1st Sun. after Christmas
Luke 2:25-40
"Left - Overs"
"An Indian chief was disturbed about how lazy his braves had been during the hunting season, so he called all the tribe together and announced, "I’ve got good news and bad news. The bad news is that, because you have been lazy and done little hunting this season, all we have to eat all winter long is clay from the riverbank. The good news is that there is an ample amount of clay to keep us going until next year."
Isn’t that life?? Good news and bad news seem to come together. I have some good news for you today, Christmas is over, you can relax, take it easy, the food is all baked, the tree is all decorated, the presents are all unwrapped, the holiday is finished. The bad news is, the clean up job remains. The Christmas decorations need to be put away, the trees undecorated, the either put back in the box, or hauled outside. There are piles of wrapping paper to put away and throw away, there are those added pounds to be lost, because you had such good food during these holidays. The bad news continues when you think of the gifts that have to be returned, because they didn’t fit right, or weren’t the exact color, and more bad news comes when you find that even though you were trying to be careful, you somehow over-spent and now you wonder how you are going to pay for all that good news.
These leftovers items are also part of the holiday, also part of the Christmas season, also part of our celebration. Somehow the leftovers seem to be an anticlimax to the Christmas celebration. Somehow these things cleaning, loosing weight, taking things back, putting things away, don’t seem to fit in just right with that Christmas Spirit. Somehow these leftovers just don’t feel right with the glitter, the excitement, the wonder, the awe, the majesty and the beauty of Christmas.
But, I would venture to say, these leftovers do go hand in hand with the Christmas spirit, these leftovers are part and parcel with Christmas.
These leftovers have as much to do with Christmas, as the event itself, because Christmas just doesn’t end after Dec. 25th, but what happened during Christmas lives on and on. It lives in our memories, it lives in these leftovers, it lives as we see anew what this Christ child means for us. The Christmas spirit, the birth of Jesus lived on in so-called leftovers of society as we read about Simeon and Anna in our gospel lesson this morning.
The Christmas Spirit was revealed first of all to two old people, Simeon and Anna. As Pastor John Brokhoff says in his book, Wrinkled Wrappings, "They are leftover from the meal of life. By their wrinkled, shrivel bodies they appear as wrinkled wrappings. But leftovers can be good and delicious as the main meal. This was the case with the couple in wrinkled wrappings. They saw something 40 days after Christmas that no body up to that time had seen. The shepherds, the religious ruler who heard rumors of his birth, his father and mother, all didn’t really understand or see in this child the image of God. The only ones who recognized the Messiah in the man-child, God in Jesus, were two aged, wrinkled, wrapped left-over people, Simeon and Anna."
Simeon and Anna saw and they believed, they saw and worshipped, they saw and lived in that grace they experienced from that child, they saw and continued to serve God through others. These marvelous people, these leftovers, this wrinkled wrapped man and woman are a fine example for us of how God continues to reveal himself to the leftovers, the wrinkled wrapped people of society. God doesn’t always reveal himself to the powerful, the wealthy, the healthy, the wise, the famous, the upper crust of society. He reveals himself to the lowly, the outcasts, the leftovers, the wrinkled wrapped, who society has frown on, who society has disregarded as weak, and worthless, but God sees as whole and holy.
God came as a child to this earth to be with all of society, even the so-called leftovers. "A negro died and went to heaven. He got together with other blacks and they started comparing their life histories. Finally, they approach God, and their spokesperson said, "Lord, you just don’t realize how tough it was down there!! I was born black. I was of a despised race!! And God said, "I was once a Jew." The black went on, "Yes, but I was persecuted. My daddy was innocent, but still the Klan hanged him." And Jesus showed them his own nail-scarred hand. "You don’t understand, Lord!!" The black went on, "I never had a cent, no education, no home. People laughed and scoffed at me. Why, when I was a baby, we had to flee our house and move to another city for the safety of our lives." And God smiled tenderly. He placed his big arm around the black man’s shoulder and said, "I know how it is my son. I have been there myself."
