St. Simeon's Prayer - Obedience in Love
This past Sunday, Bishop Alexis shared a touching homily. I will have to admit, I first started paying attention only because there was a mention of a mistranslation of a very commonly-heard passage: "Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace, according to thy word" and I wanted to know what the issue was. To be fair, it is only "very commonly-heard" if you are Orthodox, since it is a key hymn sung in every Vespers service. The rest of you might be thinking I am just exaggerating. ...but I digress.
First, there is a distinction between two Greek words for Lord, but I will get to that in a minute. The interesting thing is that this is not question or suggestion toward the Lord; the Shakespearian fling to "now lettest thou thy servant depart" leaves modern listeners in a bit of syntactical no-man's land. We do not know exactly what that means.
The ESV hits the meaning well enough, "now you are letting", but not really the tone. And the NIV's "you may now dismiss" rendering would be a downright dangerous attitude to have toward a lord of any kind. As Bp. Alexis mentioned on Sunday, it is a statement, but one of tender affection toward the Lord, which is hard to render in English. ...which brings me to the "Lord" word.
We usually see "lord" as the translation of the Greek word κύριε, which is a lord as might be used over a home with wife and children. Instead, St. Simeon says to the infant God-man before him δέσποτα, which is used more in the sense of a master over servants. It is where we get our word despot, but that has negative connotations in modern English that are not a part of this word.
As Americans, we are trained to consider no one as lord over us, and that we all have our own individual, inalienable rights, and nobody would ever dare infringe upon those rights. Everybody is so equal that it is hard to imagine ourselves under anybody's authority or how to ever show due respect to somebody above us. And something like "obedience" is a downright dirty word. To see the meaning and beauty of this passage, we will have to step out of that for just a moment.
St. Simeon, who has been waiting in the Temple way longer than we might think if we just know those few words about him in the gospel, now sees the infant Christ and knows him to be God in the flesh (again, there is more story here, as well). To this infant he says, "Master".
"Master, as you promised so many years ago, you are releasing your slave." He had lived in obedience in the Temple, waiting to see the Master's promise fulfilled. It is a gentle and quiet resolution to a life of faith, and it is a statement of a slave to a master who has arrived "precisely when he means to".
First, there is a distinction between two Greek words for Lord, but I will get to that in a minute. The interesting thing is that this is not question or suggestion toward the Lord; the Shakespearian fling to "now lettest thou thy servant depart" leaves modern listeners in a bit of syntactical no-man's land. We do not know exactly what that means.
The ESV hits the meaning well enough, "now you are letting", but not really the tone. And the NIV's "you may now dismiss" rendering would be a downright dangerous attitude to have toward a lord of any kind. As Bp. Alexis mentioned on Sunday, it is a statement, but one of tender affection toward the Lord, which is hard to render in English. ...which brings me to the "Lord" word.
We usually see "lord" as the translation of the Greek word κύριε, which is a lord as might be used over a home with wife and children. Instead, St. Simeon says to the infant God-man before him δέσποτα, which is used more in the sense of a master over servants. It is where we get our word despot, but that has negative connotations in modern English that are not a part of this word.
As Americans, we are trained to consider no one as lord over us, and that we all have our own individual, inalienable rights, and nobody would ever dare infringe upon those rights. Everybody is so equal that it is hard to imagine ourselves under anybody's authority or how to ever show due respect to somebody above us. And something like "obedience" is a downright dirty word. To see the meaning and beauty of this passage, we will have to step out of that for just a moment.
St. Simeon, who has been waiting in the Temple way longer than we might think if we just know those few words about him in the gospel, now sees the infant Christ and knows him to be God in the flesh (again, there is more story here, as well). To this infant he says, "Master".
"Master, as you promised so many years ago, you are releasing your slave." He had lived in obedience in the Temple, waiting to see the Master's promise fulfilled. It is a gentle and quiet resolution to a life of faith, and it is a statement of a slave to a master who has arrived "precisely when he means to".
I just noticed in the story, in Joshua 2, of the spys' promise to Rahab to protect her, her last words before they leave are, "Let it be so according to your word." That sounds a lot like Simeon.
ReplyDeleteOh, why did I not think of it: it is also very close to the words of the Mother of God. When the Archangel Gabriel says to her, "with God nothing will be impossible", she replies, "Let it be to me according to your word."
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