Candlemas, 03/02/2019, St James the Great

 Luke 2:22-40

 

Last weekend we celebrated the first anniversary of my induction as Vicar of St James’.  The celebration was a wonderful surprise which moved me very much, and which I’ve thought back to across this last week as I’ve prayed and as I’ve prepared this sermon. Last year our first Sunday together fell on Candlemas. And as we began to share ministry together, I showed two t shirts, one which read ‘Warning: may answer back’ and the other which began with ‘Black lives matter’ and ended with, ‘kindness is everything’, and, in between, affirmed the importance of each human being irrespective of race, ethnicity or class. 

I don’t know whether I’ve lived up to or down to the ‘answering back’; I’ll let you think about that one! I certainly hope that I’ve shown that kindness is everything. And I certainly feel as though you have surrounded me, and Geoff, with kindness and grace as we’ve all shared ministry across this last year.

That kindness and grace has been a great blessing as together we’ve done some of the many things that we’ve done across the last year; as we’ve worshipped through the seasons; as we’ve shared the ups and downs in our lives, from illness and death, to the birth of new children in our families; as we’ve journeyed with bereaved families as we’ve conducted funerals for them; as we’ve welcomed students and staff from Clayton Hall Academy into church and hall for GCSE RE, remembrance Sunday, rehearsals, Christmas concerts and so on; as we’ve worked with the Locality Action Partnership and held community events in the hall; as we’ve begun to reach out through our place of Welcome; as we’ve worked on Know Your Church Know Your Neighbourhood, KYCKYN; and as PCC members have drafted a Mission Action Plan as all churches are asked by the Diocese to do. 

I’ve brought another t shirt with me for Candlemas this year. And it reads ‘nevertheless she persisted’. I do tend to persist with things. Mum says that I’m like a Terrier, or sometimes a Rottweiler, because I don’t give up with things; I’ve got a determined streak or a stubborn streak, depending on how you want to read it!

The phrase ‘nevertheless she persisted’ was taken up by the feminist movement in the United States in 2017 after Senator Elizabeth Warren was silenced when she objected to the confirmation of Senator Jeff Sessions as US Attorney General on the grounds of his civil rights record, which included his suppression of voting by black citizens in Alabama. Elizabeth Warren was in effect silenced because she dared to speak truth to power at the heart of the US establishment, and to shine a light on the racism which still divides the United States. Since the phrase was taken up, its meaning has been expanded to refer to women’s persistence in breaking down barriers, in spite of being silenced or ignored. And it can be expanded to refer to the wider movement, which black lives matter is part of, which is calling for the breaking down of all of the barriers that people construct to divide people from each other along the lines of race, ethnicity, sexual orientation and class or economic status. 

 ‘Nevertheless she, and he, persisted’ and speaking truth to power are themes that thread through our Gospel reading;  they thread through the story of Mary and Joseph presenting Jesus in the temple and Simeon and Anna recognising him as the Messiah, recognising in the tiny child the salvation of God for all people. And they are themes that shine at the heart of our vocation as followers of Jesus, as we come to the end of Christmas and Epiphany and of our celebration of incarnation, God with us, and turn to Lent and Easter and our celebration of redemption, in the risen Jesus. 

Simeon speaks the words of what we know as the Nunc Dimitis about Jesus, the salvation which God has ‘prepared in the presence of all peoples’, to the amazement of Mary and Joseph, who at that point, are probably preoccupied with the care of a tiny child and not thinking much beyond the immediate demands of that care. And from their offering of ‘a pair of turtle doves or two young pigeons’ we know that they were not wealthy people’; they made what was permitted, by the Jewish law of the time, as the poor person’s offering.

And Simeon speaks those words out of his and others’ experience of injustice, division and suffering in their first century society. Simeon’s words can be traced back to chapters 40 to 55 of the Prophet Isaiah, or second Isaiah – from whose prophecy Jesus himself read at the beginning of his public ministry as we remembered last week. 

‘I am the Lord, I have called you in righteousness,

I have taken you by the hand and kept you;

I have given you as a covenant to the people,

a light to the nations,

to open the eyes that are blind,

to bring out the prisoners from the dungeon, 

from the prison those who sit in darkness.

