"What Are Your Children Up To?" December 27, 2015

I Samuel 1:26-2:11 Luke 2:21-52 How many have relatives who have gone home? How many have Poinsettias that look like this? How many of us have put away Grandma's good china and silver? How many have leftovers left over? How many have taken the ornaments off of the tree? How many have taken down the tree all together? As Americans in the 21st Century, we yearn to get things over with! Advertising for Christmas began before School started! We wait and agonize over, when something is going to come, but the minute it has arrived, we move on to the next. We live in an obsolete, disposable society. It was not always so. The 12 Days of Christmas were not about the days leading up to Midnight the 24th but the Partridge was a Symbol of the Christ. The Partridge is one of the few creatures, which when it senses dangers sacrifices itself, leads predators away from the nest, to save others. Two Turtledoves, symbolizing Judaism and Christianity together, also was the sacrifice Mary made here at the Temple. Three French Hens, referring to the Trinity, was the gift for this 3rd day of Christmas. The 12 Days of Christmas was to be Christmas until Epiphany, and not until the 6th of January did the Wise relatives from the East even arrive. There is an importance to reading these passages from the Bible this morning, the third day of Christmas when all the crowds have left. Because the coming of Christ is not only about Christ coming into the world, but everything that comes because of his entry into this life. The stories of the birth of the Savior, in addition to describing this gift of God to the people of God, tell the stories surrounding his birth and ancestry. We each have stories like this. We research Google, Ancestry.com and the Latter day Saints, for clues of our lineage, who begat us, as indication of the seeds of whom we might be. Are we descended from Royal Blood or Scoundrels? Are we of multiple races, cultures, what blood flows in our veins? We recall if our babies were early or late, how many hours of labor, the weight and length, and stories of giving birth as indication that at that moment, when we came into the world, everything changed. I delivered our first-born. With Vivaldi's Four Seasons playing on the Cassette Tape Deck, and 4th of July Fireworks outside the windows. Our youngest came into the world very quickly, 15 minutes after arrival at the hospital. Born with a full head of hair, and a tooth, and because the chord was round his neck the midwives instructed that during his birth, my wife I hug each other with all the love within us. Different stories, each a recollection of what we hoped for each child. But this morning's readings are about childhood after birth. There are family stories for every person. At 3 I was asked if I would be a minister like my father, and I declared “No, I am going to be a firefighter or a builder” I am not certain that that did not come true. At 4 I was riding a pony bareback at the family farm in Fulton, and rode her up onto my Grandmother's front porch so I could knock on the door. One of our children loved dogs and frogs and pollywogs. The other would squat down to look intently at rocks and earth and water. I recall the children of one of our families who are Korean celebrating the first year birthday of each child, and choosing between a Book, Money and Thread as an indication of their identity. Every culture has their act of claiming our children. When we began reading the Books of Samuel, The Wednesday evening Bible Study, asked “We know who Saul and David and Solomon were, but who was Samuel?” We began in the time of the Judges; after Moses had led them through the wilderness 40 years, after Joshua had led the Nation into the Promised Land; BUT before the rise of Kings and Monarchy and Jesus. There was the story of Jonah, there was Ruth, and there was a particular man Elkanah who had two wives. The one was so fertile, she became pregnant when her husband looked at her, giving birth to many children. The other wife: Hannah, like the Patriarch Jacob's wife Rachel, was the true love of her husband, but unable to conceive. Annually after the family went to Temple for Passover, there would be a great family dinner, and Hannah would realize all the more that she was alone. So one year, after the family dinner, she came back to the altar and prayed. Hannah's prayer was a model of devotion and love of God, her realization that all power belongs to God, and that real power is not about might or wealth but love, is often read in Advent, and remembered as foundational to Mary's Prayer in the Gospels called The Magnificat. Hannah prayed with such devotion and fervor, rocking back and forth with tears and laughter and singing, that Eli the priest thought she was drunk. She confessed to the priest her faith and her desire to give birth to a child, not as her possession, but so that she had a child to give to God. For which Eli blessed her and her prayer. This morning's first Testament, is of Hannah returning to the Temple 3 or 4 years later, to follow through on her vow, to fulfill her commitment and to give her child to God. This is not a public display, not the woman at Solomon's Temple in the New Testament whom Jesus recognized giving a single coin that is everything she has. This is instead, Hannah's fulfillment in private response to God's fulfillment. Later, Samuel would grow to replace Eli and his sons, as the last of the Priests and Prophets and Judges One like Moses and Aaron, Joshua and Gideon and Samson and Deborah. Later, Samuel would be the one God uses to anoint King Saul and later still to anoint King David, creating the circumstance for war. But here, this morning, this passage describes Hannah's Offering, her Sacrifice to God. The story did not end with Hannah giving birth to the child she prayed to have. The story did not skip from birth, to Samuel being an apprentice to the Priest. Instead, on this morning after Christ's birth, we read of Hannah loving her child so much as to fulfill her promise, and regularly she returned to give her son a handmade robe and Linen Ephah. While there were other Gospels which the Christian Canon chose to not include, stories which described Jesus' childhood with abilities and insights and gifts other children did not have; the Gospel of Luke alone describes Mary and Joseph presenting their child Jesus at the Temple. This might be expected in Matthew's Gospel, where connections from the Old Testament to the New are frequent, obedience and fulfillment of Jewish Law is vital, characters like Anna and Simeon are expected, and Wisemen are remembered. But Luke who only references the Old Testament and the Law 9 times, with his focus on the Shepherds in the field, is the only writer to describe Mary and Joseph going to the Temple to fulfill the Law for Purification and the Bris of Circumcision. Inextricably linked to the Circumcision is the giving of a Name. In Judaism, outside the mother and father, a child has no name until presented in worship and Named before God. This is why, although we in our immediate family knew and have been addressing Dante from before his birth as Dante, Double D or Piquito, in his Baptism we asked “And what is the name of this Child of God?” Independent of the Virgin Birth narrative, are these affirmations of Jesus even at infancy as being The Messiah, Son of God, Savior. Luke had in the first Chapter told of the birth of John the Baptist, whose parents Elizabeth and Zechariah were pious and advanced in age, his father one of the High Priests of the Temple. Here at the end of the 2nd Chapter, a couple like Zechariah and Elizabeth appear at the Temple, Anna and Simeon offering blessings and statements of the Salvation. Strangely, Luke has only nine places in the whole Gospel that cite the Old Testament and four of them are right here. Also, Matthew and Mark never use the word GRACE, and here in Luke, Grace is what this gift is all about. One of the things I love about Simeon and Anna is that routinely in rituals, we ask the individual what their intentions are, we invite them to make vows, the Ordained pray over and lay hands upon them. Think here of a Wedding, Confirmation, Ordination,even a Memorial. But Simeon and Anna are two present at this first appearance that the Temple, and as two people in the Temple they each offer their blessings and affirmations. Here we have no record of the words of Mary or Joseph or the Priest, but what Simeon and Anna did say. Would that we could record the words said in affirmation, to be recorded and remembered over our lifetimes. Hurtful words we remember and we replay. What if we each had a book of affirmations of what wise, pious, experienced people, those not in your own family have said? In polite conversation, there are routine questions we ask. Where are you going to college? What are your children doing? Would that more than providing moral expectations, we as the Community of Faith in this place and time...if we extended to each individual our caring, our hopes and affirmations for them. If we interpreted our responsibility as the church, not only as teaching, and questioning attendance of children baptized, but if we held them up by name before God? At Christmas Eve the Sanctuary was filled with children, almost all of which we have baptized, but most of whom we have not thought of since.