Spiritual & Ethical Insight
Whatever else 2012 will be, we know already it is the year of the American presidential election. As two republican candidates slugged it out in the recent South Carolina primary, headlines proclaimed one to be experienced in serial and open marriage, and the other to be good at minimizing his tax obligations. Voters seemed to feel the latter was more serious than the former, but will there be a reversal in Florida?
In terms of American foreign policy, a recent commentator distinguished between presidents who engage in wars which have no justification other than serving the national interest, and squander thousands of human lives and huge financial resources, with presidents whose foreign policy has broader global objectives of building a world where international teamwork, justice and freedom are the outcomes.
Another feature of the American political scene is that it seems driven more by ideologies than by a flexibility that focuses on what works best for those in need. Debates about health, housing or education degenerate too quickly into ideological warfare about the role of government vis-à-vis individual freedoms, or the levels of taxation and public provision. The poor are forgotten.
By contrast we see people of huge wealth such as Warren Buffet and Bill and Melinda Gates who give away vast tracts of their income to assist those in need. These are not just philanthropists: they are also strong advocates for policy changes that will improve the lot of the poor both at home and abroad.
All these same dynamics play out, of course, in New Zealand: what we see writ large on the American scene should give us clues as to what look for here.
All of which has a direct connection with today’s Gospel (Luke 2.22-40) when Mary and Joseph bring the infant Jesus to be presented in the temple. Three times it is mentioned that this is in accordance with the Law, so that Jesus is seen to stand fair and square in the Jewish tradition. Jesus’ presentation as the first-born male is linked to the purification (today we call it thanksgiving) of the mother after childbirth. The Law required an offering of a lamb and a turtle-dove or pigeon. In the case of the poor, however, a pair of the pigeons or doves could substitute for the lamb. Jesus and his family thus stand very much with God’s poor. It is thus clear that Jesus’ mission stands clearly in the Jewish tradition: “to do justice, love mercy and walk humbly with one’s God (Micah 6.8).
And now we come to Simeon, that old man, righteous and pious, to whom it had been revealed by the spirit that he would not see death before seeing the Lord’s messiah. Three times it is said that the Holy Spirit guided him to recognize the messiah in the infant Jesus. We sing Simeon’s song at choral evensong as the Nunc Dimittis: Lord, now let your servant depart in peace, for my eyes have seen your salvation for all people”.
So Luke sets it out unequivocally that Jesus stands in the Jewish tradition and in fact fulfils that tradition as the long expected messiah, God’s chosen one for the salvation of the world. The fact that he is to be both a light to the gentiles as well as the glory of God’s people Israel foreshadows the universal nature of Jesus’ mission, and ours.
Then to underline it all we hear the endorsement of Anna, the prophetess who had “grown very elderly, never left the temple grounds and worshipped night and day with fasting and prayer”. She arrived at the same time as Simeon, praised God and “kept speaking about Jesus to all those waiting for the liberation of Israel”.
But what is the salvation which Jesus brings? There was a time 1000 years earlier when under Kings David and Solomon Israel had been like a modern-day Singapore – a small nation at the crossroads of international trading routes, and thus having huge wealth and political influence. But those days were long gone. Successive attacks by large nations such as Babylon and Persia had reduced Israel to vassal status. In Jesus’ time the once-proud nation had been reduced to a small and peripheral colony of the Roman Empire.
For some the Lord’s salvation meant throwing off colonial oppression and restoring the nation’s status of 1000 years before. To those who thought thus Simeon’s words to Mary would have been unwelcome, that “this child will cause the fall and the rise of many within Israel” and “a sword shall cut through your soul”. Simeon is saying that far from the messiah bringing on the good times once more, Jesus will be a source of division, and grief. The path he is destined to tread will lead to the Cross, but from his suffering and death will come salvation for all.
Jesus’ reign is not to be measured in terms of national wealth, power and status, but rather in terms of Mary’s words in the Magnificat: “God has pulled down the mighty from their thrones, and exalted the lowly. He has filled the hungry with good things, but the rich he has sent away empty” (Luke 1. 52,53).
The key feature in today’s Gospel is the perception by all the key players as to God’s ultimate purpose. Mary and Joseph saw it; so did Simeon and Anna. They were all steeped in the tradition of their faith. Simeon and Anna spent the days of their old age in prayer and fasting and study of the scriptures. They saw clearly the nature of salvation, and the cost that often accompanied it. They could recognize by the spirit that Jesus was God’s messiah, by whom everything else in life had to be measured.
Which brings us back to where we started with the American presidential election: that in every age it is the vocation of the Christian to be so clear in our vision of God’s purposes that we can see, speak and act prophetically in critique of the world around us. In every nation there are those who see it, whose spiritual and ethical vision is 20/20, and others who don’t. And to be honest, there are bits of each in each of us.
Through our life of prayer and study of the scriptures, you and I need to have that 20/20 vision of Mary and Joseph, Simeon and Anna, and be the prophets of our own times.
