The Presentation<\/p>\n
Year A
\nMalachi 3:1-4
\nPsalm 24:7-10
\nHebrews 2:14-18
\nLuke 2:22-40<\/p>\n
Bill Williams had been a semi-professional musician\u2026 an electronics technician\u2026 and a computer and video game designer\u2026 but he gave all that up to pursue a Master of Arts Degree from the Lutheran School of Theology\u2026 in Chicago\u2026 where he received an Outstanding Biblical Studies Award in 1994\u2026 he died of cystic fibrosis four years later\u2026 but before he died\u2026 his book\u2026 Naked Before God\u2026 was published\u2026<\/p>\n
Written from the perspective of Nathaniel\u2026 an imaginary disciple of Jesus\u2026 this cystic fibrosis patient wanders through the Gospel narratives\u2026 revisiting a theology of suffering\u2026 from his own unique perspective\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>arguing with Jesus and the other disciples\u2026 Nathaniel seeks healing for his soul\u2026 even as his body falls apart\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and in painfully honest language\u2026 he demands to understand grace\u2026 suffering\u2026 and forgiveness\u2026 and seeks to know the reality of God’s love for him\u2026<\/p>\n About the book\u2026 Episcopal priest Barbara Crafton wrote\u2026 Williams knew that God is good\u2026 but that life is really hard\u2026 and as he deals with questions of life and death and faith\u2026 he maintains a sharpness of wit\u2026 an extraordinary sense of humor\u2026 and a deep reverence for life<\/i>\u2026<\/p>\n Joseph and Mary embody that deep reverence too\u2026 they fulfill civic responsibilities\u2026 like going to their home town to be counted in the census\u2026 and religious expectations\u2026 like abiding by the guidelines found in Leviticus\u2026 which say that after the birth of a son\u2026 to wait forty days\u2026 and then come to the Temple with a lamb for a burnt offering\u2026 and a young pigeon for a sin offering\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>but as you might imagine\u2026 the lamb would be more expensive\u2026 and if the cost was too much to bear\u2026 the woman could bring a second pigeon\u2026 two pigeons\u2026 and this has been called The Offering of the Poor<\/i>\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>this adherence to the Law\u2026 about fulfilling all righteousness\u2026 is a kind of sacrament\u2026 and ancient people used to celebrate many different rites of passage\u2026 including presenting and naming a child before God\u2026 as Jesus was named eight days after his birth\u2026 and redeeming them from God\u2026 or dedicating them to God\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and in adhering to religious practice\u2026 Joseph and Mary embody for Jesus\u2026 teach Jesus\u2026 model for Jesus\u2026 how to be observant to God\u2019s Law\u2026 from the time of his birth\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and as Simeon and Anna themselves experienced\u2026 leaning into this kind of faithfulness\u2026 can take a lifetime\u2026<\/p>\n Simeon was a man who was able to perceive and follow the direction of the Holy Spirit\u2026 now the text doesn\u2019t say that he was a priest in the Temple\u2026 the text doesn\u2019t say that Joseph and Mary had arranged in advance to see him\u2026 the text just says that he was righteous\u2026 and devout\u2026 and lived in Jerusalem\u2026 a man who looked forward to God\u2019s consolation pouring out over all of Israel\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and intuitively\u2026 he was led to the Temple that day\u2026 guided to the Temple\u2026 just as the Holy Family was coming there too\u2026 and when Simeon saw Jesus\u2026 he was overcome with holy revelation\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>what he had waited for all his life\u2026 was right there in front of him\u2026<\/p>\n I wonder what Joseph and Mary did\u2026 or thought\u2026 or felt\u2026 when this stranger\u2026 probably without even asking\u2026 probably unable to control himself\u2026 swooped up their baby in his arms\u2026 and praised God\u2026 and said\u2026 you are dismissing your servant in peace\u2026 for my eyes have seen your salvation<\/i>\u2026 many of us think he means that he\u2019s ready to die\u2026 but the Greek word that\u2019s translated as dismiss\u2026 also means to figuratively die\u2026 so it\u2019s unclear whether he simply means that his waiting is over\u2026 or that he can now die in peace\u2026<\/p>\n And the assurance that a patriarch can die in peace\u2026 is a theme that\u2019s expressed in Genesis 15:15\u2026 when God tells Abraham\u2026 As for yourself\u2026 you shall go to your ancestors in peace<\/i>\u2026 and in Genesis 46:30\u2026 when Jacob (Israel) says to Joseph\u2026 I can die now\u2026 having seen for myself that you are still alive<\/i>\u2026 and so for Simeon\u2026 maybe not that day\u2026 but now that his deepest desire has been fulfilled\u2026 now that he has seen the child who will be a light to the nations\u2026 and who will open the floodgates of God\u2019s glory\u2026 now he too\u2026 can die in peace\u2026<\/p>\n And Anna\u2026 a widow who is named as a prophet\u2026 who discerned God\u2019s will\u2026 who never left the Temple\u2026 she too was drawn to this presence and peace\u2026 perhaps by Jesus\u2019 light\u2026 and in his commentary\u2026 William Barclay writes\u2026 the years had left Anna without bitterness\u2026 and in unshakable hope\u2026 because day after