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Sermon - February 2, 2003 - The Feast of the Presentation
by The Rev. Merrill Wade
Today our nation, together with our dear friends in Israel and people of good will around the world, mourn a profound loss. Yesterday the Space Shuttle broke apart above the skies of Texas, spreading debris throughout the area and killing seven persons, six Americans and an Israeli. This loss of human life is difficult to accept and we offer our deepest sympathy in Christ to each and every family. The NASA Space program is a testimony to American technical enterprise and adventurousness. Together with other nations, we strive to explore space, seeking to better understand the depth and breadth of the mysteries of the universe. These seven men and women, William McCool, Kalpana Chawla, David Brown, Mike Anderson, Laurel Clark, Israeli Ilan Ramon, and Flight Commander Rick Husband, were curious, intelligent scientists living out a fantasy that so many of us, fastened by gravity to this planet, can only yearn to experience. They died for the sake of their countries, expressing our insatiable, God-given, thirst for knowledge. They chose, freely and gratefully, to take the risk of space travel. In that sense they were willing to sacrifice themselves to the greater good of the human race. We offer them to God with deep grief, and with a concurrent deep appreciation for the indomitable creative spirit of our country which sent them into space.
In the midst of such a formidable national tragedy, we in the church embrace a special day in the life of Jesus and his family. Jesus has been circumcised on the 8th day after his birth and now it is time - according to the law - for Jesus, the first born son, to be offered to God in a ritual. This is also "when the time came for purification." As I understand it, according to Levitical law, the mother was considered unclean to attend the rites and ceremonies at the Temple or other local gatherings for 33 days beyond the circumcision. On the 40th day, she would make an offering to the priest to make an animal sacrifice for her atonement. In today’s story Jesus is being sacrificed to God as the first born and Mary is being purified in order that both can be in obedience to the ancient laws of Moses.
In the midst of these obligatory rituals, Simeon and Anna, representing the best and most trustworthy in Jerusalem, elderly and wise and faithful, come forward to welcome the Baby and to share mystical premonition about the identity and destiny of the child Jesus.
After receiving the mysterious and wonderful words of the prophets Anna and Simeon, Joseph and Mary leave Jerusalem and return to Nazareth, back to the business of raising this peculiar newborn who has attracted such devotion.
Luke tells us that "the child grew, became strong, filled with wisdom, and the favor of God was upon him."
The author of the letter to the Hebrews tries to put this into perspective. He writes in today’s lesson, that Jesus had to become "…like his brothers and sisters in the human family in every respect." I interpret that, as a parent, to mean that Jesus, as a child, was an incomplete package needing attention, rules and discipline, hugs and all and every maturational effort of parenting that could be mustered according to the culture of his time.
Without such support, it is conceivable that Jesus may not have been spiritually mature enough to offer himself completely to God for the sake of the human race.
Make this note - it all began in the temple with Mary and Joseph. Each of them were steadfast in their faithfulness, their willingness to say yes to God. Jesus was dedicated to God as a first born child, sacrificed - given up - to God who they clearly worshiped and trusted for their ultimate security.
What meaning does a story like this have for us moderns?
Episcopal priest King Oehmig wrote these chilling words:
"What on earth does this have to do with us moderns? It means that children are dedicated, sacrificed, given up, to that which their parents worship and trust for their ultimate security. Child sacrifice, in other words, does not belong just to the primitive tribes of Indonesia, but to the very fabric of modern society. That is, if the dominant value of a parent is to be fulfilled through career enhancement, then the child will be sacrificed to a job. If the parent’s ultimate concern in life is to make money, then the child is sacrificed to greed. If the parent is focused on ‘better than,’ then the child is sacrificed to competition. If the parent is enslaved to drugs or alcohol, then the child will sacrificed to the effects of addiction. If a parent worships perfectionism and control, the child will be sacrificed to rigidity and ‘looking good.’ If a parent makes family togetherness and closeness the dominant value, the child will be dedicated to the hidden dysfunction the parents try to deny."
Oehmig finishes with this paragraph, "this kind of ‘child sacrifice’ is based upon an unimpeachable law in the spiritual life. That is, the spiritual world, like the natural world, abhors a vacuum. Neutrality is not an option. The soul is going to be filled with something - God or the tyranny of some lesser substitute."
This analysis is cutting, perhaps even melodramatic and cynical, yet it probes the many facets of that impossible mission - the mission shared by all adults but chiefly by parents - that mission of leading our children into joyful and curious and meaningful child-hoods which result in the kind of adult living that enriches the world.
King Oehmig asks us the hard question, "what dominant value do we wish to offer them?"
Perhaps we can say it a different way. What did Joseph and Mary do
right? --- That Jesus grew and became strong, filled with wisdom, with the favor of God upon him.
We would be naïve, and blind to scriptural evidence, if we were to imagine that Jesus’ sacrificial courage, compassion, his spirit for healing, his preaching and teaching ability, that all these were in some way badges of his divinity. Jesus possesses these "gifts from God" that we may possess them.
Jesus, like us, came by his character in many ways.
The results of his genetic coding.
The effects of the love and care of his family and community.
Yes, these are the familiar debated concepts of nature and nurture.
So again, what do we want to say about the particular nurture given Jesus by Mary and Joseph?
Luke points to their personal devotion to God and careful attention to faithfulness to the law.
Jesus grows up in a faithful Jewish community - encouraged to think for himself and debate the rabbis and others because the law belongs to all.
Jesus own faith is nurtured and honored by his parents.
In a nutshell, I imagine that Jesus grew up in a community where religious questioning and wondering and doubting were permitted, emotions were shared, where God became tangible because people and their faith were respected. A community where the dominant value was knowing and loving God. This is not, truth be told, a sermon about parenting, per se. This is a sermon about spiritual foundations that allow us to mature spiritually.
A sign of spiritual maturity for you and I might be the ability to discern, and then admit, the ultimate concern, the dominant value, that dominates our living and breathing. We need to recognize that dominant value because those who look to us for maturation might be "dedicated" to our dominant value with us. As Christians, we are called to shape our field of vision in such way that God resides at the center.
None of us know how to do that perfectly. We are walking by faith. We cannot see perfectly. We are not in control. We yearn for control but we just don’t possess it.
Truth be told, Matthew, Mark and Luke tell us that Jesus’ family and the people of Nazareth really didn’t understand him after he had grown up and flown the nest, many even rejected him. Mary and Joseph and their community had offered the child to God, but they struggled to let him be himself. We yearn for control, but they couldn’t possess Jesus.
In the midst of real world uncertainty, we do what we can. We rededicate ourselves to the dominant values of our faith - dedication to God, prayer, worship and service to God’s world. Maybe this is just a dream, but together we can seek to offer one another and our children opportunities to learn, think, grow and spread wings to fly on their own, to spread wings and to soar into space again and again.
Astronaut Ilan Ramon told his Israeli countrymen, "The Middle East looks so peaceful from here." We travel into space and we see with new eyesight what God can already see. We are one world and God loves us all without preference.
So, encouraged by the efforts of seven sons and daughters of freedom who gave their lives for the sake of the future of humanity, we dare to attempt to heal the wounds and divisions that corrupt this planet, and to know and love God and to spread the Good News of Jesus from this generation to the next. AMEN.