Yes, He has. God did not send us a book, a picture, a song, or an idea. He did not send us a sermon or even a friend. Instead, God came himself. He gave us his presence more than he gave us an explanation. He gave us his own life, death and resurrection.
God came to earth for the leftovers, for the wrinkled wrapped, for all those who acknowledge they cannot handle life alone. God came to earth especially today, for those who have not measured up by earthly standards. He came for the poor, the sick, the chronically ill, the despised, the broken, those experiencing broken relationships, and the handicapped.
God comes to all those who live in the humility that they cannot handle life alone. He comes to make winners out of losers. Notice, I said, He came to make winners out of losers, God does the work not us. He does it with His own timetable in His own way, through His own means.
Who would have thought that an old dying priest would be the one to bless the Baby and declare for all to hear that this baby would be the light to lighten the Gentiles. For Simeon says, "Lord, now lettest thou they servant depart in peace, according to thy word; for mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared in the presence of all people, a light for the revelation to the Gentiles, and for the glory to thy people Israel."
Simeon declared the mission and ministry of Jesus and his followers. It would be some 33 or more years later until that mission would truly begin in earnest to the Gentiles and that mission is not complete yet. God’s timetable is not for human minds or souls to understand, or predict.
So, I wonder why so many people believe they have the answers of God for all of us?? Why do the so called, "in groups" the so called, "truly righteous" think they have the answers for the "wrinkled wrapped", the so called "leftovers of society??? "
God in the Bible showed us very clearly He came to the wrinkled wrapped, why do the "religious right", the "religious fundamentals", the "religious elite" make the wrinkled wrapped feel so guilty for not being perfect,as they view themselves??
Let me explain. Since all of these problems have been happening to me these last several years, many people have called my faith into question. I have been asked repeatedly if I have prayed for "total healing" if I have prayed with no doubts attached, no "if it is your will Lord", but just the statement," heal me Lord". I have received tapes on several occasions in the mail asking me to search my heart and soul for a hidden sin, then repent of that sin, then healing would be possible.
In my brokenness, in my handicap am I not whole and holy in God’s eyes? Is my healing something people want for me, or for themselves, so they can prove to themselves the power of God? But isn’t God’s power also revealed in weakness? Doesn’t God work through and in the wrinkled wrapped??
I have felt from many that because I am handicapped I cannot do anything, am worth nothing, and cannot be holy or whole in their eyes!! I was rejected from a teaching job, because the school board said to the superintendent, "we don’t want someone like that teaching our children."
Bishop Miller was approached, the day I was installed, asking him to find a different place for me, because with my cane and brace I was perceived weak and could not do the job!! Never mind that I had been serving churches for ten year, were my first parish was a two point as I did double of everything. Never mind that I had taught school, never mind that I had worked in a cement factory while in high school. Never mind, I worked and helped pay my way through college. Never mind all of that, because I had a brace and cane, I could not handle it here!!
Now, people cannot see past the wheelchair to the person, to me, a child of God who has been called by Him to be a person of self worth, a person of dignity, a person of wholeness and holiness in my wrinkled wrappings.
I understand more than ever the place of the wrinkled wrapped in society. People have a very difficult time seeing pass the negatives to the positives in the wrinkled wrapped. Many people care about what they feel I cannot do, not what I am capable of doing and what I do, and do very well. No, we dwell on the negative, we dwell on what we perceive to be the glorious in life, the whole, the healthy, the wealthy, the "perfect" and not what God perceives to be glorious, the wrinkled wrapped, the leftovers.
I am sure glad that God can see pass my wrinkled wrappings. I am glad that God can see pass my negatives, to the positives. I am glad that throughout the Bible, God has always seen past the negatives to the positives, that God has seen in the wrinkled wrapped, in the left overs of society a worth, a holiness, a dignity, that others fail to see.
Yes, Lord, I am thankful you have seen in the Simeons, the Anna’s, the wrinkled wrapped of this world, a holiness, a righteousness, a faith, and a dignity.
Lord, I am glad your eyesight is better than ours. You see the worth of the individual. Yes, Lord, thank you for the wrinkled wrapped, for the leftovers, because in your eyes, they are the beautiful packages, and the main meal.
amen
