The Rev. Joseph Farnes
All Saints, Boise
Feast of the Presentation
Our Gospel reading for the feast of the Presentation today is so dense with meaning – it’s a shame that this reading only ends up being read on Sunday when February 2nd is on a Sunday. It doesn’t show up elsewhere in the Sunday reading cycle. So we only really hear it every five years or so. The last time I preached on it, it was 2020. That was many, many grey hairs ago.
So let me launch into the insights we can take away from the readings *this* time.
The Gospel reading says that when the time came for their purification, Mary and Jesus were taken to the Temple. We might wonder, “What needs to be purified?” For us, the concept of purification for impurity implies something being dirty, out-of-place, unworthy. For our forebears, however, ritual impurity was not a moral category. It was a ritual appropriateness. Mary had undergone the difficulties of pregnancy and birth, and Jesus was the first-born. Mary has been in a place of danger – as we know pregnancy and giving birth are dangerous – and so in the logic of the purification, she’s being brought back down into “normal” life. She was in a liminal, in-between space – if something goes wrong during those critical stages, it can go catastrophically wrong quickly. For ancient peoples, that kind of “energy” sticks around. It needs to be re-aligned. So, purification re-aligns that energy, hits the reset button.
Whether we agree with that ritual logic or not, it does make us pause and consider how we deal with some of these circumstances. When someone’s pregnant, we ooh and ahh over the possibilities – but it’s still a dangerous time for the mother. So much could go awry in a short period of time – and that’s why we should leave medical decisions around a woman’s pregnancy to her and her doctor because they are the ones who have to make a decision in that moment. And even after she’s given birth, there’s still the reality of hormones shifting and the possibility of post-partum depression. The process of pregnancy isn’t done once the baby is born! It’s adjustment before, during, and after. How do we care for someone in such a transitional state?
Or think at the other end of life – how do we deal with death? Do we sanitize it and rush it away as soon as possible so we can “get back to normal”? Our culture wants death and grief to be done as soon as possible so we can return to full productivity. What if we treated that as an in-between time, too? That we could maybe not be ok for a while, sit in mourning for a while?
So that’s purification.
And now onto the offering: Joseph and Mary offer two small birds because they were poor. They do not have the material resources for a larger offering.
Instinctively, we might wonder whether it’s appropriate to require an offering at all if they’re poor. Or, what if the importance is not so much the gift, but the act of giving itself? The giving back to God what belongs to God. What happens when we deny people the ability and the opportunity to give, even if what they have is small? Every little bit given is a gift of the heart. Everyone has the ability to give.
We’re all called to that life of generosity. As we say at the altar, everything we’re giving God is something God has already given us. It’s a gift from God, and we are called to be generous, too. Making space for an offering reminds us that we are called to give. The offering plate is not an “entrance fee” to the Kingdom of God or a membership fee to a club. It’s about embodying the life of generosity that God calls us to.
So that’s the offering.
And now onto the sage and the prophet, Simeon and Anna. They have been waiting in the Temple in prayer. Simeon’s been waiting for the Messiah, led by the Holy Spirit. Anna dedicated herself to prayer. And Simeon and Anna (unrelated to each other, just two older folks in the Temple!) pick up this child Jesus and sing praises to God and prophesy and evangelize.
In the Church, we often fret about numbers of children. We think so much about our own grey hairs. We worry and stress. But what if we took the posture of Simeon and Anna – to be like wise, loving bonus grandparents to the young and youthful? Do we bless the children in our midst, watch over them, love them, offer a gentle guidance, offer a word of encouragement? And to rejoice over even one child to give them the belonging in the household of God that they deserve?
In the early days, the church was an “alternative” family, a “chosen” family. People had been kicked out of their families for believing in Jesus. In their new family the church, they had fathers and mothers, aunts and uncles and brothers and sisters and children galore. People of all ages, races, ethnicities, genders, sexualities, backgrounds – all bound together in Jesus Christ. The diversity of the family of God becomes an inclusive community where all can find a welcome to belong, to grow in the knowledge and love of God, and to build one another up in equity, fairness, and righteousness.
In this new kind of family, we try to care for one another with tenderness – because we are called to be tender and loving. Sure, just like any human family the church does not fully and absolutely live up to that goal – yet we are called to keep praising God, blessing, praying, rejoicing, celebrating. Just like our offering, we are meant to keep on trying. So there is some wisdom for us on this Feast of the Presentation. Now, there is much, much more that could be said, and it’ll be five years or so before this reading comes around on Sunday again, and who knows what I’ll have to say at that point! So keep reading it, take it home and reflect. What else do you see in this reading?