Old Woman Reading, Probably the Prophetess Anna, Rembrandt van Rijn, 1631.
Prophet driven: Rhiannon Grant on Anna
‘Rather than trying to untangle what they were looking for, let’s focus on the act of looking.’
After the main nativity story, Luke’s gospel gives a little coda to the events. Mary and Joseph take Jesus to the temple in Jerusalem to do their religious duty. There, they meet two slightly odd characters: Simeon, a man who has been led to wait for Jesus (rather like other characters in Luke’s narrative, who sense the coming of this important child), and Anna, a devout woman whom Luke seems to position as an early evangelist. In fact, when she meets the baby Jesus she does two things: praises God, and tells other people about him. Looking backwards, she seems very similar to Hannah, who took her son Samuel to the temple to serve God (see 1 Samuel). Looking forwards, she seems to be taking on the same role as the gospel writer, who also has the job of praising God by telling other people about Jesus.
This incident hardly even makes a story, especially since we don’t get any ending or pay-off, and never find out what happened to Anna or the people she told about Jesus. And it might seem distinctly uncomfortable at first from a Quaker perspective. Telling other people about your faith might be invasive. Making bold claims about what some kid will do in the future is risky (and while Anna might have been right, plenty of people have been proved wrong over the years in very similar situations). Our cultural context is very different and the (potentially misplaced) confidence which would be required isn’t always there.
But Luke doesn’t say that Anna just told anyone who passed. He says that she spoke ‘to all who were looking for the redemption of Jerusalem’ (Luke 2:38, NRSV). Who are those people? ‘Jerusalem’ might be a symbol for Israel, so it could be those who are looking for the redemption of the whole community. Early Christians, like Luke, included themselves in that, but I’m not entirely comfortable with this move today. I tend to be hyper-aware of not overstepping the boundaries of communities to which I do not belong. On the other hand, early Quakers would have been fine with it. And what about ‘redemption’? Jerusalem or Israel doesn’t need to be redeemed like a coupon, so this must be the theological use, something to do with salvation – and in Christianity, something to do with Jesus.
I’ve got a better idea. Rather than trying to untangle what they were looking for, let’s focus on the act of looking. Anna spoke to people who were seeking something, and in that choice of words a connection is already emerging. Groups of Seekers became Quakers in the early days, and the term ‘seeker’ has been used since to name groups within the Quaker community, and to suggest that Friends continue to learn throughout life. If Anna spoke not just to anyone, but to those who were religious seekers, she was sharing her insights about this child’s importance with those who wanted to know. She spent all her time at the temple, so was in the right place to meet them; and she had been waiting for the right time for years. I leave the story with this query:
if I were in the right place at the right time, would I recognise who I’d met and have the courage to share the news?
Rhiannon is a tutor at Woodbrooke
