Scripture Readings for the Feast of the Presentation
Just as I was beginning to work on this sermon, an old friend said, “I feel as if I have dropped into my own life, and it fits.” He went on to say that it was more about what was happening within him than what was happening around him. It made me smile. It was such a great description of what we all want to be able to say. There are moments in our lives when our senses awaken and open to a greater reality, a larger world, a more whole life. Those are the moments when our seeing gives way to recognition and acknowledgement of a deeper longing and more profound reality. They are the moments of meeting, moments when divinity and humanity touch, and heaven and earth are joined. That’s what this day, the Feast of the Presentation of our Lord, is about. It’s about presence and longing. We’ve all had those moments when we were fully present, acknowledging that somehow all the pieces of our life fit with an integrity and authenticity and a reality greater than the circumstances of the moment. We’ve all had those moments, even if only briefly. And it was because of such a moment that Mpumelelo requested to make his Initial Profession. In those moments we are living today’s Feast, and we catch a glimpse of what all those present experienced.
Mary and Joseph came to the Temple in obedience to the law to present Jesus to the Lord and offer a sacrifice according to what was written in the law. Behind the legalities, however, was longing.
Anna never left the temple but worshipped there with fasting and prayer night and day. This is not about asceticism. It’s about longing.
Simeon, guided by the Spirit, was righteous, devout, and looking for the consolation of Israel. But it was more than piety that took him to the Temple. It was longing.
Jesus is brought to the temple, not as a passive baby but as the embodiment of his Father’s longing for humanity.
Mpumelelo comes to this temple to profess the three-fold monastic vow, not out of obligation, but out of longing.
The Feast of the Presentation, which we’re observing today, is sometimes called the Feast of Meeting, and it is, at its core, a feast of longing. This feast reveals the longing between humanity and divinity. Our deepest longings are to know and to be known, to love and to be loved. That can only ever really happen fully in relationship to God. This relationship is not based on gathering information or learning about God. This kind of knowing is of the heart not the intellect. It’s about seeking the union that sets us free, the oneness that gives us peace, and the relationship that is our wholeness, our salvation. For this to happen we must live with and offer the fragility, vulnerability, and joy of an open and longing heart. That heart is the temple of meeting, the place where today we find Mary and Joseph, Anna and Simeon, Jesus and Mpumelelo.
Longing is not an absence or emptiness waiting to be filled. Longing is a presence and fullness waiting to be expressed. Two persons do not long for each other because they’re apart. They long for each other because they’re in love. We are sometimes too quick to quench the longing, to satisfy the desire. That never takes us to the temple. It keeps life superficial and us moving from one fix to another. Longing, however, if trusted and followed always takes us to the temple, the place of meeting and presence.
Luke has given us an extraordinarily rich portrait of humanity in this story. At the center of everything is the child, just over a month old. Then there are his teenage parents, and the elders. The scene is a microcosm of community. These characters remind us that not only does every stage of life, from infancy to old age, have its legitimate place before God, but there is also a sense in which the community, which does not have this spectrum of life, is somehow incomplete. This story calls on us to value the part that each one of us must play in the continued revealing of God’s presence in our life together.
Another truth of this story is that we encounter God by showing up, by the faithful doing of what needs to be done, even at times and in places that can be disorienting, overwhelming, and intimidating. It is more often in the ordinary rather than the extraordinary events of our lives that God’s plan unfolds. All the people in this story had to lay aside their own plans to wait on and embrace God’s plan.
We do a lot of external waiting and it’s not unimportant. But there’s also internal waiting when we’re waiting for something to shift or change within us. It’s the kind of waiting that happens during discernment. Sacred Tradition tells us that Simeon waited two hundred seventy years to see his life fulfilled. We’re all waiting for things like wholeness, something to be healed, forgiveness and reconciliation, something to come alive, a sense of fulfillment and completion.
Finally, the story reminds us that what is most precious to us, what gives us the most joy and meaning, will also cause us the greatest pain. This is particularly true in our relationships with individuals and with a community. We cannot love without experiencing pain. When we give ourselves in love, we also open ourselves up to loss. Love involves a giving up as well as a receiving. Some may take it as a reason to withdraw from relationships and refuse to love. But Mary and Joseph certainly didn’t. They left the temple with their child, returned home, and got on with their lives. Through their love and nurture, they enabled this child to grow, to become strong, wise, and loving.
As in the account of the shepherds at Jesus’ birth, I have no doubt that the words of Simeon were also “pondered by Mary in her heart.” I think that it’s Luke’s way of saying that she spent the rest of her life wrestling with this gift of a pierced heart. Love is costly, but in paying the price, we receive a larger heart, a greater capacity to live and to love.
Mpumelelo, you’ve lived in the two communities of the Order and know that this life presents its challenges and its rewards. You have learned first-hand that community life presents human beings at their best and at their worst, at their fullest self and at their most petty self. The three-fold vow you are about to profess will help you to continue to embrace the path of seeking God and satisfying your longing in a communal context. The vow is not about negation, restriction, or limitation. Living the vow requires fidelity, endurance, perseverance, and patience – with yourself and with your brothers. The vow assists us in facing three basic demands of this life: the need to listen, the need to not run away, and the need to change. The three-fold vow helps us to navigate this life by our promising in obedience to be open to listening; in stability, that you will not run away, especially from yourself; in Conversatio morum, the conversion of our way to the monastic way, by embracing change and transformation through common ownership and consecrated celibacy. Your primary relationship is with Christ. In and through his love we are enabled to love others. Christ is both the Light we see and the Illumination by which we see. That Light and Illumination reveal mercy and forgiveness in the shadows of guilt and shame, presence and courage in the night of fear, compassion and hope in sorrow and loss, a way forward in the blindness of ignorance and confusion, and life in the darkness of death. Sometimes we hide in the darkness avoiding the light because we do not want to admit the truth of our lives to ourselves, and we surely do not want another to see that truth about us. Our holy Father Benedict teaches us that only through humility do we live in the truth. It is the flame of God’s love that consumes our darkness and frees us for the peace God has promised.
We tend to hear this Gospel as saying that Jesus is the one being presented. The name of the feast can also be understood as saying that the presentation is by Jesus. St. Ephrem the Syrian, the 4th century poet and theologian, explains in his homily for this feast, a part of which we read at Vigils this morning, that Jesus was presenting Simeon to His Father and not Simeon presenting Jesus to God. As you profess your vow, Mpumelelo, so then you too are presented today by Jesus to God.
May the witness of Joseph and Mary, Anna and Simeon, and Mpumelelo be an encouragement to all of us. Regardless of our age or the place we find ourselves at this stage of our lives, let us live faithfully, hopefully, and courageously. That is the kind of living that makes the salvation of God known. Mpumelelo, today Simeon’s song becomes your song, and by your Profession, it becomes our song as well.
Thank you, Robert, for the depth and breadth of your sharing here, especially on longing, to which I deeply relate; and to the reality of where our presentation to God is a daily and always changing event, no matter our age or circumstance. How blessed is the Holy Cross community as it continues to grow.