January 1, 2012 – Luke 2:22-40
Luke 2:22-40
Presented to God
First Sunday of Christmas – January 1, 2012
First Lutheran Church – Winnipeg, MB
What’s religion all about?
There are those who say that religion just keeps everything the same,
that it preserves the status quo and all its power structures so that
the haves can keep what they have and that its rituals reinforce this.
On the other hand, there are those who say that religion is actually the agent of change,
that it critiques the status quo and makes the social order more equitable and just.
Which is correct? Well, both of course.
Egyptian religion as it is depicted in the Old Testament is an example of a religion that
Seeks to keep things the same and preserve a social order that is
Deeply unjust, with a few haves on top and the vast majority of
The have nots on the bottom.
The religion of the God Israel, on the other hand, is depicted as something that
Creates a change, an exodus from this state of affairs as God liberates the
Slaves and school them in a new social order, one based on
manna-sharing and mercy-giving, in the wilderness.
I recently read an article in the New Yorker magazine about some recently discovered
Temple complexes Turkey, by far the oldest temple complexes yet discovered,
Dating from about 10,000 BC, the time of hunter-gatherers.
The vast agricultural economies that led to the great empires of the Middle East
Had not yet been developed at the time,
And scholars had long thought that temple complexes on this scale
Could simply not have been built by hunter gatherers.
Hunter-gatherers had little time for such huge efforts, it was thought.
Such building projects required division of labour, vast organizational abilities,
A ruling class and a labourer class.
So it was thought that the religion of vast temple complexes was a result of the
Agricultural revolution in human history:
changes in society created changes in religion.
But in Turkey, vast complexes created by hunter-gatherers have been discovered.
Clearly, in this case, changes in religion created vast change in society,
Not the other way round.
In Jesus’s time, social inequality was supported and sustained by religion.
Religion had become for many of the religious and political leaders
doing the required rituals that would keep you in your privileged position.
This morning we get a little glimpse of some very impoverished and humble people,
Starting their child on the road of faith: taking him to the temple as an infant to
Present him to God.
Mary and Joseph are here presented as a very devout and faithful couple.
And after they do everything required of them by their tradition in Jerusalem,
They go home and continue to rear Jesus in his faith so that he grows and
Becomes strong and wise.
This child, because of his parents’ faithfulness,
will come to know the Bible very, very well.
And, because of that faithfulness he will come to know
the God in that biblical story very, very well.
He will come to know that this God at heart is a God of compassion, of love.
More, he will come to know that his God at heart is compassion, is love.
He will come to know the God who blesses his children that they might be blessing to
All the families of the earth.
He will come to know the God who despises tyranny and oppression and inequality to
The extent that this God will free slaves from Egypt in order to live in an
Equitable and just way.
He will come to know the God whose fundamental command is to love one’s neighbour.
He will come to know the God who hates religious festivals and rituals if they do not lead
To change in people’s lives and to justice and equity in society.
He will come to know a God who loves enemies.
He will come to know a God who forgives over and over and over.
He will come to know a God who has a special, deep concern for the poor, the hungry,
The sick, the vulnerable, the orphan and the widow.
All this he will learn because of the faithfulness of his parents,
who school him well in the biblical story and who are devout in worshipping God.
And it is this that will lay the foundation for his critique of the political leaders of
His day for exploiting the people and not taking care of those placed in their care.
And it is this that will lay the foundation for his critique of the religious leaders of
His day for encouraging and engaging in religious practices that undermine
The love of God and the love of neighbour.
This is why Jesus is strung up on a cross: his ongoing and relentless critique of
The political and religious leadership of his time.
Jesus was able to criticize and attempt to change the religious status quo of his day by
Being deeply immersed in the unimaginably vast love and mercy of God,
And by being deeply immersed in that God’s story in scripture.
And so Jesus founded a community of the baptized whose sole purpose was to
Live mercifully, to live justly, to live differently from the culture around it.
A community that knew itself to be blessed by the God of love and forgiveness so that
It could be a community of love and forgiveness and justice.
All this begins when Jesus is presented at the temple this morning by his devout parents.
The child is given to God with the recognition that the child comes from God and so
belongs to God.
This is one of the things that occurs in Christian baptism.
Children are presented to God, or adults present themselves to God.
There is a deep recognition in this that we do not truly belong to our parents.
And there is a deep recognition in this that we do not truly belong even to ourselves.
We belong to a God of mercy and compassion and grace and justice.
We are fashioned in that God’s very image: to be mercy, to be grace, to be justice.
To become like Jesus.
To be adopted as a child of God just as Jesus was the Son of God.
To be therefore an heir who receives what Jesus received from God:
Love in order to love, grace in order to be grace,
forgiveness in order to be forgiveness, justice in order to be justice.
You could see in the baptism of dear Julia Paige this morning that
Her parents faithfully presented her to God and made promises to rear her
Faithfully in the story of that God so that she may become
What God she belongs to intends her to be:
love, grace, mercy, justice, the very image of Jesus who
is the very image of this loving God.
But you also saw as we moved to the altar that Julia then received a gift from,
The first and most important gift she will receive as an adopted heir:
The gift of the divine Spirit.
The very Spirit that was at work in Jesus throughout his ministry,
The Spirit or energy that animated his life and his dealings with all people,
The Spirit of love, the Spirit of grace, the Spirit of forgiveness,
The Spirit of justice.
The Spirit, as the liturgy says, of true wisdom and right understanding,
The Spirit of counsel and might, of knowledge and of awe before God,
The beautiful Spirit of true joy.
For Julia, and for all of us, the question is: this Spirit that has been given to us
So graciously: what will we do with it?
What will we do with it?
Will it continue to grow in us as it grew in Jesus?
Will it continue to make us strong in loving and fill us with the foolish wisdom that
Service is better than lordship and that sharing is better than hoarding?
We have been clothed by God, as the prophet Isaiah says, with something much,
much larger than ourselves, a salvation so complete, a righteousness so good and
so great that we can only hope to grow into it a little.
Julia here has a beautiful white baptismal garment, symbolizing the gift of the
light and love of Christ with which she has been clothed this morning.
But really, to show with how much love, how much light, how much grace,
How much righteousness she has been clothed, really it should be much larger.
And this true for all of us.
My friend Theo here will demonstrate the situation we all find ourselves in,
As he puts on this huge alb.
This is what we are clothed with: this is what we are called to grow into:
A love and a graciousness this large.
That we might grow into the image of the God of love and justice.
Faithful, weekly worship of this God – and no other – and faithful weekly immersion in
This God’s story will work this change in us, will lead us to our true selves.
At peace and whole, centred in the one to whom we belong.
From that center, like Jesus, we will be able to evaluate our lives, the society around us,
The neighbourhoods we live in, the things we do.
Like Jesus we will find ourselves able to critique those things that lead away from
life and love of neighbour, and able to support those things that do.
For his Spirit has been sent into our hearts.
His Word of love has been given to us that it might take flesh in us.
This is what our religion is all about. So together let us say, “Amen.”
Pastor Michael Kurtz
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