Adapting to Improv: Luke 2:22-40
First Sunday of Christmas/New Year's Eve
When the time came for their ritual cleansing, in accordance with
the Law from Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the
Lord. (23 It’s written in the Law of the Lord, “Every firstborn male will be
dedicated to the Lord.”) 24 They offered a sacrifice in keeping with what’s
stated in the Law of the Lord, A pair of turtledoves or two young pigeons.
25 A man named Simeon was in Jerusalem. He was righteous and
devout. He eagerly anticipated the restoration of Israel, and the Holy Spirit
rested on him. 26 The Holy Spirit revealed to him that he wouldn’t die before
he had seen the Lord’s Christ. 27 Led by the Spirit, he went into the temple
area. Meanwhile, Jesus’ parents brought the child to the temple so that they
could do what was customary under the Law. 28 Simeon took Jesus in his arms and
praised God. He said,
29 “Now, master, let your servant go in peace according to your
word,
30 because my eyes have
seen your salvation.
31 You prepared this salvation in the presence of all peoples.
32 It’s a light for revelation to the Gentiles
and a glory for your
people Israel.”
33 His father and mother were amazed by what was said about him. 34
Simeon blessed them and said to Mary his mother, “This boy is assigned to be
the cause of the falling and rising of many in Israel and to be a sign that
generates opposition 35 so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed.
And a sword will pierce your innermost being too.”
36 There was also a prophet, Anna the daughter of Phanuel, who
belonged to the tribe of Asher. She was very old. After she married, she lived
with her husband for seven years. 37 She was now an 84-year-old widow. She
never left the temple area but worshipped God with fasting and prayer night and
day. 38 She approached at that very moment and began to praise God and to speak
about Jesus to everyone who was looking forward to the redemption of Jerusalem.
39 When Mary and Joseph had completed everything required by the
Law of the Lord, they returned to their hometown, Nazareth in Galilee. 40 The
child grew up and became strong. He was filled with wisdom, and God’s favor was
on him. (CEB)
There’s a
friend of mine who is a jazz musician, a saxophonist. I try not to hold it against him, and he
tries not to razz me for how wildly incomprehensible I find jazz. I don’t hate all of it; I love some slow Coltrane
or Chet Baker on a rainy day, and there’s a definite delight in having a
kitchen dance party to bebop, ragtime, Indo jazz, and big band Ellington
numbers. But I get lost completely when
it comes to my friend’s deep love for free and modal jazz styles, for the
seemingly boundless lawlessness of experimentation. At one of his concerts, one of his fellow
musicians took the top off her piano to play the strings directly.
I could feel the spirit of my organist
grandmother shrieking. Did this woman
not know that there are rules? How
can anyone like music that just does whatever it wants?
“When the time came for their ritual cleansing, in accordance with
the Law from Moses, they brought Jesus up to Jerusalem to present him to the
Lord.” I’m very pleased that Luke opens
with this idea that there are expectations, but of course, expectations don’t
always mean happenings.
Merry Christmas, Church! It
is, in fact, still Christmas, and will be through the first week of January,
because Christmas is a season rather than a day. (Hence the “Twelve Days of Christmas” song,
which I also wish to avoid listening to in a concert.) Christ is born and we get twelve whole days
to consider what that means and how it changed the world, how it changes us, as
well as taking a moment to look at the rare tales we get of Jesus before
adulthood. Remember, we spent Advent
talking about how the gospels are telling certain stories for certain reasons; Luke
is writing to get the world to accept this Man called Jesus as someone extraordinary,
holy.
Stephen Hultgren of Australian Lutheran College writes, “The
scarcity of information about Jesus’ childhood reminds us that the gospels are
not biographies, or at least not primarily that. They are kerygmatic narratives—they
seek to proclaim the gospel and to undergird and strengthen faith in Christ.
The little information that they give us about Jesus’ childhood is not
intended, say, to explain the development of his character or personality. It
is clear that Luke’s childhood stories seek to make theological points: Jesus
was born a Jew among Jews. He came under the law of Moses. And, although he
fulfilled the law in honoring his father and mother (Luke 2:51), his ultimate
obedience was to his heavenly Father (Luke 2:49; cf. Mark 3:35).”[1] There are rules and expectations; you don’t
take the top off the piano. Christ is
born, the magi are still on their way, and Mary and Joseph take their son to
the temple, as is the law.
“In accordance with the Law of Moses,” Luke writes, reassuring his readers
that Jesus had all the correct trappings of entering the world, understood what
the classical key change was doing. But
right away, something is a little different, a blue note in the chord
progression—Simeon approaches. Luke
tells us Simeon was “righteous and devout,” a man promised to see the salvation
of Israel, and he goes into the Temple to find…a baby.
It is hard to overstate how incredibly weird it was to have the enfleshed
God show up as an infant. We’re used to
it, we 21st century celebrants, what with our thousands of years of
cherubic art and our plethora of manger scenes, but Simeon and his
contemporaries were likely looking for a warrior. Zechariah 9 talks about a coming king, Daniel
7 speaks of the Son of Man who holds sway over all things, Isaiah 53 writes of
a wise and righteous governor. The Messiah
was supposed to gather God’s chosen together and shake off the yoke of imperial
rule, ushering in an era of God’s peace.[2] A baby couldn’t do any of that, or at least
wouldn’t be able to for several decades.
