Candlemas 28.01.2007: Mal 3.1-5; Heb 2.14-18; Luke 2.22-40 Welwyn and Ayot: Revd. Dr. Alan Winton

How different things might have turned out.

Imagine for a moment that instead of the beautiful, hopeful, peaceful words of the Nunc Dimittis that made it into Cranmer’s Evensong, the church had chosen Simeon’s other words from the occasion when the child Jesus was brought to the Temple.
What has become the backbone of Anglican evening worship is that gentle canticle, ‘Lord, now lettest thou thy servant depart in peace’: the words of Simeon as he holds the child Jesus in the Temple. It is all contentment, light and peace with its glorious image of the light to lighten the Gentiles. But as this morning’s Gospel reading reminded us, Simeon’s speech continued in a darker vein which has strangely never found its way into our liturgy. He went on to say: “This child is destined for the falling and rising of many in Israel, and to be a sign that will be opposed so that the inner thoughts of many will be revealed – and a sword will pierce your own soul too”.

Anglican Evensong would feel very different if that had formed the second canticle: instead of the gentle settings we know for the Nunc Dimittis, a more discordant musical note would have been required and the whole atmosphere of worship would have been so different.  Of course, the use of the Nunc Dimittis is not peculiar to the Church of England - it has been a feature of Christian worship from the earliest time – but there is a sense in which its mood is characteristic of Anglican worship, which is often marked by peacefulness and reserve. Many of us who are drawn to the Anglican church have found it to be a happy home because of this very eirenic and peaceful ethos. From time to time in recent months and years, however, disturbing threats to this ethos have bubbled to the surface in the Church of England.

What Simeon’s story would have us do, were we to take seriously the whole text, and not simply pick out the most congenial part, is to accept that Christian faith has to be lived in the belief that Jesus is both the light to lighten the whole world and the sign that will be opposed. Christ came to bring peace and light but we should not be shocked that such an innocent sounding project also brings conflict. The salvation that he came to bring led him to the cross, and all of this is foretold, prefigured, in this incident in the temple when he was still such a small child, if we read all of Simeon’s words.

In this last week, the issue of the church’s attitude to homosexuality has once again come to the fore and been on many a front page. It has been a week where, in my view, the church’s witness has not been a straightforward matter of Christ shining forth as a light to the world, but much more a matter of something to be opposed, Christ as a sign and source of very visible conflict.

For many years, the peace-loving, reserved ethos of the Church of England dominated our treatment of this issue. The truth is that there were many homosexual priests and lay people who simply got on with their lives, neither drawing attention to themselves or having attention drawn to them. “Don’t ask” was the unwritten rule across the Church of England. Whether those who took a stricter line on this issue were genuinely unaware of the status quo or were also happy not to make a noise, I do not know.

But in any case, all that has changed. On the one hand, there has been a recognition in the gay community of the real suffering and hardship of many people who felt unable to be honest and open about who they were, of the injustice of their situation in many areas of life, and this has led to much more emphasis on openness and honesty, many people have come out. Alongside this has been a movement to expose what is seen as the hypocrisy of the church, to force Bishops and others to be honest about their beliefs and practices on this matter, to come clean on the issue and not rest content with an Anglican fudge.

In one sense, there is much to commend in this change of attitudes, which can be seen as an attempt to recover some integrity, but it has left the church stuck, seemingly unable to move forward, to reconcile people of strongly opposing views: it has left the church offering a very confusing witness to the world, and this has been very prominent in the news this week.

Now we find ourselves in a situation where the wider society in which we live in this country has moved on at incredible pace. And I think it can be fairly argued that this has come about not through mere careless and unthinking decadence, but rather through a deepening discovery of and commitment to the moral principle that people should not be discriminated against on the basis of any factor that makes up their identity as human beings: be that gender, ethnicity, disability, or sexuality.

This week the church has found itself in a position where it no longer has the luxury of slowly trying to come to terms with some difficult questions over which Christians are divided. Instead, as society has moved on, so we find ourselves accused of immoral behaviour for seeking permission to carry on discriminating against people on the grounds of their sexuality: something for which society has little tolerance. It is the church that is in the dock for ethically questionable behaviour.

We are in the thick of Simeon’s darker prophecy here, struggling to know whether on this particular matter Christ’s demand upon us is one of continuing strict adherence to an ancient prohibition, or whether there is scope for movement and even greater inclusivity in God’s Kingdom.

These are hard matters to talk about in church: we find them upsetting and seemingly intractable, and because we are drawn to church on account of its peaceful, reserved ethos, we are loath to tackle such contentious topics. But this is being forced upon us by the changing ethics of the world around us, and the stand we take will have a huge impact on the credibility and hence the mission of the church in the coming years.

I offer you three thoughts this morning as you do your own thinking and praying.

First, we need to accept that no-one has a monopoly on outrage and offence: on both sides of this divide Christians are similarly offended. The attitude that would want to see homosexual people treated with the equality and dignity in every area of life offends some Christians deeply, it is seen as a failure to live up to God’s high standards, compromising the mission of the church on grounds of a fall from holiness. But the attitude that speaks of homosexual people as living in a way that is sinful, that would require abstinence in all circumstances, is offensive to other Christians as a failure to love in the inclusive way of Christ, compromising the mission of the church on the grounds of injustice and inequality. Both groups claim the moral high ground, both groups are offended. Ratcheting up the level of offence and outrage won’t get us very far.

Secondly, we need to reflect carefully on the words of Simeon when he spoke of Jesus as a sign that would be opposed, as a source of division. Clearly, in some instances Christian people of goodwill will line up easily and clearly on one side of a division, but do Simeon’s words necessarily imply that in response to Jesus people will always end up being neatly and clearly divided into the righteous and the unrighteous. On some matters, Christians of goodwill may find themselves on opposite sides of a division. Knowing the whole truth and being completely reconciled to it is something that will have to wait, it is an aspect of God’s coming kingdom that still eludes us. We are mistaken if we expect that we will understand fully and get it right on all issues in this life. And so we need to find ways of being a church where people can hold to different versions of the truth, without hating or rejecting those who differ, without trying to force each other out. We need to work harder at respecting the conscience and good will of those with whom we differ, because it is impossible to see a quick way out of our disagreements.

And thirdly, there has been much talk of the freedom of conscience this week. In a letter to the Prime Minister, the two Anglican Archbishops wrote in support of the Roman Catholic argument for their adoption agencies to be allowed to refuse to place children with gay couples. A key part of their argument was that: “The rights of conscience cannot be made subject to legislation, however well meaning”. Now if that is true, and it does beg a number of questions, it must be true within the church as well as in the church’s relationship with the wider society. What follows from that conviction about the need to respect conscience is that the Church must change. We have to find a way of respecting the conscience of those who take a more progressive attitude to homosexual people, we cannot simply rest with the current status quo in which it is the traditionalist position that alone holds sway within the church. Many Christians do not want to be seen as being part of a church that is seen to discriminate against gay people, but neither do they want to run away from the church in which they have found grace and truth and love. If we are asking government not to legislate against conscience, then the church itself cannot legislate against the conscience of those Christian people who want to welcome people regardless of their sexuality.

In this moment of our church’s and our society’s history, we cannot rest with the false peace of Simeon’s comforting first words, however much that may express what has drawn us to the church, but rather we have to embrace also the challenge of his darker prophecy. If we want to be a part of Christ’s light coming to the world, we have to recognise that Christ also brings opposition and strife, some of which we can overcome and some of which we may simply have to find a way of living with peaceably until the church enters more fully into God’s truth. Amen.