Just as I'd said that I no longer write the whole sermon I found myself needing to do so. There's nothing wrong about that, of course, but I do feel slightly silly :).
This was in a way my farewell sermon. In addition to the text here I then went on to talk a bit more about prayer - the concept of prophectic intercession was not mine but from someone else and I also wanted to explain why I chose to talk about it.
I have always seen intercessory prayer as one of the important callings of any Christian community and I guess I wanted to both pass on that conviction and to, well, bless the prayers of our congreation. I also wanted to tell them - you - how blessed I have felt to intercede together with you - in our congregation most of the time the intercessions are prepared by someone else than I and I always look forward to listening and joining in them.
Next Sunday is the last time I celebrate before the baby is born. I still work for the whole of January (provided the different blood tests and check ups that take most of the rest of this week don't say otherwise) and then January 31st is my last day of work.
I feel sad, relieved - since this litte one is really quite good at exhausting her mom :) - happy to know that we are getting an energetic, passionate new pastor in Outi, very blessed and honored to be the pastor of this particular amazing congregation and last but not least overjoyed with the fact that we're having a baby. But before I get too emotional (and a month too early!), here is the sermon:
Anna the prophetess
Anna the prophetess
Those of you have heard me moan about the readings of the lectionary of the Lutheran church at one time or the other here’s what Martin Luther said about today’s reading already 500 years ago:
“It is very probable that today's Epistle has been selected by a pure misunderstanding, the one who appointed it for this Sunday probably thinking that it refers to the infant Christ, because it speaks of a young heir who is lord of all (in an older translation). Many other Epistles and Gospels have been selected for inappropriate days from similar misunderstandings…. Thus the events of this Gospel happened on the day of Candlemas, when Mary brought the child into the temple, and yet it is read on this Sunday.”
In other words, the magi have not yet arrived and we are now in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus was born. Chronologically illogically we’ll jump back to the Magi next Sunday when it is Epiphany.
However, Luther makes a good point when he continues to say that the chronological order of events is just one thing and that at the end of the day what truly is important is the Gospel itself and in that, weather we follow the chronology or not, is not essential.
Now in previous years I have preached about Simeon so I think it is high time to take a look at Anna. In all honesty what drew me to her was that we are considering giving Anna as the second name for our daughter. As it happens it was my granny’s name and my husband’s granny’s sister’s name but the second reason is that Anna means ‘favor’ or ‘grace’. Incidentally, Anna’s father’s name Phanuel or Penuel is defined in the Hebrew as ‘face of God.’ Anna’s family was an important one in the tribe of Asher which is why her father’s name is mentioned and not her husband’s.
Luke tells us that Anna was a prophet and if you take a look at your Bible you’ll find that most of the prophets seem to have been men (you’ll find three female prophets in the Old Testament and unfortunately a couple of false ones, too). The sex of the prophets is, however, not important regardless of the multitude of male prophets that fill the pages of the Old Testament.
The job of God’s prophets is to speak the truth of the Scriptures as well as prophesying. With prophesying we usually mean both giving promises about the future and predicting future events with a certainty given by divine inspiration.
Under the Old Covenant the priests represented the needs of the people to the Lord whereas the prophets represented the interests of God to the people.
In prophetic prayer, prophetic intercession the tasks of the prophet and priest unite. Prophetic intercession paves the way for the fulfillment of prophetic promises. Since God is who He is and has not changed all of His promises are in force and will remain so until they are fulfilled. Meanwhile they are being pleaded by the Spirit before God's throne.
One of the prophetic intercessors in the New Testament is then the prophetess Anna. After seven years of married life, she had been widowed and thereafter she had devoted herself in the Temple to fasting and prayer. Now, at 84 years of age, we find her still ministering.
Unlike John the Baptist, she was not the herald of the Messiah and unlike Elijah, she was not challenging the prophets of Baal or calling down fire. Her calling was to worship and pray and interceded for her people. Her prayer, her intercession, was her prophetic ministry.
Anna was also an educated woman. She knew about the prophecies regarding the Messiah. She worshiped and read in the Torah, the Books of History, the Commentaries, the Books of the Prophets, the Psalms....and she prayed and praised God.
If you listened carefully to the passage you may have noticed that Luke does not repeat the words of Anna’s prophecy – unlike Simeon’s. What the writer tells is that it was inspired thanksgiving and speaking about the child to other believing people who are present.
Both of the verbs in the text employ the Greek imperfect tense, indicating continued action in the past in other words Anna did not just thank God once or talk about the child just once but she from then on kept on thanking God and telling people. Something we are called to do, too.
There is also a deeper calling that Anna’s example gives us. It is that of prophetic intercession. It is that of entering into intercession with, and in, Christ.
Whether it is preached, prayed, or prophesied, a thing is prophetic if it brings us into a knowledge of the heart and mind of God for our time. That is why in all prophetic intercession there is the feeling of something struggling to be born.
Praying is the womb in which God's purposes are brought to their fullness. It is also through intercession that the church overcomes the conflict that surrounds all prophetic fulfillments, the clash between new beliefs and old traditions.
When we intercede together with God’s Spirit we conspire with God to bring forth his plan. The word 'conspire' literally means 'to breathe together'. It expresses the most intimate joining of life. Prophetic intercession is our conspiring together with God, breathing through prayer in order to bring life.
