Simeon And A Way Of Getting Old
Luke 2:22-34
A young man was describing his ninety-one year old grandfather who lived
in a nursing home. Christmas day the grandfather had a stroke and lost most of
his right side. He also has cancer of the bladder. When the young man and his
mother visited the old man, they were astonished. "When I first heard about
the stroke, I was stunned and sad because I figured it meant the end of my grandfather.
I mean, how can you flirt with only half your body? Then when I got there and
saw him winking with one eye, and giving me the same big hello he always gives
me, I—well—I was just astonished. I couldn't find any place to be
sad."
There is nothing sadder than a sad old man and nothing happier than a happy
old man. Compare King Lear to Tevye if you don't believe me. Or listen to people's
stories about their own past. If there is a happy old man or woman in a person's
past, they speak about that person so often that it will make you dizzy. When
happiness has blessed a generation, there is frequently the fear that people
aren't really telling the truth, that they are romanticizing their past, so often
do they stop you in your tracks with a story from long ago. The reverse is also
true: when people are not blessed with happy grandparents, they sound like they
are making up stories also with the size of their despair. College admissions
people look frequently at this matter and unfortunately try to measure it. Many
say they can predict happiness and productivity in a student if that student
has positive stories about their grandparents. Interestingly they don't care
too much about the students' parents and whether or not they have a good relationship
with them. People aren't expected to do that!
Simeon was already a happy old man when he met Jesus. He was just and devout.
He was waiting for the consolation of Jerusalem and the Holy Ghost was upon him.
Quite a biography if you ask me in four short lines.
Just and devout means that he went to synagogue every day. Jewish men didn't
have to go every single day but the most devout did. The figure reminds me of
the way many Catholic people talk about their grandparents. I, of course, only
hear them when they come here to be married, having been rejected by the Catholic
Church because of divorce or some other similar thing. Like college admissions
people, I am likely to ask questions about grandparents as a way of finding out
capacity for happiness in marriage. Frequently this line of questioning results
in some embarrassment. People will say, "my grandmother made mass every
day, now look at me." Without getting in to all the issues involved with
latter day Catholics, at least see this one through their eyes. Their grandparents
frequently had a way of being devout. They no longer do. The absence of a way
of being devout is a serious problem for them. Simeon did not have that problem.
He had a way of being devout, and he used it.
The second thing we know about Simeon is that he was waiting for the consolation
of Jerusalem—another great line. Scratch a happy old man, and you'll find
hope. Scratch a sad one, and you'll find despair. Despair is expressed most often
like this, "Things aren't as good as they used to be." The bread is
bad. The coffee is bad. The cars are bad, etc. Simeon may have agreed with this
general line of reasoning. When we are told that he was waiting for the consolation
of his hometown, we are given another angle on the general problem of things
worsening. Simeon knows things are worsening but instead of despairing he is
waiting for their improvement. He is waiting for the consolation that he really
believes is coming: his stake is in the future not in the past.
The third thing we find out about Simeon is that the holy ghost is upon
him. It's really the same thing my friend was trying to tell me about his grandfather.
He still had some spirit left. He could flirt with one eye. The fact that Simeon
had some Holy Spirit meant that when Mary and Joseph entered with the baby Jesus,
he could see it. It too is a wonderful image. Every thing we know about Simeon
is that he was ready to see this baby. Ready. First of all he was there, in the
right place at the right time. Woody Allen says that 95% of the secret to life
is showing up. For Simeon that was true. Had he not have been devout, he would
not have been there for Jesus. Had he not been waiting for the consolation of
Jerusalem, he would not have seen it when it arrived.
People always concentrate on what this whole situation must have meant
for Simeon, how deeply satisfied he must have been to have been visited by God,
so satisfied that he tells God he is now ready to die. There is not doubt about
the satisfaction being complete for this one old man. But I am more touched by
what Simeon gave to others as he gave himself the Nunc Dimittis. Nunc dimittis means
now depart. "Now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to
thy word. For mine eyes have seen thy salvation which thou hast prepared before
all people, a light to lighten the gentiles and the glory of thy people Israel."
Imagine the size of the gift this man gave to the rest of the people there,
even to Mary and Joseph. He recognized in the baby Jesus the Messiah. They were
only just beginning to see the signs as they gathered. But the old man took his
job seriously of being an old man, a wise one, one who saw more deeply than the
others could yet. He confirmed that this was the Messiah!
The job of old people is to show us what is true. Not to go live in their
own past and to put down the present. But rather to keep their fingers constantly
poised so as to tap the glass and see if it is crystal or not. To tell us what
is true and what is not true. The only way younger people will listen to older
people is if the older people are happy. Not giggly or even buoyant but still
happy enough to be hopeful, to be waiting, not to be always looking back.
One of the central problems for the United States of America is this absence
of a wisdom bearing generation. Read our literature and see that our heroes all
die young. Very few are allowed to grow old enough to struggle long enough with
the demons to come out on the side of consolation. Huck Finn, Johnny Appleseed,
the Davey Crocketts dominate. Look at our history, Abraham Lincoln or John Kennedy
or Martin Luther King. Again our heroes die too young to have to deal with stroke
or heart disease or boredom.
Simeon bore wisdom for his generation. He pointed them to the light, to
the important thing, his waiting paid off in wisdom. When the baby Jesus entered
the temple, his fingers were already poised, ready to tap. He had kept himself
ready to shout the words: It is crystal, this is the real thing. A better model
for aging, I cannot imagine.
Donna Schaper
Amherst, MA