Transcript
From Luke’s Gospel: “Simeon blessed them and said to his mother Mary, ‘This child is destined for the falling and the rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed–and a sword will pierce your own soul too.’” I speak in the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
My niece Emma and her husband Ben own a vintage shop called Jawn Supply on High Street in West Chester. Saquon Barkley and his wife are frequent customers. This Wednesday my daughter-in-law Geneviève texted the family thread, “Is something fun going on at Jawn Supply? The road was all blocked off when I just drove by!” Ben replied, “They’re filming an episode of Tires season 3 for Netflix over the next week!”
It brought to mind the conversation I had with a Netflix location scout at St Stephen’s Church in Belvedere CA. I’d signed a contract with Paramount Pictures, the owners of Netflix, permitting them to shoot a memorial service scene for the Netflix series 13 Reasons Why. My wife and my Assistant Elizabeth are featured extras in that episode. Victoria’s mother used to call her Sarah Bernhardt, the French actress of a hundred years ago, so there’s that.
The day after the shooting ended and the trucks hauled away the big equipment, a woman called the office to give me a piece of her mind about it. She said she wasn’t a member of my parish but she was a member of the community. She called to ask why I would let 13 Reasons Why roll cameras there. She had watched the entire first season of it with her teenage daughter. She said the message of the show was, “It’s okay to take your life and to take revenge on people afterward.” And she asked, “How could you let your church be associated with a message like that?”
I listened to Susan, gave her the respect my parents raised me to show anyone, and thanked her for calling me directly to express her disturbation.
And then she said, “I assume you made money from having Netflix shoot there, that you profited from it.” And she delivered her parting shot. “Whatever you made off the filming of that episode, I think your church should donate every dollar of it to a local suicide prevention center.”
I told her that my church had already done that. We donated every dollar of that contract to the general operating fund of the best local suicide prevention center I knew. It’s called St Stephen’s Church.
You might not be used to thinking of your church as a suicide prevention center. But I do. Good Samaritan is more than that, but it’s not less than that. You gather here to pray for and be girded with strength to love the Lord your God, and to love your neighbor as yourself. And your neighbor includes people who are afflicted in body, mind, or spirit.
Today, with the Feast of the Presentation, this morning and this evening with Candlemas Compline sung in darkness pierced only by candle fire, we mark the end of Christmastide.
The word peace characterizes this Christmas season. We’re living lives that are constantly under assault in a world that seems to be falling apart, and everyone has a desperate need for peace. And that’s not peculiar to us in our time. That’s exactly what was said and felt when Jesus was brought to the temple.
We need peace in terms of the political sphere. This September, we’ve seen the public killing of Charlie Kirk in Utah. We’ve seen public killings in Minneapolis with the deaths of Renee Goode and Alex Pretti.
The massacres and violence in Ukraine, Gaza, and Sudan. Terrorist attacks. One of the victims of the Paris terrorist attack of 2015 left a wife, four children, and two parents who were survivors of the Holocaust.
Five years ago in California, I got to know Amanda North whose father’s burial I officiated. In 2013 she was standing just fifteen feet away from the first bomb that went off at the Boston Marathon. She rushed to the aid of Ericka Brannock, a seriously injured young woman who would later call North her “angel” and credit her with saving her life.
Amanda was there that day to watch her daughter Lilli compete in the marathon. Lilli was thrown off her feet by the second explosion. The two were separated in the aftermath of the bombing, but were later reunited in the hospital, which is when Lilli told her mother that their survival had been a miracle and that they needed to think about their life’s purpose.
In terms of personal peace, the assault on personal peace seems unrelenting. Martin Seligman, who is Professor of Psychology at the University of Pennsylvania and former president of the American Psychological Association has said that we’re in the middle of an epidemic of depression. It isn’t simply that we have more accurate reporting, greater access to mental health.
It’s a real increase, dramatically in the case of younger people. In my lifetime, the mean age for the first experience of depression has dropped from 29 and a half in 1960 to 14 and a half now. The teenage suicide rate has tripled in the same period of time.
“Glory to God in the highest, and peace and good will on earth to men and women.” The Christmas story is surrounded with that peace which is bound up in the baby boy held in Mary’s arms.
In chapter one of Luke’s gospel, we have Zechariah’s acknowledgment of this in the Benedictus as he directs his attention to his infant son who would become John the Baptist. He says, “You, my child, will be called a prophet of the Most High, for you will go on before the Lord, to prepare the way for Him, to give His people the knowledge of salvation through the forgiveness of their sins, because of the tender mercy of our God, by which the rising Son will come to us from heaven to shine on us, those living in darkness and in the shadow of death, to guide our feet into the path of peace.”
Peace is not a feeling. It’s a path, a walk into peace that’s there in the one resting in the arms of the Blessed Mother. We have Simeon’s Nunc Dimittis, as Mary hands that little loaf of bread into the arms of Simeon who takes Jesus into his hands and says, “Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, for mine eyes have seen thy salvation.” Simeon can walk to his grave now in peace. So can you. At the Sacrament, you take Jesus’ body into your hands, and depart in that peace which he gives.
In the name of God, the Father, the Son, and the Holy Spirit. Amen.
