Sermon: "Past, Present, and Future"

The Rev. Maureen R. Frescott

The Congregational Church of Amherst, UCC

December 31, 2017 – First Sunday after Christmas

Luke 2:22-40

“Past, Present, and Future”

While preparing to preach on this passage from Luke’s gospel about Simeon and Anna, I came across an image that depicts the moment when these two devout elders met the infant Jesus in the Temple in Jerusalem.

It’s an oil painting done in 1988 by an artist named John Swanson.

(No, not our John Swanson...John is wonderful about fixing things around our church building but I've yet to run across a mural in the furnace room). 

I was drawn to this painting because it shows Simeon lifting Jesus up in the air with great joy, while Anna looks on with an equal expression of elation on her face.

Mary and Joseph, on the other hand, look a little apprehensive as Simeon holds Jesus high in the air, as if to say,

“Hey, be careful with our baby! He’s only a month old, you know.”

But Mary and Joseph’s parental apprehension is more likely showing because of what Simeon and Anna have just told them –

that their child is destined for greatness –

that he would be responsible for the rising and the falling of many –

that many more would oppose him - and while this would likely lead to personal heartache for his parents, ultimately, it was their child who would set the wheels of change and redemption in motion.

This was a joyful revelation, worthy of celebrating.

Thus, despite Mary and Joseph’s hint of apprehension, every face in the painting holds an expression of delight.

But what I love most about this painting are the colors the artist chose to use.

Unlike the muted colors and understated earth tones we often see in religious images, this one has bright reds, vivid purples, fiery splashes of orange, and almost florescent greens.

No drab brown robes for Joseph here, instead he seems to have borrowed the Technicolor Dreamcoat from another famous Joseph for this Temple visit.

Even Mary has flung off her virgin blue headscarf and replaced it with one striped with red, yellow, and purple.

Simeon and Anna wear robes that mirror the vivid colors of Mary and Joseph’s ensembles.

Even the Temple floor they’re standing on is a multi-colored mosaic befitting of a space set aside for the worship of their Creator God.

This image is just one panel in the center of a larger painting.

The entire painting includes a scene below with other colorfully attired worshipers looking on in the Temple hall,

and a scene above with golden angels in the rafters and a deep blue star-filled sky hovering over them all. 

 

When you look at this painting your eye can’t help but be drawn to the splashes of color everywhere, while at the same time continually shifting its focus back to the tiny figure of the baby Jesus at the center,

as he’s held aloft against the warm orange glow of the Temple walls.

The use of color in this depiction of Simeon and Anna in the Temple is striking.

But not everyone who looks at this painting sees what the artist intended us to see.

Approximately 8% of the world’s population is colorblind.

For most this involves an inability to distinguish between colors in the red-green spectrum.

A bright red barn may appear to be muddy brown, or pale green, or beige.

An orange and green Christmas decoration may appear to be two different shades of yellow.

A favorite blue shirt may actually be purple.

For others still, the entire color spectrum is reduced to muted shades of blacks, and browns, and olive greys.

You might imagine for a minute what it would be like to go through life never seeing the colors of the world as God created them.

Some of you here may not have to imagine it.

Colorblindness affects 1 out of every 200 women, and 1 out of every 12 men.

It’s much more common in men because the affected gene is carried on the X-chromosome.

(women are born with a back up X-chromosome in the event one happens to be faulty).

There is no cure for colorblindness, but in 2010, a company called Enchroma developed a special pair of sunglasses that compensate for the eye’s inability to see certain wavelengths of light.

When someone who is colorblind puts on the glasses the effect is truly miraculous.

You may have seen one of the many videos that people have made to capture the moment when a loved one is given a pair of these special glasses and sees true color for the first time.

There’s one featuring a 66-year-old grandfather  - a big brawny guy with a bushy mustache, who at first glance seems like the type who is not easily impressed and prefers to hold his emotions in check.

As he stood outside at what appeared to be a back yard birthday party, he seemed perplexed when he was handed the wrapped package containing the glasses, and a little annoyed that his family insisted on filming him as he opened it, especially as his large fingers fumbled with the small box and the multiple layers of packaging.

(You can tell he’s been married many years, when he stopped himself and asked his wife, “Are we saving the wrapping paper?” before he tore into it.)

When he finally got the box open, he seemed pleased to receive a gift of sunglasses, yet he was still unsure as to what the fuss was all about.

Than at his family’s urging, he put the sunglasses on.

Immediately he began to pound his fists against his legs and then rubbed his hands together in an effort to contain his joy.

But he could not contain it.

He began to shake and tried in vain to hold back his tears as he swiveled his head left and right, and then slid the glasses up and down his nose, checking the view with and without, as if he could not believe what he was seeing.

Off camera, we hear his granddaughter say: – “Can you see with our eyes now, Poppy? What colors do you see?”

But her grandfather was rendered speechless as the tears began to flow – from him and his family.

When his wife urged him to look at the flowers behind him and the grass in front of him and describe what he saw, with a catch in his voice he finally he said,  “It doesn’t look like mud. It’s amazing.”

