[This sermon was delivered va Mixlr to the congregation of Cross Street Chapel, Manchester on Sunday, 27th December 2020]
(Readings: Isaiah 61:10-62:3 and Luke 2:22-40)
So in this past week we arrived out of the season of Advent into Christmas. Many of us completed our Advent calendars, listened to carols from King’s College, Cambridge, and left appropriate festive fair by the fireplace for Santa and his reindeer on Christmas Eve. On Christmas Day you might have been lucky enough to have your family with you for a great dinner, you might have called friends and family members from afar, or maybe you felt slightly green around the gills after over indulging in the chocolate from your selection box.
As Manchester is a famed footballing city, depending on your persuasion you might have watched Man United draw against Leicester or Man City beat Newcastle this Boxing Day. Maybe you are waiting for the, supporter owned FC United of Manchester’s away fixture at Scarborough Athletic in the new year and, rather than watching the TV, had a go at getting through the rest of the leftovers instead?
We know where we are on Christmas Eve, Christmas Day and Boxing Day but, between now and the New Year, it all seems rather odd doesn’t it? It is a sort of liminal space between the old and the new.
The Gospel narrative can seem like this too. In Luke we have a period in between the Nativity story and when Jesus actually starts teaching.
Yet this, in between phase of the Gospel is still, for me, rather important despite the fact that it is not nearly as well known as the nativity or as widely preached on as Jesus’s teachings. It is important because it can help us put those teachings that are to come into their cultural context.
Our reading today picks up from Luke after the events of the nativity have been played out. Part of the “purification according to the law of Moses” would have been Jesus’s circumcision. This would have happened eight days after his birth and was a ceremony of huge cultural and religious significance. In modern Liberal and Reform Judaism the practice of circumcision is increasingly seen as optional with an increasing number of Jewish families opting for a Brit shalom naming ceremony instead. However, in ancient Judaism it was seen as such a sacred practice that it was even allowed to take place on the sabbath.
The passage also refers to the law in the Hebrew bible that every first-born male was sacred to God. These children had to be, essentially, brought back from God for the sum of five shekels. This practice known as Pidyon haben or redemption of the first-born is still practiced today but mainly by Orthodox and Conservative Jews. In the time of Jesus, the five shekels given to the priests of the temple would have been the equivalent of almost a month’s earnings.
However, the majority of our passage is taken up by the rite of Purification after Childbirth. According to the law of the Hebrew Bible a mother was seen as ritually unclean for a period of 40 or 80 days after childbirth and, after that period, had to bring to the Temple an offering. The preferred offering was a lamb and a pigeon. However, this would have been a very expensive offering for many in the ancient world. Instead Mary opts for the second allowable offering, the Offering of the Poor, that consisted of just the two pigeons.
These rites may well look outdated and superstitious to our modern ears, yet they tell us two very important things about Jesus. Firstly, they attest to his undeniable Jewishness. Jesus was raised by a adherent Jewish family in a Jewish cultural and religious context. Secondly, they attest to the fact that Jesus and his family were poor.
The poverty of the Holy Family makes what happens next all the more remarkable. Imagine being in Mary’s position, who according to Church tradition, was a mother at the tender age of just 14. Having spent 40 days nursing your new-born son while being regarded as unclean and having just announced your poverty to the pubic by turning up with the poor offering. Now imagine being in this state and then a kindly, genial and well-regarded man approaches you and recognises your child for how special they really are. What a wonderful and miraculous moment. Luke’s account states that Joseph and Mary were amazed by this and I’m sure that it is true! These were precious words indeed and are some of the most well-known lines in liturgy becoming known as the Nunc Dimittis, one of the greatest hymns in the Church!
Then it gets even better. Enter Anna. A prophet. A women prophet. A women prophet strong enough to live the vast majority of her life in the public space of the temple and, evidently, adept at public speaking! This was despite Anna having known sorrow and oppression as a widow. Sorrow at the death of her husband after only 7 years of marriage, but also the oppression that would have resulted from that in the ancient world. To put it far too mildly, women were not treated kindly in the accent world and widows were among those seen as being at the very bottom of the heap. Yet despite this, Anna has clearly not become bitter in her old age. During all this time, like Simeon, she had remained faithful, determined and hopeful as is shown by her quickly beginning to spread the good news to all and sundry in Jerusalem but also in the openness of heart it must have taken to recognise the divine in such a downtrodden little life.
Being a Jewish prophet Anna would have known well the words of the prophet Isaiah that we also heard today. Like Isaiah, Anna did not keep silent – even when it would have been easier not too. Like Anna let us cultivate a openness of heart towards those who our society all too easily neglects. Let us be ready to see the divine in the stranger and the outcast. Let us not stay silent and indifferent in the face of oppression.
Amen.