On top of that, this was a poor baby. Professor Shively Smith writes, “Luke makes
clear where in Jewish society Jesus’ observant family exists.
It is among the poor. The two turtledoves Jesus’ family presents are the
sacrifices designated for the poor, according to the Levitical code (Leviticus
5:7, 12:8, 14:22)…In Luke 2…the issue of poverty and the gospel is much more
than simply a “cause” Jesus champions. The location and experiences of the
poor, is the experience of Jesus from his infancy. From Luke’s perspective,
when Jesus talks about the poor, he is talking about himself.”[3]
Luke says three times in this passage that Mary and Joseph were following
the Law in what they were doing. There
is narrative emphasis that they had planned everything to be as classical and
expected as they could.
And that’s the thing; my friend the jazz musician told me once when
I was complaining about how lawless it is that jazz is actually nothing but laws
transmuted into new configurations. Jazz—good
jazz—takes incredible knowledge and skill to be done well, to be music rather
than misused saxophones; it’s precisely because jazz musicians know what the
rules are that they know how to put them in different patterns and produce
something entirely new. Jesus from birth
to death to resurrection is surrounded by the rules of His day and knows them
inside and out; in Matthew 5, Jesus promises His disciples, “Do not think that
I have come to abolish the Law or the Prophets; I have come not to abolish but
to fulfill.”[4]
So Simeon, expecting Beethoven from this clearly law-abiding family,
gets Thelonious Monk and bless him, he rolls with it, because this, too, is
beautiful music. Simeon adapts, knowing
that the Spirit is at work here even though it’s absolutely mind-bending that the
one to save would be the one who could, at this point, be so easily crushed;
the one to hold power was the one who economically and socially had none; the
one called Christ couldn’t even talk yet.
Luke continues his love for music in placing a song in Simeon’s
mouth: “Now, master, let your servant go
in peace according to your word, / because my eyes have seen your salvation. / You
prepared this salvation in the presence of all peoples. / It’s a light for
revelation to the Gentiles / and a glory for your people Israel.” The inclusion of Gentiles in this most Jewish
of spaces promises that poverty and infancy are not the only ways that God is riffing
a new jazz solo; this child is for the world, all of it, meant to bring
change as well as glory, new pathways branching off the familiar.
Right on Simeon’s heels comes the prophetess Anna, not only giving
narrative space to a woman as well as a man but also mirroring the pair of
Zechariah and Mary and their reactions to the promise of Jesus. Both Anna and Simeon are mentioned as being “very
old,” holding not only the sway of the respect of one’s elders but also showing
that those who keep the memory of the nation see in this child the promise for
which they have been waiting, longing, hoping.
Both celebrate this child and the promise He represents, and the family
finishes their law-abiding offerings and goes home, and “the child grew up and
became strong.”
And nothing happens.
Yet.
It is the season of Christmas, and we have been telling the story
of this birth for thousands of years, singing about peace on earth and good
will to all, and it is the last day of 2023 and there is war in Gaza and
Ukraine and there are enough anti-trans bills in the US to ensure that good
will is a limited commodity, to say nothing of the anti-immigration threads or
the cultural misogyny or the racism bleeding across our global conversations. It is the last day of 2023 and The United
Methodist Church is gearing up to showcase our worst and most frightened selves
on an international stage; the American political system is lumbering into gear
for yet another bloodbath of ideology and hate.
It is the season of Christmas and we stand on the threshold of a new
year dancing the waltz of today’s date and perhaps we wonder whether the jazz
solo of a Jesus held by a man named Simeon and celebrated by a woman named Anna
is ever going to change anything at all.
In one of the journals of John Wesley, he records part of a
conversation with his friend Peter Bohler when Wesley was having a rough day
about his belief in God and salvation and the whole bit. Wesley was considering leaving preaching
because he was so full of doubt, and he writes that Bohler told him, “Preach
faith till you have it; and then, because you have it, you will preach faith.”[5]
“The child grew up and became strong. He was filled with wisdom,
and God’s favor was on him.” Two
chapters from now, Jesus will stand in front of His hometown synagogue and
proclaim Isaiah’s promise of “good news to the poor,” “release to the prisoners,”
liberation of the oppressed.[6] Ten chapters from now there will be disciples
who are changed because they have met this Man Jesus. A whole book from now there will be this
thing called Church, which is messy and desperate and weird and filled with
people who love. The story continues;
2024 looms in uncertainty and hope, and the story continues; 2023 closes in a maelstrom
of joy and sorrow and anger and celebration, and the story continues. Simeon’s song may not have been jazz, but the
God Who was born and is alive dances beside us no matter what comes next, promising
that we never face the music alone.
How shall we sing in the new year, Church? How shall our carols of peace and glad tidings
become our faith-filled sermons of liberation and good news? What shall we become, we who gather to honor
this unexpected child, when we lean into the assurance that Christ is here, now,
always, inviting us to melodies we never thought could be so beautiful?
May we have peace; may we have compassion; may we have courage; may
we have love; may we have music, all the year long. Amen.
[2] Cf.
What
Is the Jewish Belief About Moshiach (Messiah)? - Chabad.org, although this focuses
more on a modern view rather than that of first century Jews
[4]
Mt. 5:17, NRSVUE
[6] Luke
4:18.
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