Giving words to actions

There is a lot to squeeze into this week’s theme. Firstly, we are observing the Presentation of Jesus at the Temple - 
which falls on 2 February, 40 days after Christmas, marking the end of Christmas-Epiphany season. Jesus was presented at the Temple as the law required of a first son, and we hear the response of Simeon (The Song of Simeon or Nunc Dimittis) and Anna.  The name Candlemas comes from the tradition of blessing the candles that were to be used in the church during the coming year. Candles were the main means of providing light – in every way we can understand that. Over these 40 days when we have been invited to wrap our minds around the light of God revealed in Christ. God is with us; God is with all.  The presentation story is one more revelation of who Jesus the Christ is, and through that who God is and the nature of God’s ongoing work in the world today.

Confusingly for those of you who follow the lectionary this week we are using the gospel reading for the fourth Sunday after Epiphany, Matthew 5:1-12. We begin a four week journey through the Sermon on the Mount. Crowds have gathered in hope to hear and to be healed – those who live on the edge and suffer under the brutal poverty of Rome’s empire, and Jesus gives words for what is happening. In the empire of heaven these who are broken, who mourn, who long for God’s justice, including those disciples, are the blessed, honoured, the most important.  Brian McLaren describes them as, “the poor and those in solidarity with them; those who mourn…; the nonviolent…; those who hunger and thirst for the common good and aren’t satisfied with the status quo; the merciful and compassionate… those who work for reconciliation and peace…”[1]

In this short little teaching Jesus turns the normal status ladder upside down. And he invites his disciples, you and me, sitting with him on that hill, to base our identities and our understanding of success on these things. We are to be among the non-conformists speaking from the edge, living these values. Wrap your minds around that.


[1] p. 158: We Make the Road by Walking by Brian McLaren

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