he became strong; he was filled with wisdom and God’s favor was upon him. (TAB)

 

 

 

 

God, take away our hearts of stone, and give us hearts of flesh. Amen

 

The readings today are all about one idea—ascribe to God the Glory due God’s name, rather than ascribe to yourself the glory which you think you are due.  Simeon and Anna “await the consolation of Israel” in prayer and worship, and suddenly find the one they had hoped for right there in front of them.  Anna has been a widow for most of her long life, and she stays almost non-stop in the Temple each day to worship.  Their faith and trust transcend the Temple, precisely because of their dutiful and intentional participation in its rituals and attention to the meanings and hopes expressed in these words and actions.  1 John tells us to give up our “ceaseless wanting” and do what God wants instead. 

 

Remember that when God made the world, God pronounced it “very good.”  But left to our own devices, we twist that good into something distorted and broken that isolates us from God.  It is only when we let go of our excessive desire to have our own way, our own pleasure, our own wealth that we find the broken mended, the twisted straightened, and the sick healed.   What the King James version translates as “all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, and the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life,” is actually an illusion that is passing away.  When you look at it carefully, you realize, in the words of Alan Watts, that you don’t really have to let go of anything, because there is nothing there actually to hold onto.     

 

Trusting God, trying however imperfectly to live according to God’s expectations, that is what gives us the heart to hope for consolation, and eyes to see it when it comes. 

 

Thanks be to God.