day\u2026 she kept contact with God who is the source of all strengt<\/i>h\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>the words that Anna spoke to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem were not recorded by Luke\u2026 but she would have known the sacredness of life\u2026 and the presence of God in the mundane\u2026 as described in Deuteronomy 6:5-9\u2026 which tells us that we are\u2026 to love God with all our heart\u2026 soul\u2026 and might\u2026 to teach God\u2019s words to our children\u2026 to speak about them whether we\u2019re at home\u2026 or walking about\u2026 or lying down\u2026 to write them on the doorposts of our house\u2026 and on our gates<\/i>\u2026 and remember to be holy\u2026 to be made holy\u2026 to be sanctified\u2026 by God\u2026<\/p>\n When we move in the secular realm\u2026 devoid of the presence of the holy\u2026 daily experiences are impoverished\u2026 they no longer have any meaning beyond themselves\u2026 no opening to transcendence\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>our challenge\u2026 is to find meaningful personal and corporate rituals\u2026 for celebrating the presence of God in the ordinary\u2026 because when we incorporate ritual into the events and cycles of our lives\u2026 we acknowledge that we are not alone in the mystery of life\u2026 and our place in the cosmos\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>we join with people in all places and from all times\u2026 in the awe of rain and lightning\u2026 of stars and tides\u2026 in a palette of sunset colors\u2026 and a madness of diversity that none of us could possibly create\u2026<\/p>\n When we gather in worship\u2026 we pray the Prayers of the People\u2026 but can we pray the liturgy itself\u2026 can we imagine the entire liturgy as one seamless prayer from Prelude to Postlude\u2026 in which we offer before God\u2026 not only our intercessions\u2026 not only our hopes and dreams\u2026our fears and concerns\u2026 our tithes\u2026 but especially\u2026 and maybe even mostly\u2026 ourselves\u2026<\/p>\n I wonder though\u2026 if The Presentation was an event frozen in time\u2026 or if it transcends time\u2026 we know that in their community\u2026 Mary and Joseph presented Jesus in the Temple\u2026 but in our community\u2026 our sanctuary\u2026 we present Jesus as the elements of communion\u2026 the bread and the wine\u2026 and as the gathered community\u2026 we consecrate that bread and wine\u2026 and we present our open hands\u2026 we present our eagerness to be fed\u2026 to receive God\u2019s forgiveness and reconciliation\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and I\u2019ll tell you\u2026 if you\u2019ve ever seen William\u2019s face\u2026 or the face of another child at the altar rail\u2026 full of joy and expectation\u2026 then I think you know some of what Simeon and Anna felt\u2026<\/p>\n I was once questioned about communing children\u2026 this person said that children don\u2019t understand what\u2019s going on\u2026 I said\u2026 neither do I<\/i>\u2026 but I need to be fed with God\u2019s boundless grace\u2026 and unmerited forgiveness\u2026 and\u00a0 <\/span>immeasurable love\u2026 and I believe that when we come to this altar rail\u2026 like Bill Williams\u2026 we are all Naked Before God\u2026 we acknowledge this in our Collect for Purity\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>that to God\u2026 all hearts are open\u2026 all desires known\u2026 and no secrets are hid<\/i>\u2026 not the secrets we hide from ourselves\u2026 or the secrets we hide from others\u2026\u00a0 <\/span>and even so\u2026 God loves every single one of us\u2026 unconditionally\u2026 how can we not love each other the same way\u2026 as we too\u2026 like Bill\u2026 strive to maintain that same deep reverence for life\u2026<\/p>\n Mike+<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The Presentation Year A Malachi 3:1-4 Psalm 24:7-10 Hebrews 2:14-18 Luke 2:22-40 Bill Williams had been a semi-professional musician\u2026 an electronics technician\u2026 and a computer and video game designer\u2026 but he gave all that up to pursue a Master of Arts Degree from the Lutheran School of Theology\u2026 in Chicago\u2026 where he received an Outstanding Biblical Studies Award in 1994\u2026 he died of cystic fibrosis four years later\u2026 but before he died\u2026 his book\u2026 Naked Before God\u2026 was published\u2026 Written from the perspective of Nathaniel\u2026 an imaginary disciple of Jesus\u2026 this cystic fibrosis patient wanders through the Gospel narratives\u2026 revisiting a theology of suffering\u2026 from his own unique perspective\u2026\u00a0 arguing with Jesus and the other disciples\u2026 Nathaniel seeks healing for his soul\u2026 even as his body falls apart\u2026\u00a0 and in painfully honest language\u2026 he demands to understand grace\u2026 suffering\u2026 and forgiveness\u2026 and seeks to know the reality of God’s love for him\u2026 About the book\u2026 Episcopal priest Barbara Crafton wrote\u2026 Williams knew that God is good\u2026 but that life is really hard\u2026 and as he deals with questions of life and death and faith\u2026 he maintains a sharpness of wit\u2026 an extraordinary sense of humor\u2026 and a deep reverence for life\u2026 Joseph and Mary embody that deep reverence too\u2026 they fulfill civic responsibilities\u2026 like going to their home town to be counted in the census\u2026 and religious expectations\u2026 like abiding by the guidelines