Lectionary texts: Malachi 3:1-5, Hebrews
2:14-18, and Luke 2:22-40
Our Gospel today, our good news, concerns the start
and the end of life. And all our readings pay attention to the process of refining,
as silver and gold are refined in a crucible.
Let us begin at the beginning, with Mary and her son
Jesus, who is forty days old. Jewish Law mandated that when a woman gave birth,
she had what we would today call maternity leave, forty protected days—which is
forty days more than women are entitled to in the USA in 2023. This was part of
the Purity Code. Purity, here, is not a moral condition, but a sign, of being
set apart, or, holy. So, the Jews did not eat pork or shellfish, not because
eating pork or shellfish is immoral, but as a sign that they were set apart from
other groups, as having a special relationship with the god Yahweh. Likewise, new
mothers and their babies were set apart, and after forty days made a public
appearance at the Temple, not because childbirth was a necessary evil to atone
for but as the culmination of a hidden process and a giving thanks to God. Those
forty days gave space for a bonding to take place.
One of the images the Scriptures use for purity, or
being set apart, for God and for one another, is the crucible. In a crucible,
silver or gold are heated until they turn into a liquid form. In this form, metals
can be combined, forming an alloy, and then poured into a mould, to set hard in
whatever form is needed. In a crucible, what previously had one shape or use
can be remade into something new, still precious, still holy, but for a
different purpose.
Imagine the Lord God as gold, Mary as silver, Jesus as
copper. Imagine, in this process, Mary’s life being bonded to the life of God
to form white gold: a daughter of Israel who loved the Lord her God with all
her heart, and all her mind, and all her soul, and all her strength. Imagine
Jesus, her son, bonded with God to form rose gold: fully human, fully divine; inseparably
so. Imagine Mary and Jesus bonded to form Sterling silver, coin silver, jewelry
silver: something that can be shaped in a wide variety of ways.
Imagine your life, in the crucible, tested by heat,
bonded with the life of God. Imagine our communal life, bonded with God in the
same process, and poured out to be shaped for a particular purpose. How might
that recast how we think about the pressures we are under?
Now, I’d like to move from beginnings to ending well,
and to Simeon, an older man who knows that he has drawn near to his dying. As
it happens, I read a lot about death and dying, and how we might handle this
final great work of our lifetimes well. Those who are trained in palliative
care deem that two things are necessary: the first is good management of the
symptoms of whatever condition—cancer, or heart failure, for example—is causing
our death; and the second is peace of mind.
We’re told that responsibility for managing any
symptoms Simeon is experiencing has been taken on by the Holy Spirit: that’s an
incredibly tender image, a beautiful revelation of God’s care for us, to the
very end, the fruition of a lifelong bond. And, it is clear, that peace is guarding
Simeon’s heart and mind, is shepherding every emotion. He is just about ready
to go, but first he needs to attend to some last things: he needs to speak well
of God; he needs to speak well of the younger generation, those whose own lives
stretch out ahead of them, but will one day arrive where Simeon is now. He
needs to hold this child in his arms, a stranger to him and yet reassuringly
familiar; the one he has waited so long for. And Mary and Joseph are
wise-beyond-their-years enough to allow Simeon to say what he needs to say, to
receive his blessing—even the strange blessing that this child will be a sign
for the ruin and resurrection of many in Israel, and that a sword will pierce Mary’s
heart, too.
Jesus will be a sign for the ruin and resurrection of
many. How? By his own ruin—a torturous undoing unto death—and resurrection.
This is the way: the immense heat of the crucible, in which we dissolve and
from which we are recast. Not only shall we all die, and discover that death is
not the end; we get to rehearse this pattern, in many letting-go’s and goodbyes
and new beginnings through the seasons of life, and in the dying of our loved
ones. We get to practice, so that when we come at last to our own dying, we
might have a perfect end. How might that recast how we think about aging and
dying?
We are approaching the turning-point, from Christmas
to Easter, from God-with-us in our beginning to God-with-us in our completion,
Jesus, the Alpha and Omega. Three-and-a-half weeks from now, we will come again
to Ash Wednesday, the contemplation of our mortality, and to the Season of
Lent. And Lent will be a crucible, time set apart to be with God.
Notes, for how we might live this Gospel at Sunderland
Minster:
Beginnings and endings: people coming to an end (or at
least a break from) serving in certain roles: PCC, Church Wardens, Treasurer,
Secretary, Gift Aid officer; there may be others. In what ways are you nearing death—and
do you feel at peace with it? In what role might God be calling you to take the
baton and run the next leg of the race for us?
The crucible: through Lent we will stop meeting as the
9.45 a.m. congregation and the Feast congregation, and meet together at 10.30
a.m. on Sundays for one simple service where we shall focus on listening to God
together in prayer. What has been, now being dissolved, to be poured into what
will be.
No comments:
Post a Comment