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Sermon for the Feast of the PresentationFebruary 2, 2003St.
Luke's, Jamestown
by The Rev. Dr. J.A. Ross Mackenzie
The
Presentation in the Temple Luke 2: 22-40 I wish I had known Anna–Anna, the daughter of Phanuel. She is described in the Gospel as “of great age.” She is eighty-four. (I once asked a ninety-four year old woman what she liked best about being that age. She replied, “It’s great. No peer pressure.”) Anna is devout. She comes to the temple for prayer night and day. She must have seen Simeon. The temple was only 200 meters long, and the only place where she and he could be for prayer was fairly small. I imagine them with Jewish courtesy exchanging greetings, smiling. Surely he must have told her the extraordinary experience that he had had. It must have come bubbling out of him: “My eyes have seen the salvation of God!” His words surely were the inspiration of Julia Ward Howe. During the darkest days of the Civil War she had a dream of victory. She left her bed and wrote the “Battle Hymn of the Republic,” which stirred President Lincoln ‘like a trumpet blast,’ it was said, and it became his best loved marching song in the war to end slavery. “Mine eyes have seen the glory.” There they are: two old folk, and as they talk about what they have seen and prayed for, the old hope of freedom and justice becomes fresh again. A blessing for the world is coming, not just for us. A blessing for the Gentiles too. The
Winter of our Discontent
Now it is 2003, not 03. It is a weekend of sorrow and sadness. My younger brother, Donald, and I send e-mails to each other every Sunday. I received this one early today, dated 5:17 a.m. London time: Once again we watch a tragedy on our screens. Families, assembled in Florida to watch the return of their loved ones, had their lives shattered.... My thoughts were dark, dismal and disturbing. Our world is a shambles; the trumpets of war are blaring; the economy is in free fall and our savings evaporating. I turned on the TV. There was a program explaining that a major impact of an asteroid and the earth isn’t a distant possibility but an absolute certainty. Not much comfort there, old pal. But you are right: we are in the winter of our discontent. All the old demons are prowling around. Our modern demons are not horned creatures with tails, breathing fire. They are technicians in North Korea, working to develop nuclear weapons. They are technocrats in Iraq, mixing chemicals to produce anthrax. Our demons are mustachioed, swaggering bullies who ape their master, Saddam Hossein, in his petulant vengefulness. I wish I thought the demons of violence were on one side only–theirs. Not so. You can buy a book at Amazon.com, subtitled, Knife Fighting Techniques, written by a former prisoner. Amazon has a button curiously placed beside the book, “Add to Wedding Registry.” Page 2: “Be quick and brutal. When you use a knife, it is for one purpose only–to kill the enemy. Once you have achieved your objective, leave the scene as soon as possible.” Knives, guns, the electric chair. It’s all dark, dismal and disturbing early in 2003, and we are weeks away from war. In the present darkness I wish I thought that bombing Iraq would bring back our loved ones and protect us from further attacks. I wish I didn’t fear that it will simply inflame millions more people around the world against us, and guarantee further terrorist attacks against us. I wish I didn’t suspect that war with Iraq is neither justified nor noble, but stupid and lethal.
The coming war may be terrible and necessary. I don’t know. The larger question, the human question, is where does all this violence come from? Weren’t we singing a month ago about peace on earth? The
Salvation of All Peoples
The Gospel tells us two things today, each a light for our darkness. First, to use Simeon’s words, God has prepared the salvation of all peoples. God has a purpose for Iran and Iraq and North Korea. For Russia and China, for Israel and for the Palestinians. The political question of our time is how can we, the only superpower, be instruments of God’s design? Attempting an answer, Presiding Bishop Frank T. Griswold released a statement last Friday responding to President George W. Bush's State of the Union message. “I will not second guess,” Bishop Griswold wrote, “those who unquestionably have better information than is available to me about options for action in response to Iraq. However, I call on President Bush to exhaust all diplomatic and multilateral initiatives as the alternative to waging war. Our recent history makes plain how intertwined are the world’s nations; the fate of one hangs on the fate of another.” Simeon has given us good reason for hope: for God has prepared salvation in the presence of all peoples. God will establish his reign. Every axis of evil will become a commonwealth of good. God will bring consolation to all nations. Jesus, Simon tells us, is the sign that the kingdom of God in the end will come, and we will be delivered from the evil for which we daily pray.
A
World of Chance and Change
I see a second light in the Gospel, more personal to each one here. To put it at its simplest: God did not create a world of timeless perfection. We live in a world of chance and change, of sudden shock and sheer happenstance. You never know what’s going to happen. There are no guarantees. But when the worst comes–be it global or personal, rape or AIDS, famine or genocide–watch what happens (because this is how God has made us humans). Tragedy such as yesterday’s–or of any kind–taps a deep reservoir of love and strength and help. Something is alive in the human spirit that refuses to be daunted by danger of land, or sea, or air. We are born and made to strive, to seek, to find. And when reverse and catastrophe come–and they will–the human spirit says, “I’ll help pick up the pieces,” “I’ll go back and reconstruct,” “I’ll start again,” “I’ll make it work this time,” “I’m not going to be beaten by this,” “In a way I’ll never understand, something good is going to come out of this.” No, we don’t live in a world of timeless perfection. It’s a world of chance and change. So it’s a world where we can have, despite everything, a passion for the possible. This way of looking is creative. It creates the space in which any new possibility can unfold. It’s the way a mother looks at a child. It’s the way NASA will look anew at its program. It’s the way Simeon and Anna looked at the infant Mary and Joseph brought to the Temple. So when bad things happen to good people, the bottom can drop out of the pessimism and hope can always be born. Instead of cursing the darkness, you light a candle. Today is Candlemas, not a bad day for looking for the consolation of Israel, and of Palestine, and of the United States and of the whole muddled, striving, hurting world.
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