found in Leviticus\u2026 which say that after the birth of a son\u2026 to wait forty days\u2026 and then come to the Temple with a lamb for a burnt offering\u2026 and a young pigeon for a sin offering\u2026\u00a0 but as you might imagine\u2026 the lamb would be more expensive\u2026 and if the cost was too much to bear\u2026 the woman could bring a second pigeon\u2026 two pigeons\u2026 and this has been called The Offering of the Poor\u2026\u00a0 this adherence to the Law\u2026 about fulfilling all righteousness\u2026 is a kind of sacrament\u2026 and ancient people used to celebrate many different rites of passage\u2026 including presenting and naming a child before God\u2026 as Jesus was named eight days after his birth\u2026 and redeeming them from God\u2026 or dedicating them to God\u2026\u00a0 and in adhering to religious practice\u2026 Joseph and Mary embody for Jesus\u2026 teach Jesus\u2026 model for Jesus\u2026 how to be observant to God\u2019s Law\u2026 from the time of his birth\u2026\u00a0 and as Simeon and Anna themselves experienced\u2026 leaning into this kind of faithfulness\u2026 can take a lifetime\u2026 Simeon was a man who was able to perceive and follow the direction of the Holy Spirit\u2026 now the text doesn\u2019t say that he was a priest in the Temple\u2026 the text doesn\u2019t say that Joseph and Mary had arranged in advance to see him\u2026 the text just says that he was righteous\u2026 and devout\u2026 and lived in Jerusalem\u2026 a man who looked forward to God\u2019s consolation pouring out over all of Israel\u2026\u00a0 and intuitively\u2026 he was led to the Temple that day\u2026 guided to the Temple\u2026 just as the Holy Family was coming there too\u2026 and when Simeon saw Jesus\u2026 he was overcome with holy revelation\u2026\u00a0 what he had waited for all his life\u2026 was right there in front of him\u2026 I wonder what Joseph and Mary did\u2026 or thought\u2026 or felt\u2026 when this stranger\u2026 probably without even asking\u2026 probably unable to control himself\u2026 swooped up their baby in his arms\u2026 and praised God\u2026 and said\u2026 you are dismissing your servant in peace\u2026 for my eyes have seen your salvation\u2026 many of us think he means that he\u2019s ready to die\u2026 but the Greek word that\u2019s translated as dismiss\u2026 also means to figuratively die\u2026 so it\u2019s unclear whether he simply means that his waiting is over\u2026 or that he can now die in peace\u2026 And the assurance that a patriarch can die in peace\u2026 is a theme that\u2019s expressed in Genesis 15:15\u2026 when God tells Abraham\u2026 As for yourself\u2026 you shall go to your ancestors in peace\u2026 and in Genesis 46:30\u2026 when Jacob (Israel) says to Joseph\u2026 I can die now\u2026 having seen for myself that you are still alive\u2026 and so for Simeon\u2026 maybe not that day\u2026 but now that his deepest desire has been fulfilled\u2026 now that he has seen the child who will be a light to the nations\u2026 and who will open the floodgates of God\u2019s glory\u2026 now he too\u2026 can die in peace\u2026 And Anna\u2026 a widow who is named as a prophet\u2026 who discerned God\u2019s will\u2026 who never left the Temple\u2026 she too was drawn to this presence and peace\u2026 perhaps by Jesus\u2019 light\u2026 and in his commentary\u2026 William Barclay writes\u2026 the years had left Anna without bitterness\u2026 and in unshakable hope\u2026 because day after day\u2026 she kept contact with God who is the source of all strength\u2026\u00a0 the words that Anna spoke to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem were not recorded by Luke\u2026 but she would have known the sacredness of life\u2026 and the presence of God in the mundane\u2026 as described in Deuteronomy 6:5-9\u2026 which tells us that we are\u2026 to love God with all our heart\u2026 soul\u2026 and might\u2026 to teach God\u2019s words to our children\u2026 to speak about them whether we\u2019re at home\u2026 or walking about\u2026 or lying down\u2026 to write them on the doorposts of our house\u2026 and on our gates\u2026 and remember to be holy\u2026 to be made holy\u2026 to be sanctified\u2026 by God\u2026 When we move in the secular realm\u2026 devoid of the presence of the holy\u2026 daily experiences are impoverished\u2026 they no longer have any meaning beyond themselves\u2026 no opening to transcendence\u2026\u00a0 our challenge\u2026 is to find meaningful personal and corporate rituals\u2026 for celebrating the presence of God in the ordinary\u2026 because when we incorporate ritual into the events and cycles of our lives\u2026 we acknowledge that we are not alone in the mystery of life\u2026 and our place in the cosmos\u2026\u00a0 we join with people in all places and from all times\u2026 in the awe of rain and lightning\u2026 of stars and […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[5],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-463","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-sermons"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=463"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":465,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/463\/revisions\/465"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=463"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=463"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/twochurches.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=463"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}