Feast of the Presentation

​Patience.  I struggle with trying to be more patient, and so I really admire the patience of Simeon and Anna in today’s gospel.  I am not alone in the struggle to be patient.  I recently came across a study that I found fascinating, a study by researcher Timothy Wilson, published in the journal Science.  People were told that they were going to sit in a room and just wait for 6 to 15 minutes.  The room didn’t have stuff to look at, and they didn’t have a phone, or something to read, or a TV screen.  You wouldn’t think this would be a big deal to wait for 6 to 15 minutes.  But what surprised the researchers was how much aversion people showed to sitting for a short time with their thoughts.  The room contained a gadget that would give you a painful electric shock if you pressed it.  Rather than sitting comfortably in their chair, some of the people started giving themselves painful electric shocks instead.  And this wasn’t a case of curiosity about whether the shock would really hurt, either.  They had already received a shock before the experiment.  They had even told the researchers that the shock was so painful that they would pay money in order to avoid it.  Still, rather than wait for 15 minutes, a quarter of the women in the study, and two thirds of the men in the study, inflicted physical pain on themselves.  They shocked themselves seven times on average.  One man shocked himself so often that they didn’t even include him in the average: in 15 minutes he gave himself 190 painful shocks.  

You might think this is just an issue for younger generations, but it wasn’t.  They conducted another study in which people from 18 to 77-years-old, and from a wide range of backgrounds, took part.  The results were the same.

[Paraphrases are from these two articles:

https://www.spring.org.uk/2014/07/people-choose-electric-shocks-over-sitting-quietly-for-15-minutes-and-thinking.php

https://www.theverge.com/2014/7/4/5870573/rather-electrocute-ourselves-than-be-alone-with-thoughts ]

I found the results of this experiment…shocking. I used to think of patience as the capacity for delayed gratification, the ability to set aside immediate gratification in order to move toward a more meaningful long-term good.  I wonder whether life in a culture in which we are chronically overstimulated means that 15 minutes without overstimulation means we don’t even care about gratification, we crave any stimulation whatsoever, even if it’s painful.  

I think of myself as the type of person who could sit for 15 minutes without shocking myself, and that might be true. But when I have to wait for something, I often feel grumpy, or even mistreated. I’m honest with myself, I will admit that even though I complain about how busy I am, when I have time in which I could simply rest, I don’t.  Before I know it, my hand has picked up my phone, and as often as not, I’ve started doomscrolling, which is probably the emotional equivalent of a series of painful electric shocks.

So I love Simeon and Anna who are willing to wait, not just for 15 minutes, but for days, weeks, months, years, decades.  In the description we get of them in Luke’s gospel, they wait patiently, they wait prayerfully, they wait faithfully.   When looked at this passage at the beginning of the week, I figured my sermon would be on patience.  And that’s part of it.  But the more closely I looked at this passage, the more I was drawn to something else.  The rejoicing.  The praise.  It’s not that they’re unaware of the suffering ahead: Simeon talks about Jesus as a sign that will be opposed, says Jesus is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and tells Mary a sword will pierce her soul too.  Still, what shines through is joy.  It was revealed to Simeon that he would not see death before he had seen the Lord’s Messiah, but he’s not upset that the grim reaper is right around the corner.  Instead he takes baby Jesus in his arms and praises God, saying, “Master, now you are dismissing your servant in peace, according to your word; for my eyes have seen your salvation, which you have prepared in the presence of all peoples, a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to your people Israel.”  Anna, who has been worshipping in the temple night and day, came at that moment, and she began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.  

I wonder whether the capacity for patience and the capacity for rejoicing come from the same source.  I came across a quote recently that said, “I don’t want to rush through what I’ve waited so long for.”  It made me pause and think about the times that I do rush through life, impatiently fretting about the next thing, and how many of the things that I waited so long for are now here, and I pay so little attention to them.  The waiting to see if I would survive cancer, the waiting to see if I would get through the ordination process to become a priest, the waiting to see if I could get to Canada. Things I’ve waited for, things I’ve hoped for, things I’ve prayed for. There are plenty more things that have been on my waiting list, big things and small things, and each of you can think of things that have been on your waiting lists.    When Simeon and Anna receive what they have been waiting for, they rejoice!  They celebrate!  They praise God!  They express their joy! I like the verse that says, “at that moment Anna came and began to praise God and to speak about the child to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem.” It describes the beginning of her praising God and speaking about the child, and who knows how long that continued?  There is something about the joy and praise that Simeon and Anna express here that gives me the impression that they rejoice in this experience for a long time, for the rest of their lives.  That they do not take it for granted, they do not rush through it, they savour it and cherish it.  

The capacity to rejoice fully in the blessings they have received may be what encourages them in their prayers for blessings to come.  The capacity to praise God for the holiness they encounter may be what strengthens their hope for holiness to come.  The capacity to savor the things they have waited so long for may be what enables them to wait patiently for the things that are to come.  

If Simeon and Anna had 15 minutes in a featureless room, my guess is they’d spend it rejoicing, praying, praising God.  

Not everyone has an event of God’s revelation as dramatic as this one.  But all of us have received gifts from God that we can rejoice in and praise God for.  All of us have received gifts from God that we’ve waited for, hoped for, prayed for, and it’s good not to rush through life and forget them, but to savour them, rejoice in them, praise God for them.  In addition to the particular blessings each of us have received, all of us receive God’s love, God’s forgiveness, God’s redemption, and it’s good to savour them, rejoice in them, praise God for them.  It may be that the more we do that, the more we will see God.