Agate Executive Director Kyle Hanson is also a Lutheran Pastor. On Sunday, February 2nd, Kyle gave a guest sermon at St. Mark’s Episcopal Cathedral in Minneapolis. The transcript of that sermon is below or you can watch it here. It is a call for justice and inclusion during difficult times.

Grace to you and peace from our merciful God who comes into this world as light to those dark spaces. For those of you who don’t know, I’m Kyle Hansen.

I am an ordained Lutheran pastor. Thank you for welcoming me here today. I am also the executive director at Agate Housing and Services.

Agate Housing and Services is an organization that serves our neighbors in Hennepin County who are experiencing unsheltered homelessness. We were formed out of the merger of St. Stephen’s Human Services and the House of Charity.

Can I share a secret with you? You have to promise not to tell my Lutheran siblings, but I’m a bit of a closet Episcopalian.

I could not wait to get here today to be part of the much more formal service that you have here than we have in my little church in the northern suburbs. You see, my husband and I live very close to here, just a few blocks away. And some Sunday evenings, I sneak over here and sneak into your even song and sit in the back so no one will see me and talk to my introverted self.

I enjoy worshiping here very much. And then I very quickly sneak out before I have to have conversation with anyone. But the service brings great meaning to me, and especially as a pastor, I very rarely get to actually worship.

We are so often doing all of these things, so to sit and be led by this beautiful choir and the music is such a treat for me. And I’m really, really honored to be here with you all today. After one particular service, I went home and out the back door, they were saying goodbye, and I went home and told my husband, “Oh my goodness, you should see the winter cloak that their clergy get to wear. I think I chose the wrong denomination.”

 But every week, as part of that service, we hear the beautiful words of our gospel today sung, don’t we? The beautiful, beautiful words of the Nuke Dementis, the beautiful song of Simeon that has been arranged thousands of times. And today, we get to hear and dwell in that origin story.

So we are in the year of Luke. We start at Advent in this lectionary cycle, and we’re only two chapters into the gospel of Luke. And already we see the story unfolding.

And one thing that I noticed this year is that there’s an awful lot of singing in these first two chapters. I feel like Luke here is writing a veritable Broadway musical for us to experience. We began the Advent season with Mary’s song, didn’t we? The Magnificat.

And that song that is so powerful, so revolutionary, that it is actually banned in several countries. A song that sings of bringing down the mighty and powerful. It’s subversive lyrics about casting down the mighty and feeding the hungry, and singing of immoral and social and revolutionary changes.

Singing it is subversive. Actually, singing any song of hope in dark days is an act of subversion. But Mary sings, and then she praises God.

And then we hear the second act. We hear another song, Zachariah’s song, when he sings about John’s destiny as a prophet, salvation from our enemies, about being released from the hand of all of those who hate us. And we hear about the mercy and the light that is about to break into the darkness.

And that promise that those living in the darkness will see the rising sun and shine upon those who are in the margins. And then we hear another song. Zachariah and Elizabeth sing praises to God.

Then comes a third song in Luke’s gospel, and it’s the angels, isn’t it? The angels sing glory to God in the highest and peace to God’s people on earth. A song performed at one of the lowliest places to some of the most marginalized workers in the fields. And they ran to see what God has done.

The oppressed were their recipients of the concert that day. The place of birth, the lowliest. And then it says the shepherds leave and praise God.

Can you hear Luke’s musical theme yet?

And today we hear the fourth song, the song of Simeon. And again, a song about light that is coming to the world, not just for those inside, but especially for the Gentiles on the outside. While reading over and studying these texts this week, I chuckled to myself at the various scenes of the musical that were unfolding, the dramedy that was about to unfold.

Mary’s surprise at these smelly shepherds suddenly showing up as if giving birth in a barn wasn’t bad enough. And then were just a few weeks into, you know, raising this baby, and they go to the temple as they are supposed to do, as they are required to do. And imagine the scene.

This old man from out of nowhere comes up and starts singing at you. He saw, he believed, and he praised God. And then it says he swooped up the child.

Now, can you imagine as a parent? I know as a parent, I know what I would do, right? I would be terrified of this human being. What is this man doing? And then come the warnings. The warnings about the opposition that this message will face in the world.

The warnings about speaking a message of justice to those in power. Mary and Joseph must have simply been terrified. And we hear from the gospel.

It says, Jesus’ father and mother were speechless with surprise at these words. Simeon went on to bless them and said to Mary, his mother, this child marks both the failure of the powerful and the recovery of the oppressed. The failure of the powerful and the recovery of the oppressed.

He says he will be misunderstood and contradicted. The rejection forces honesty as God reveals who they really are. God is revealed, but the world is still today not ready to receive the message.

We hear one more song today. The fifth song comes from the prophetess, Anna.

Prophetess, A word that we don’t hear enough in scripture. What a wonderful word. The prophetess Anna, a powerless widow.

And again, she saw, she believed, and she praised God. And then she did something remarkable. She went and told all who anticipated deliverance about this child.

