12/28/2008

A Magnificant Old Bag Lady

Six weeks after Christmas a magnificant old woman became the last of the Old Testament women prophets... and one of the the first of the New testament women disciples. Who is your church's "Anna?"

Tuesday Column by keith Drury

9 comments:

vanilla said...

This is a magnificent sermon. Speaks to Christian living and is apt for men as well as for women. Thank you.

Anonymous said...

Thanks for the good exposition and treatment of Anna's place and role in the gospel account.

I received a book titled "The Blue Parakeet" by Scot McKnight for Christmas and just finished reading it. A substantial amount of the book is directed at the mutual role of women in church ministry.

I recommend the book (and others by McKnight) for both treatment of that subject and for honest reading and application of the Bible in general.

Dean

Jennie Joy said...

Beautiful, Coach. Thanks for posting this... so absolutely encouraging.

I'm always thrilled when I read how Anna lived always in the temple... that's how I want to constantly remain in His presence. I so want to be like Anna.

Anyway... this post was kick butt awesome. :)

Duke said...

wonderful sermon.

One fine point on Jesus and his dedication. . . it's more like that of Sameul's. The offering noted by Luke is for the purification right of Mary, but they don't bring a redemption offering for the first born son. Thus, Luke is noting that the son, belongs to God completely.

The offering of Mary and Joseph match one of your central themes about Anna - both come from impoverished places.

Thanks for sharing a wonderful sermon and for drawing clear points of integreation.

Ken DePeal said...

anna's story is one of my favorites... as is the story of simeon just before it. thanks for a beautiful reminder as to why...

::athada:: said...

like the new writing style.

thanks, rob bell.

Keith Drury said...

I think of several "old woman" when I recall Anna...

HILDA HESS was a wonderfully large woman who worked as a janitor at East Stroudsburg State College. She was a simple woman but baked "Dutch Apple pies" for virtually everyone at work and in the church. Laughing boisterously she often recruited whole crowds to go to the diner and she treated them all--picking up the tab on her meager salary. When I visited her once as a college lad 45 years ago and sat in one of her rockers and complimented it she insisted I haul it away to my dorm room. (I still have it) She was given to pray laughingly for students, faculty and other janitors she worked near. When she died years later literally hundreds of people crammed the church to tell about her prayers and pies.

ILA, BEATRICE & FRANCES. These three godly woman never missed church and sat in the front rows every time the doors were opened. They were among the first to "testify" every time the meeting was opened. When I was about 16 they came to me as a trio and surrounded me saying, "We are getting together every Thursday to fast and we have promised the Lord to pray for you every Thursday as long as we are alive--God has his hand on you and we're going to remind Him of that." It scared me as a teen. The last one of these trio-of-prayer-partners lived another 35 years and when they were all gone I noticed their loss.

My current church has a whole "prayer meeting full" of these kind of people. Some give their lives mostly to prayer while others like JEANNIE, who is in her mid 70's is the closest person I've ever seen to a real Mother Teresa--she is headed off next week headed to serve in Africa for the next few months.

I just hope and pray that the boomer crowd of men and women will be up to stepping up to fill these roles as these older saints die off.

Pastor Al said...

Greeting Keith,

Preached about Simeon this year. Both of these accounts beg for more information. Suppose the glimpse of Anna's and Simeon's lives provide insight of countless others not formally mentioned in Scripture.

I may have to cite you from the pulpit next year(Anna's turn)...to be an honest expositer. However, I am not sure that we are going to convince people that 'old' is the new 'in thing' in the church. Frankly, I see blatant age discrimination as the cultural norm...which expresses itself as a church norm. Seeking to be multi-generational, we loose those who do not want to 'give and take' in their worship preferences.

tricia said...

Excellent post!

Between being in a big church and a young church I cannot say I personally know of any such woman in our church (not to say they aren't there). I greatly appreciate my moms wisdom, but she's not old yet :-).

The current model of ministry at many churches focuses on grouping people together by stage of life, yet I'd love to learn from some of these more seasoned, holy women who have been there and done that with grace.

Of course, I realize the flip side to that is my friends and I need to be in the process of becoming those seasoned, holy women - Lord help us!