Weird Holy People

I met a prophetess once.

I was in the supermarket. It was after work; I was grabbing a few needed grocery items that I'd forgotten during the big weekly shopping expedition. I was determinedly coursing up and down the aisles, focused on my mission, when I turned the corner and my eyes met the wild-eyed stare of a reality-challenged street person. Her greasy hair went in all directions; her hands were coated in grime; she smelled like a neglected hamper.

Turn around, was my first impulse. I'd lived in the city and had some bad experiences with crazy people. Break eye contact, turn the cart around and get out of here.

The woman pointed a dirty finger at me. "I have a message for you from the Holy Spirit," she announced in a quavering voice.

Oh, no, I thought. Please don't let anyone from work come down this aisle.

But I said, "You do?"

"Yes," the woman nodded. The finger beckoned. "Come here."

Oh, no, I thought again. But I stepped closer. Don't upset her.

The woman clapped a hand on my head, closed her eyes for a moment, smiled, and then whispered the message sotto voce: "God wants you to know that he loves you very much."

I smiled back. "Thank you." Inside I was shaking; later I had to sit in my car for awhile and process what had just happened to me.

I was reminded of my encounter when reading the story of Anna and Simeon in today's lesson. Mary, Joseph and Jesus were visiting the Temple in obedience to Jewish law mandating that Mary bring offerings for her ritual purification after childbirth. Imagine a small-town couple, with babe in arms, navigating the Temple grounds -- about 35 acres of various buildings and courtyards filled with jostling worshippers and animals and priests and "weird holy people" who have attached themselves to the Temple grounds. Imagine the cacaphony of sounds; imagine the smells -- the smells of massed humanity and livestock and burning flesh and incense.

Suddenly the couple is stopped by a wizened old man who, upon seeing their child and holding him in his arms, bursts into poetry and blessing and tears; who says that he can now die happy because he has seen the One promised to save the world, and offers the parents a cryptic prophecy of both cosmic hope and personal sorrow. As Mary and Joseph attempt to wrap their heads around this stranger's words, they meet another stranger, an ancient woman who upon seeing Jesus likewise breaks into praise for this little baby, and proceeds to excitedly tell everyone around her about him. Two elderly people who'd lived through a lot of pain and disappointment; who had at some point jettisoned everything but their hope in God's saving power, and had followed that hope to this particular place.

What did Mary and Joseph think of all this? The Gospel of Luke says they were "amazed." Were they amazed in happy way? -- "Our son, the Messiah!" -- or were they amazed in the way that I was amazed after my close encounter with the crazy lady in the supermarket, where I had to go somewhere quiet and figure out, "What just happened to me?" Likewise, were Simeon and Anna surprised to see the Messiah, through the eyes of faith, in such humble circumstances -- not a son of privilege, but an anonymous baby of humble parents, like so many brought to the Temple every day?

Sometimes I think we want our prophets to be larger-than-life personalities. But the witness of Scripture is that, sometimes at least, we need to listen for the prophetic voice in the direction of the unlikely.

"Anna the Prophetess," Louis Glanzman