She didn’t run up here and tell the church leadership that Jesus had arrived. She went and told the people that needed to hear and know that God is here.

So Luke is telling us something very, very important about what the rest of this story and ministry of Jesus is going to be about. I think it’s really easy for us to read these stories in segmented ways once a week, missing out on the context of the times and what a really remarkably dangerous story this was to be telling. But if we read it as a complete story, one long story, or maybe sing it like a big Broadway musical, it becomes really powerful.

And might I say, really dangerous and actually quite subversive, for it is a story of revolution. We know from Luke that Mary and Joseph are poor. We know that they are marginalized people.

We know that they are oppressed people living under a regime. Luke tells us that they bring the offerings of the poor to the temple. Two pigeons.

I think somebody wrote in the two turtle doves to make it sound a little better, but two pigeons were brought. It was an offering of the poor. Wealthy people would have brought bigger and more grandiose gifts on that day, but a gift of the poor.

So two chapters in to Luke, and we are in the locations and the experiences of the poor, the locations and the experiences of the people in the economic margins, the oppressed people, the barren ones, the old ones, the widows, the powerless. And the story from Luke makes room for a variety of people, both inside and outside. Ultimately Luke’s gospel becomes about hospitality, about healing and feeding and caring for those outside of our circles of power.

I was thinking this week that what we should have expected to read in our gospel today was that Mary and Joseph showed up at the temple and that the high priest and the Pharisees immediately rushed out to welcome this child, the Messiah that had come into the world. But they were nowhere to be found in our story today, were they? Christ didn’t come to the powerful. Christ showed up for those who needed him most.

It should have been the high priest and the Pharisees leaping and singing for joy and praising God. And we know later, don’t we, as this story continues to unfold, that it was those exact same people who we expect should have recognized that ultimately the Messiah could kill the messenger of God. Luke has said nothing about religious leaders.

We still have yet to hear one thing from the powerful. But here is Simeon, so overjoyed because he spent his life suffering, waiting for God to bring comfort to the people. He lived with hope amid the suffering of the world.

Living with hope amid difficult times is a seditious act in itself. He waited eagerly, waiting, praying for justice and mercy, and he saw it break in. You see, folks, this gospel that we read and love so much is really not the beautiful, hallmark Christmas Eve story that we want to think that it is.

It is not a silent night. This gospel is a radical call to action in our world that speaks truth to power in bold and new ways. To prepare for preaching, I like to read many different translations of the same text, and I turn sometimes to a Bible called the Message Bible, and it’s a new translation that isn’t perfect, but sometimes it reaches out and kind of slaps me right across the face.

That happened this week. It said, “With mine own eyes, I have seen your salvation. It is now out in the open for everyone to see. This God-revealing light to the non-Jewish nations and of glory for your people is real.”

The gospel is now out in the open for everyone to see. Another inclusive translation of the gospel says that it is revealed, and it says that the secret thoughts of many will be made known.

The secret thoughts of many will be made known. The gospel is here. It has been revealed to us.

We know what it says. We know what it calls us to do. And now when we speak, when we act, or when we fail to speak, or when we fail to act, when we stand up or sit down for injustice, it shows how we feel about the gospel of Jesus Christ.

It is our own presentation of Christ to the world. Christ has been presented to us today in our story, and now it is up to us to present Christ to the rest of the world. This text challenges us to step up.

This text requires courage. Simeon tells us, doesn’t he, that we are about to get in trouble for it, that people are gonna be upset by what we say.

It shakes up the assumptions of what salvation is to the world. It is not some heaven or hell, but right here for the people that need help the most.

The warning persists. Simeon’s words ring out. Many will balk at it. We just saw it, didn’t we? You should be proud of your Episcopalian faith that spoke truth to power a couple of weeks ago.

Quoting scripture and simply asking for mercy on the poor, mercy on the outcast, mercy on our queer siblings, mercy on the oppressed and the marginalized, and that message was received with what? Hatred and vitriol, death threats. Simeon’s warning still rings true. Actions in our world now are revealing the secrets, and we know where people stand.

Simon’s song provides a signal of what this ministry will be and how people will respond to it. It tells us also what is happening today. You see, Luke is not only interested in proclaiming the good news.

Luke also cares deeply and tries to show us how to respond to it.

So today, Christ has been presented to us, to the world. Simeon and Anna proclaimed it, sang it, and now it is up to us to present and reveal Christ to a world in so much pain.

We become the presenters of Christ to others in every radical act of resistance, in every small act of love, in every seditious act of singing hopeful hymns, in every seditious act of praising God and being filled with joy of the Holy Spirit, and in every human act of mercy and feeding and clothing and housing.

Our queer and trans and immigrant communities are crying for our help. Those without food and homes and clothing are right outside of our doors here. They need the light brought to them. They need to see the light.

I will leave you with a thought that I read on social media this week that said, “We as a joyful people cannot be controlled.”

And so it was with Simeon, and so it was with Anna, and so may it also be with us. Amen.