I am the Lord, that is my name’ (Isaiah 42:6-8)

And the Prophet Isaiah shaped Simeon and others’ understanding of the justice, mercy and healing that would be inaugurated with the coming of the Messiah, the holy one of God, who would establish and reign over the Kingdom of God.   

Simeon and Anna are presented, in our Gospel reading, as people of faith and they represent a vocation of faithfulness to the vision of the Kingdom of God that is contained in the Prophet Isaiah; a vision which they know from their long years of experiencing injustice, division and suffering, on the one hand, and praying faithfully, on the other hand, just might heal the society around them.

After Simeon has amazed Mary and Joseph with the words of the Nunc Dimitis, and its vision of the kingdom of God, and the role that their son, who is also the Son of God, will play in bringing about the Kingdom of God, he blesses them.  He then says to Mary specifically, ‘this child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’ I don’t know about you, but if I was Mary, if I was the young mother of a young child, I probably wouldn’t be very reassured by those words, and I probably wouldn’t know what to make of them. 

What Simeon is speaking about is the effect of speaking truth to power. He’s speaking about the way that it shines a light on the divisions within society, and on the divisions within families even. Simeon well knew that the Israel of his day was painfully divided by military occupation and inequality and suffering. He’s also speaking about the cost of speaking truth to power. Simeon well knew that it would be painful for a mother to watch the kind of rejection and extreme suffering that her son would eventually face as he walked the way of the cross and was crucified. 

Speaking truth to power, giving voice to the suffering of those who are dispossessed, and standing up for justice, mercy and healing, is costly because it challenges the power of the powerful and their vested interest in the establishment and the balance of power which goes with it. It was costly for Jesus and for Mary. It is costly for those who follow Jesus in the way of the cross as disciples.

Speaking truth to power is one way of participating in the self-giving love of God; and that participation is costly. But as Simeon and Anna recognised from their long years of praying faithfully, self-giving love is the only way in which the salvation of God, the healing of individuals and the healing of the nations, can be brought about. 

At PCC last Monday evening we worked on our Mission Action Plan, or our MAP as Mission Action Plans are known. MAPs are a way for churches to think about who they are as the People of God and what they’re called to be as the People of God, what their vocation is; and how they’re going to get from A to B, how they’re going to live out that vocation. One of things that we thought about at PCC was a phrase that is attributed to Aristotle, and that phrase is ‘where your talents and the needs of the world collide, there lies your vocation.’ And out of that phrase we began to make connections with some of the work that we’ve been doing through Know Your Church Know Your Community, KYCKYN. 

At the most recent session of KYCKYN we thought about some of the challenges that we and other people in different parts of our community face. We identified mobility as a challenge, particularly for those who are older or those who are ill or have disabilities. We identified substance misuse as a challenge for some. We identified isolation as a challenge for some. And we thought about some of the challenges that single parents might face.

Our work with Place of Welcome is one way in which we are responding to isolation, but we are aware some people who are isolated are not able come to Place of Welcome because mobility is a challenge for them. And our work with Place of Welcome is also highlighting challenges for us about communication, about how we tell people about the many things that are happening at St James’ and invite them to join in, in faith and hope and love. The Website and social media are one way of communicating but on their own they don’t reach far enough. 

In the final two sessions of KYCKYN we’re going to think about how we might work with others to respond to some of those challenges through our ministry and mission and pastoral care and through the use of the church hall. And PCC has drafted a MAP which we’re going to review at our PCC meeting at the end of February, after which we’ll share with the whole church. 

In a very real sense thinking about the challenges that we and the other people in our community face and asking how we can work with others to respond to those challenges takes us to the heart of our vocation as the People of God in Clayton; a vocation in which God calls us to persist in faith and hope and love. Or as the Diocesan Vision statement puts it at the end of the statement, our vocation is about being ‘a church that partners with others, in seeking the common good and working for justice as people of hope.’

And that vision aligns with Simeon’s vision of the Kingdom of God and his recognizing, in the child Jesus, the salvation, the healing, which God has ‘prepared in the presence of all peoples’.   

Amen. 

©2019 Julia Babb