text and context 2: lukan pairs and "good news which shall be unto ALL people"
***sorry I've been away for a bit--youth ski trip last week, but more on that later. in the meantime, here's last week's text and context. more to come tomorrow!***
In the waning days of 2007 Jen and I were driving between myriad Christmas parties/obligations when we started trying to imagine what the post-Nativity days were like. The infant Jesus, crying and gurgling and laughing and doing all the other various bodily functions known to all newborns, even the God-man. It had to be pretty rough. The next time Jesus pops up in the Scripture is in the latter half of Luke 2--the presentation of the boy Jesus at the Temple and the subsequent prophecies uttered by Simeon and the proclamation of the Savior by the prophetess Anna.
As we talked about that passage, it became abundantly clear that there was plenty of material here for a sermon, or two, or two-in-one. I threw the idea out to our pastor of Jen and I co-preaching this text and he said he was game. The whole sermon follows at the end of this post for those who would like to listen in, but in the meantime I thought it was worth passing along a few more details on something I learned while doing my homework.
It turns out Simeon and Anna are neither the first nor the last of male/female dyads in Luke's gospel. While the angel visited Elizabeth, Zechariah is the one singing the song. When Jesus heals a Roman centurion's son he next visits Peter's mother-in-law. It would be tempting to read Luke's narrative intent as something akin to an egalitarian effort at affirmative action, but this betrays the heart of Luke's message. The angels appearing to the shepherds, the ones that were, as Linus says in A Charlie Brown Christmas "sore afraid", they say "Fear not, I bring you tidings of great joy, which shall be unto ALL people."
Luke's intent is quite clear--the gospel is no respecter of persons, not merely for the rich, nor solely for the poor, not compartmentalized for the male, the aristocrat, the leper, the bourgeoisie, the harlot, the tax collector, the righteous. In a wonderful book entitled Women and Christian Origins Mary Rose D'angelo points out that these narrative pairs form an architecture of sorts--a bit of twin pillaring or, as I would prefer to think of it, a delicate arch of sorts. (see pictures 3 and 4). I can almost see it as Simeon and Anna jointly lift the infant Christ in the air, showing the one who literally and figuratively would cause the rising and falling of many in Israel, while still being a "light unto the Gentiles".
It doesn't stop with Luke's gospel, however. Luke the Sequel, or the Book of Acts as it is more popularly known, maintains a tight narrative structure--where Luke 2 details the birth, presentation and "growth in wisdom and stature" of the Savior, Acts 2 give the birth, presentation and "growth in those added to their number" within the early Church. Perhaps we shouldn't be surprised that "men and women are being added daily", or that Lydia and her household are baptized, soon to be followed by a Philippian jailer and his household. It's narrative integrity, but it's more than that.
The bridge to the kingdom of God that is both already and not-yet is shored up by the stories of those who followed, male AND female, of every creed, ethnicity, social class and status. It is the good news to ALL people and Luke is reminding the close reader that anything less betrays the fullness of the one who came in swaddling clothes. It is the promise that bigger things, greater things--huge, MEGA-sized things, are still to come in Jerusalem, Judea, Samaria, and the uttermost ends of the earth.
Greater Things by Jen & Trey Lyon
