“Master,
now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word…” Simeon, Luke 2:29
Dismissing
is a word that sends us out into the unknown. The word itself has come to add
to the fear of the unknown, as in wrongful dismissal or summary dismissal. It
speaks to us of being overlooked, ignored, of not being granted a hearing, of
finding ourselves surplus to requirements. It carries the bitterness of a
workforce being laid off; or an elderly person, once looked to as a contributor
to society, made to feel that they are a burden. To be dismissed may banish us
to the past, bar us from a share in the future – or even a role in the present.
And
yet to be dismissed, especially to find ourselves dismissed in peace, has a
very different meaning. Simeon gives thanks to God for dismissing him in peace,
and here the word is clothed with the weight not of a burden but of presence.
It is the very opposite of being overlooked, ignored, not being granted a
hearing, or finding ourselves surplus to requirements. The old man Simeon has
been honoured – God has bound himself not to act in order to deliver his people
without ensuring that Simeon is there to witness. Simeon’s prayers that God
would, indeed, send his Messiah have been heard and answered; and Simeon has a
particular role to play, speaking into the lives of Jesus’ parents, and of
those who had also been waiting for this moment.
Simeon’s
song is sung again day after day at Evening Prayer. To sleep is to step into
the unknown, for to lie down to sleep and to rise again is a repeated rehearsal
for death and resurrection, for resting in peace and rising in glory. And, of
course, one night we might lie down to sleep, to discover that it wasn’t a
rehearsal. But in joining with Simeon’s song we too acknowledge that God our
master is dismissing us in peace: giving his permission for us to rest, his
affirmation of us; and, for our part, choosing to allow that peace to embrace
us, even though we recognise that the world is filled with danger and sorrow as
well as deliverance and joy.
Dismissal
is also how every time we gather around the Lord’s Table ends. Having seen a
glimpse of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ, in our listening to the written
word and our tasting of his presence in the bread and the wine; having seen a
glimpse of God’s salvation in Jesus Christ at work in our lives and the lives
of those gathered around us; we are then dismissed in peace: sent out into an
uncertain world equipped to love and to serve the Lord. We are dismissed, as
those who have been honoured to see God’s salvation with our own eyes; as those
whose prayers have been answered, if not yet answered in full; as those who
have a particular role and a particular dignity. We are dismissed to go out
into the world, reflecting the glory we have beheld, bearing light to those
around us.
And
this is as amazing today as it was to Mary and Joseph. For here the two very
different trajectories of dismissing come together: those the world overlooks
and ignores and has no use for are the very ones whom God chooses to call and
to send.
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