The video ends with this big brawny grandfather giddily and joyously clapping his hands together over and over again –

like a child who had opened a gift he had longed for but had never expected to receive.

I imagine Simeon reacting in much the same way when he was handed the child named Jesus.

He just may have lifted the tiny baby in the air as he did in Swanson’s painting.

Here was a man – a respected elder in the community - who had lived most of his life in a world of muted colors – a world full of oppression, and poverty, and hopelessness – and suddenly as he was handed the light of Christ I imagine the world around him burst into bright and bold hues and shades he had never seen before.

Here was the gift they had long been promised.

The one the prophet Isaiah had said a thousand years before, would come to change the world.

Anna shared Simeon’s assertion that this was the light they had been waiting for.

In her 84 years she had likely seen many a Messiah come and go.

Those who promised to shake things up and change things for the better and clear out the corruption in the system once and for all.

Every generation birthed a new ideal, a new way of seeing the world, a new savior, or saviors, who pledged to take on the establishment and supplant it with something that benefited the many rather than just the few.

There was a time when Anna and Simeon were members of that generation.

The young and idealistic - who shook their heads at those who lived in the past while they instead lived in the moment with an eye towards building a better future.

But as Simeon and Anna aged they changed.

Just as all of us do.

Gradually, their present became their past.

Friends moved on and married, priorities shifted, and they began to see that the system they longed to change was not so changeable after all.

Perhaps they learned it was better - for them – in the long run -  to follow the rules and resist rocking the boat.

To hold on to what they had and to not take any unnecessary risks that would only bring more discomfort to their already difficult lives.

To ensure they had enough to take care of their immediate and future needs, and the needs of their family, and to not concern themselves too much with the needs of their neighbor, or the stranger – which were impossible to meet.

Perhaps this is how it was for Simeon and Anna.
Or perhaps they still held onto a spark of their youthful idealism.

But lacked the energy and the stamina to do anything more than pledge their support to the next generation who seemed eager to carry the torch they’d left behind.

We don’t have to be above a certain age or be born colorblind for the world around us to lose or lack brightness and boldness.

Between eyes that need glasses to see distances or read labels,

eyes that cloud and dim over time, eyes that strain to see through cataracts and degenerative diseases, there aren’t many of us who see the world in true 20/20 living color as God created it.

This is why, in the absence of special glasses or corrective surgery, we rely on those who CAN see the variety of shades and hues to help us to see the beauty, and the radiance, and the fullness of life and the world that we may be missing. 

This is the beauty of the story of Simeon and Anna that Luke gives us in his gospel.

Here we have Israel’s past – represented in the wisdom of the religious elders and in the history seeping through the Temple walls – coming face to face with the youthful enthusiasm of Israel’s present – in the form of Mary and Joseph and the tiny gift they’ve birthed into the world.

And together they’ll lay the groundwork for Israel’s future –

where God will one day step in and redeem the world, when enough of the people call for it and truly want it and live it in their hearts.

This is our past, present, and future as well.

A convergence of generations and ideals and longings and leanings.

The community that we’re building today in Jesus’ name is part of the future that Simeon and Anna envisioned when they laid eyes on the Christ Child.

It’s part of the future that Luke and Paul and the other New Testament writers envisioned when they laid the groundwork of the early church.

In the present, we carry the torch of those who came before us,

Hopefully, learning from their mistakes and building on their successes.

And knowing that someday our present will be the past that some future generation will look back on and say, “These are the things worth keeping and these are the things that need to change.”

On a personal scale, we’re conditioned to do this stock taking on an annual basis.

As we look back on the past year - and look in the mirror - and tally up our successes and failures.

The relationship we began or ended, the job we lost or found, the exercise routine we followed religiously or never got around to starting.

As a church – as followers of Christ - it benefits us to do a similar stock taking of our past, and our present, to give us a clearer vision of our future.

So we can let go of what is holding us back and lean into what God is calling us to be.

It’s been said if we’ve ever wondered how we would have responded if we were present during pivotal moments of the past –

When Jesus called his disciples to leave everything behind and follow him,

When St. Francis demonstrated what it means to devote one’s life to the care of the poor,

When Jewish families knocked on the doors of their German neighbors and asked to be taken in,

When angry mobs of white citizens surrounded a black child, preventing her from going to school with their children…

If we’ve ever wondered how we would have responded when confronted with poverty, prejudice, or injustice – when asked to live into to our Christian calling - we need only look at how we’re responding now.

I do wish that we could put on a pair of special glasses and see the world as God created it to be.

To see every color vividly and fully.

To see the beauty and potential of this world, fully realized.

The light of Christ helps us to see that.

It fills in the gaps where our vision falls short.

And shows us what we could be – if we truly want it in our heart.

So on this New Year’s Eve,

as we ponder where we’ve been,

where we are,  

and where we’re going…as people of God,

May we follow in the footsteps of Simeon and Anna,

And rejoice at the arrival of the Christ Child,

And lift him up high so that he might illuminate the path before us.

Just as he did for our ancestors,

And will continue to do for generations to come.

Thanks be to God, and Amen.