The experience of the church is that when any community of God's people – big or small – has the spirit of supplication (prayer) poured out upon them, they find that there is a shared sense of divine possibility. Their intercessions assume a prophetic dimension.
What happens is that little by little the promises God are gathered up and a boldness comes about to claim to them in the courts of heaven. As a congregation this is our calling, too. It is not necessarily our only calling but it is certainly one of them.
And so, let us pray:
Come, Holy Spirit,
Spirit of God, Spirit of the Risen Christ,
be with us today and always.
Be our Light, our Guide, and our Comforter.
Be our Strength, our Courage,
and our Sanctifier.
May this new year just about to begin be a time
of deep spiritual growth for us,
a time for welcoming Your graces and gifts,
a time for forgiving freely and unconditionally,
a time for growing in virtue and goodness.
Come, Holy Spirit,
be with us today and always.
Amen.
In other words, the magi have not yet arrived and we are now in Jerusalem 40 days after Jesus was born. Chronologically illogically we’ll jump back to the Magi next Sunday when it is Epiphany.
However, Luther makes a good point when he continues to say that the chronological order of events is just one thing and that at the end of the day what truly is important is the Gospel itself and in that, weather we follow the chronology or not, is not essential.
Now in previous years I have preached about Simeon so I think it is high time to take a look at Anna. In all honesty what drew me to her was that we are considering giving Anna as the second name for our daughter. As it happens it was my granny’s name and my husband’s granny’s sister’s name but the second reason is that Anna means ‘favor’ or ‘grace’. Incidentally, Anna’s father’s name Phanuel or Penuel is defined in the Hebrew as ‘face of God.’ Anna’s family was an important one in the tribe of Asher which is why her father’s name is mentioned and not her husband’s.
Luke tells us that Anna was a prophet and if you take a look at your Bible you’ll find that most of the prophets seem to have been men (you’ll find three female prophets in the Old Testament and unfortunately a couple of false ones, too). The sex of the prophets is, however, not important regardless of the multitude of male prophets that fill the pages of the Old Testament.
The job of God’s prophets is to speak the truth of the Scriptures as well as prophesying. With prophesying we usually mean both giving promises about the future and predicting future events with a certainty given by divine inspiration.
Under the Old Covenant the priests represented the needs of the people to the Lord whereas the prophets represented the interests of God to the people.
In prophetic prayer, prophetic intercession the tasks of the prophet and priest unite. Prophetic intercession paves the way for the fulfillment of prophetic promises. Since God is who He is and has not changed all of His promises are in force and will remain so until they are fulfilled. Meanwhile they are being pleaded by the Spirit before God's throne.
One of the prophetic intercessors in the New Testament is then the prophetess Anna. After seven years of married life, she had been widowed and thereafter she had devoted herself in the Temple to fasting and prayer. Now, at 84 years of age, we find her still ministering.
Unlike John the Baptist, she was not the herald of the Messiah and unlike Elijah, she was not challenging the prophets of Baal or calling down fire. Her calling was to worship and pray and interceded for her people. Her prayer, her intercession, was her prophetic ministry.
Anna was also an educated woman. She knew about the prophecies regarding the Messiah. She worshiped and read in the Torah, the Books of History, the Commentaries, the Books of the Prophets, the Psalms....and she prayed and praised God.
If you listened carefully to the passage you may have noticed that Luke does not repeat the words of Anna’s prophecy – unlike Simeon’s. What the writer tells is that it was inspired thanksgiving and speaking about the child to other believing people who are present.
Both of the verbs in the text employ the Greek imperfect tense, indicating continued action in the past in other words Anna did not just thank God once or talk about the child just once but she from then on kept on thanking God and telling people. Something we are called to do, too.
There is also a deeper calling that Anna’s example gives us. It is that of prophetic intercession. It is that of entering into intercession with, and in, Christ.
Whether it is preached, prayed, or prophesied, a thing is prophetic if it brings us into a knowledge of the heart and mind of God for our time. That is why in all prophetic intercession there is the feeling of something struggling to be born.
Praying is the womb in which God's purposes are brought to their fullness. It is also through intercession that the church overcomes the conflict that surrounds all prophetic fulfillments, the clash between new beliefs and old traditions.
When we intercede together with God’s Spirit we conspire with God to bring forth his plan. The word 'conspire' literally means 'to breathe together'. It expresses the most intimate joining of life. Prophetic intercession is our conspiring together with God, breathing through prayer in order to bring life.
The experience of the church is that when any community of God's people – big or small – has the spirit of supplication (prayer) poured out upon them, they find that there is a shared sense of divine possibility. Their intercessions assume a prophetic dimension.
What happens is that little by little the promises God are gathered up and a boldness comes about to claim to them in the courts of heaven. As a congregation this is our calling, too. It is not necessarily our only calling but it is certainly one of them.
And so, let us pray:
Come, Holy Spirit,
Spirit of God, Spirit of the Risen Christ,
be with us today and always.
Be our Light, our Guide, and our Comforter.
Be our Strength, our Courage,
and our Sanctifier.
May this new year just about to begin be a time
of deep spiritual growth for us,
a time for welcoming Your graces and gifts,
a time for forgiving freely and unconditionally,
a time for growing in virtue and goodness.
Come, Holy Spirit,
be with us today and always.
Amen.
No comments:
Post a Comment