We hear this account of the Presentation of Jesus every year, and also an additional time in the year of Mark.
And from the words of Simeon we draw the words for the Nunc Dimittis – “now you are dismissing your servant in peace”. This is part of Evening Prayer and Compline. These words will, this evening, be prayed by millions of Anglicans the world over.
So, our passage is quite important.
But our Gospel today – and we often miss this – also describes one of the greatest tragedies, one of the most sorely missed opportunities and most blatant examples of prejudice ever recorded in scripture.
Today, as a baby, Jesus comes to the Temple – why he is there, we will explore soon.
In response to his presence, two things happen.
Simeon receives Jesus into his arms, and speaks the powerful words we quoted earlier, words that were preserved in oral tradition, words that Luke wrote down 80 years after they were spoken, words that are preserved and prayed today and every day.
And then we have Anna. She also speaks. She speaks “about the child”, about Jesus, to all “who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.”
Anna is the only woman prophet of the New Testament; she is one of only a handful of New Testament people who are named as prophet. As prophetess she stands in the line of women like the judge, military leader and prophetess Deborah.
And yet, though we are told she did speak, spoke on the same occasion as Simeon, who was not a prophet, whose words are prayed today and every day, nothing of what Anna says is recorded.
Not one word. We cannot understate this.
Anna is a prophet. Prophets speak the Word of God to the People of God.
With Anna, it is the only time a prophet speaks the Word of God to the people of God about the Incarnate God, while in the physical presence of the Incarnate God.
And yet – not one word is preserved.
There is something wrong, something discordant about this aspect our sacred story. Somehow, the voice of Anna, prophetess of God, the inspired word of God, was silenced, and is still silenced thousands of years later.
This silencing is mostly unintentional, a reproduction of the culture and mindset we are raised in, no matter how versed we are in scripture, theology and tradition.
This time a year ago at St George’s Cathedral, the Primate of the Anglican Church in Australia, the Most Reverend Geoffrey Smith, preached on the same text we hear today. In his fine sermon, the Primate praised Simeon and Hannah for their faithfulness, for watching, and I quote, “for the activity of God, even in an environment of foreign occupation where God’s prophets had been silent for many years.”
God’s prophets silent for many years … yet here, in the very text being preached on, there is a prophet who speaks. Somehow though the silencing of Anna is easy to ignore.
The early parts of our Gospel show us the cultural ideology that underlies this silencing of Anna, this silencing of the divine:
“When the time came for their purification according to the law of Moses, they brought him up to Jerusalem to present him to the Lord.”
Here Luke conflates two things. Firstly, the dedication of Jesus, as first-born male, to God, which did not actually require a visit to the temple at Jerusalem, and the purification of Mary after childbirth, which did.
The first hearers of this Gospel would know what is referred to here, but we may not. The Jewish law stated that after childbirth, the mother, in this case Mary, was considered as unclean as “at the time of her menstruation.”
For a baby boy, in this case, Jesus, this period of ceremonial uncleanness would last seven days, as it would for each period, every month. For a baby girl, it would be two weeks.
For both boys and girls though, their mother would also be unable to touch holy things or enter holy spaces for an additional period of time: 33 days for boys and 66 days for girls.
This impurity was only lifted by visiting the Temple and offering a sacrifice – a lamb and a dove, or if the family was poor, as in the case of Mary and Joseph, simply two doves – only then would the mother, in this case the Mother of God, “be clean from her flow of blood”.
There is much here we may, today, very reasonably find objectionable and repugnant. And while we may console ourselves with the knowledge that was then and this is now, the same patriarchal control of women’s bodies and undervaluing of girls and women was behind the silencing of the prophetess Anna.
So even if, all was gender equal and balanced now in the church, and in the world, we would still, as we are, be without the words of God, through Anna, about God incarnate.
What did God say about themselves, incarnate as a baby, in the temple 2000 years ago? Thanks to patriarchy, we will never know.
And of course, it is not all equal and gender balanced.
To realise this inequality, we only have to drive 20 minutes this morning to find a range of churches where women are not permitted to preach or take up their vocations as priests.
To realise this imbalance, we only have to reflect on the knowledge that last year, here in Australia, women earnt at least 13 per cent less then men.
To realise that the same patriarchal control of women’s bodies we see hidden, but active in our text, still exists - we can reflect and lament on this sober fact: just a couple of years ago a survey of Australian men revealed that nearly a quarter believe they should have rights over their women partner’s choices of work, birth choices and intimate relations.
It is NOT all equal and gender balanced.
But, as always, our scripture guides us to the overflowing life and love God wants for all Her people regardless of gender and gender history.
The Gospel writer Luke often works in pairs, such Mary and Joseph and the sending out of the 70 disciples in twos. Here we have Simeon and Anna. When Jesus enters the temple, Simeon took him in his arms and praised God … the Greek word used for “took” also has a more passive aspect, receive, and in the Orthodox tradition Simeon is known as ‘Simeon the Receiver’ – the one who receives God as the Body of Christ.
And of course, we too, every Sunday take and receive the Body of Christ, we see – and we taste – Salvation.
But there is also Anna – who speaks, prophesies and gives out to match Simeon’s receiving.
So, after receiving we too are called to speak and give out.
Just as Anna talked of Christ to all looking for the redemption of Jerusalem, so we must talk of Christ to all looking for the redemption, the healing, of the New Jerusalem, the Church. And there are so many of us who want this, who need this, who know the Church as a place of healing and love, but whose voices are seldom heard.
Just as Anna was prophet, so too we must be prophets, but prophets who are not silenced – prophets who give voice in our church to the silenced, to women, to girls, to the young, the neurodiverse, LGBT friends, the mentally ill and all excluded.
Just as Anna talked, we must talk of the Christ child in our midst. We must talk of the Christ body.
We must talk of the body itself in all its beautiful and messy life of incarnation, growth, pleasure, illness, decay and death – because it is in Body, the Body which human law and patriarchy try to limit and silence and declare as unclean – it is in Body, only in Body that Christ redeems us and the entire Creation. Only in Body. So, we must talk and never be silent; we must talk and never silence. Ever again. Amen.