Feast of the Presentation

          The holy ancients, Simeon and Anna wait patiently for the one who is to come. The spirit calls them both into the temple on the day when a man and a woman bring a child there to observe the prescribed rituals following his birth. Luke describes the scene in detail, telling the reader why they are there and what they bring with them. He tells us that their offering is that directed by the law for a family without means. The default gift is a lamb, but those who cannot afford to offer one bring a pair of birds. When he sees the child, Simeon knows that his long wait has ended and he acknowledges Jesus before God as the anointed one. Anna, whose life is a daily vigil of prayer, knows him also. The lives of these two righteous elders are constituted by the ancient ways of faithfulness. Their domain is the Jerusalem Temple, itself the ultimate symbol of the ageless faith of Jesus’ people. But in that place, in that moment, these two whose lives are living testaments to that faith know that God has broken into space and time. Nothing will be the same. Mary and Joseph do not know that they are offering to God one who has already been called Son of God. They fulfill a righteous obligation in a spirit of grace and thanksgiving. Simeon and Anna see the divine looking itself in the eye.

          The more colloquial English-language name for this Feast Day of the Presentation is Candlemas. The traditional liturgy begins with a candlelight procession into the church, which we may try here in a future year. It was the day when priests blessed the annual supply of candles for the church’s use. Over the last two millennia the church has demonstrated a gift for innovation and inclusion when it comes to bringing new converts into community. This February 2 feast day falls at the same time of year as the ancient Celtic Feast Day called Imbolc. That festival is associated with things that are hidden, with gestation and birth. In the sheepherding country of Britain it coincides with the season when new lambs are born. It is a cross-quarter day, a day for servants to look for new jobs and tenants to pay rents on the medieval calendar that regulated business affairs. It falls exactly halfway between the winter solstice and the spring equinox. The Celts, celebrated it by lighting fires and looking for signs indicating when winter would end at the time of year when the hope for spring begins to be rewarded with earlier sunrises and later sunsets. In other parts of the northern hemisphere, the religious practices of ancient pagan cultures were similar and in February, northern Christians are no less hungry for light and heat than their polytheistic counterparts. Throughout the centuries, the Church has consistently found ways to weave together its scripture and tradition with the indigenous religious practices of those it sought to convert. You could call it artful generosity or opportunism with a spiritual flavor, but the Church’s arc of inclusion has found ways to stretch time and again. The Feast of the Presentation is an example of it.

          Luke is doing some cross-cultural interpretation of his own in this gospel text we hear today. Many of you are aware that Luke wrote for a gentile audience, much like Paul had done beginning a few decades earlier. Among Luke’s intentions is to give the dominant culture a good impression of Jesus’ followers. He seeks to interpret Jewish tradition and practice along with the life and ministry of Jesus to those whose past religious experience is something more like the civic religions of Greece and Rome or mystery religions like Mithraism. His detailed description of Jesus’ presentation in the Temple and references to Jewish law are attempts to instruct this unfamiliar audience in the background of their new way of believing. Luke writes at a time when Jesus’ followers were, in many places, still very much a part of the synagogue community. The division of Christians and Jews into separate communities with distinct beliefs and practices had hardly begun. In Acts of the Apostles, the sequel to Luke’s gospel, we learn that for many of Jesus’ followers, the whole idea of sharing the good news with gentiles was suspect. It challenged their most basic understanding of what it meant to be a follower of Jesus. Luke’s gospel reaches out to those who were outside the more conventional boundaries that had been set for this new thing that God was doing. His account of the experience of Simeon and Anna lies within a greater narrative that acquaints his gentile audience with the religious formation of others whose experience is very different from their own but with whom the spirit has called them to share Jesus the Christ.

          During the past week a group from the Diocese of Newark released a paper reporting their study of the practice of Open Table, the name they have given to sharing the Eucharist with those who have not been baptized. Open Table has been Trinity’s practice for some time and that is a change for me. I come here from the Diocese of West Missouri where Open Table has been expressly prohibited. The paper is available on the Internet through a link on the Episcopal Café web site. The paper has inspired energetic comment and discussion and that’s a good thing. I encourage you to take a look at the paper. Its conclusion is in favor of the practice of Open Table, but if you have not read a lot about this topic, it can give you a sense of the thoughtful opinion on both sides of this issue. It will be interesting to see how the church grapples with it and where we will land on it 25 or 50 years from now.  What I like about this paper is that it takes a step beyond the ‘hurt feelings’ aspect of requiring Baptism before Communion and looks at the two sacraments in a larger context that takes into account historical, pastoral and theological issues. It attempts also to get at the intersection of spirituality and religious practice from the point of view of those whose prior experience does not include Christian formation. Today’s gospel text describes Simeon and Anna’s experience of coming into the presence of Jesus. The authors of this paper describe those who believe they are called by the Spirit to share in the Eucharist before they are baptized as coming into the presence of Jesus through the sacrament of his body and blood. That is what all of us are doing as we gather in community to share the meal celebrated at God’s table.

          Whatever anyone’s opinion might be on the issue of Communion before Baptism, the challenge before the Church now is to move beyond the boundaries and limitations of the institutional phase of our life as a community. That ended, in fact, some time ago. We have spent decades trying to bring it back to life, rather than discovering what God calls us to now.

          I have heard that last week during his remarks here Bishop Scarfe expressed the opinion that I should receive your welcome to Trinity, then immediately lead you back out the door. In fact that is what I had in mind and I’m glad to hear he thinks it’s a good idea. Where we go as a community will be a part of Trinity’s entire lifetime.  New leadership means something, but it does not signify the start of a new journey, rather, it is the continuation of one in which this community has been engaged for more than a century. Throughout its history, when the church has stepped beyond the boundaries it had previously created for itself, those who experienced that reach outward may have thought of it in terms of the end of the journey. We have plenty of examples to refer to. What we can see from looking back is that all of those struggles over what we have determined as a community to be or not to be true have been steps on a path that we have done our best to walk together, no matter what differences lay between us. Human experience has had and continues to have a profound and lasting impact on the worship and teachings of the Church and the truth of the gospel was and still is that light that reveals to Christians what is authentic and essential in human experience.

          Our reach together beyond these walls will not come from me alone. It will be a work of discernment undertaken by the leaders this congregation has chosen for itself in conversation with all of the members of Trinity. Important work takes time and patience. It is worth working for and waiting for as we see in the examples of Simeon and Anna. I look forward to this journey with you.