Luke 2: 41-52, The Rev. James
E. Gilman, Trinity Church, Sunday, January 3
Introduction
What were you doing at the age of 12, at the age of puberty? Luke’s story of Jesus at age 12 is a story of a journey from childhood to adulthood and is unique to his Gospel. The entire book of Luke is structured as a long journey made up of many little journeys. These journeys are not just physical, geographical journeys, but spiritual as well. Luke includes in his narrative the journeys of others, like John the Baptist, Jesus’ disciples, and Martha and Mary, all of whom become his traveling companions. So it’s not surprising that he would record Jesus’ rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, a journey that is both geographical (from Nazareth to Jerusalem and back) and spiritual (from Jesus’ family of origin to his family of destiny). Ultimately Luke’s challenges all Christians to write themselves into his narrative. Our question, then, is Where am I, where are you, in this story? Where are you in your spiritual journey? To help you answer this question, I want to focus on two questions: Who’s your Daddy? And How active are you in your Daddy’s house?
Who’s your Daddy?
First, Luke’s narrative is a story of transition and crisis; and the crisis has to do with the question “Who’s your Daddy?” It is the story of turmoil; of a child becoming independent of his parents and submitting to a new Daddy; a story of Jesus leaving behind his family of origin and participating in his new family of destiny. It is a crisis of identity for both Jesus and his parents. His childhood identity as the son of Joseph is displaced by his new identity as the son of God; his dependence on his earthly father and mother is replaced by his dependence on his heavenly father. As with most parents, Mary is having difficulty dealing with this transition. She is anxious and frustrated and even upset with Jesus.
All parents know well what a frightful and frantic feeling it is to lose track of a child, as Mary did. I remember doing that a couple of times with my children. How utterly you are gripped with awful feelings of tragedy and loss. Apparently Joseph and Mary experience such desperate feelings. Jesus is growing up and becoming independent of them. When they find Jesus, he is in the temple “listening to [teachers] and asking them questions.” Like a good Jewish mother Mary expresses her frustration with Jesus: “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” As if to say, “Young man, think! What are you doing? Grow up! How inconsiderate, acting like the world revolves around only you. Why are you wasting time in the temple with Rabbis? You could be preparing for Law school or Medical school?”
Jesus’ reply to his mother is extraordinary; not quite smart-alecky and disrespectful, perhaps, but typical of the dis-connect between parent and teenager. Jesus more or less says: O Mom! Settle down. I’m not a kid any more. Leave me alone; I’ve got my own life to live.” What Luke tells us Jesus actually said is: “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house?” as if to say, “I must now take care of the affairs of my heavenly Father’s household” Luke concludes the conversation between mother and son with an observation whose truth is unsurpassed even by the keenest insight of adolescent psychologists: he says, “But [Jesus’ parents] did not understand what [the teenage Jesus was saying] to them.”
This little crisis of identity in the life of Jesus is Luke’s way of writing all of us into the gospel story. It is a crisis all Christians must face: independence from our earthly parents so that we can commit ourselves fully to our heavenly Daddy. Jesus is beginning to realize who he really is as a maturing person, and “Who his real Daddy is?” He is coming to realize he is no longer merely the son of Joseph but more importantly the Son of God. So too, at some point in our lives as Christian we must go through such a crisis of identity, intentionally becoming independent of our earthly family so that we can become fully children of God.
So, “Who’s your
Daddy?” Have you ever really made the journey from spiritual childhood to
spiritual adulthood? Physically you have made the transition to adulthood;
you’ve been baptized and confirmed. But have you really made the spiritual
transition to adulthood? Have you ever really let go of your dependence on your
earthly family’s religion and made God your own personal Daddy? Or have you
lived your whole spiritual life as a child: depending on the spirituality of
others but never personally coming of age spiritually and intellectually, never
making the transition to full participation as a child in God’s family? Luke challenges each of us to
grow up, to find our place in God’s family. He challenges each of us to ask
ourselves “Who is my Daddy?”
How Active are you in your Daddy’s House?
How would you answer our second question, “How active are you in your Daddy’s house? That is How active are you in taking care of the affairs of your new Daddy’s household?
Jesus, at this young age, asks Mary rhetorically: Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” which is to ask“ Did you not know I must now help my new Daddy run the affairs of his household? In coming-of-age Jesus now has a keen sense of his divine calling and new responsibilities that come with it. For his first 12 years he has learned a craft from his father, Joseph, and has learned Torah from his mother, Mary. The time has come, as it does for all children, for Jesus to grow up spiritually and to make use of his spiritual gifts for the welfare of others and not just for his own family. Jesus is becoming aware, even at age 12, of who he is and what he is to do. And what he is to do now, we soon find out, is his new Daddy’s will: practice compassion, love, mercy, forgiveness, truth, and peacemaking.
I teach a class in Christian ethics that requires students to read an interview of Mother Teresa by Malcolm Muggeridege. She says, in that interview, that at the age of 12 (the same age as Jesus) she felt God was calling her to a life dedicated solely and entirely to God. In response, one student wrote, “At age 12, Mother Teresa felt called by God, at the age of 12 I was trying to figure out how to open the combination on my school locker.” Although Jesus and Mother Teresa heard the call of God to public ministry at an early age, perhaps not all of us do. Yet, God does call all Christians to grow upp spiritually, and attend to the affairs of God’s household and not just their own family’s affairs. God calls all Christians at sometime in our life to transform our private, personal practice of religion into public ministry. Perhaps you sense God calling you, as Jesus called Jesus’ disciples, to a particular kind of ministry, but you don’t really want to give up the current comfort and convenience of your personal, private practice of religion.
Participating in Sunday worship, you say to yourself, is as much as I’m willing to invest. That, of course, is a start, but not a calling. Worship is the spark that ignites the engine for our spiritual journey, but it is not the journey itself. Perhaps you don’t want to say yes to God’s call because of the risks involved; risks like “I’ll do it;” risks, like time and energy; risks like foregoing some personal preferences; risks like saying “yes” to your new Daddy.”
Part of the story Luke later tells is of Jesus calling his disciples to service and ministry. In doing so, he writes us into his story. For Jesus’ call is to each of us. Examples of those who have risked heeding God’s call to service and ministry later in life can be found right here in our own congregation. Many of you know Tom Howell who had a successful law practice; in middle age he heard God’s call, and is training to be an ordained minister. Many of you know John Wilkinson who upon retirement did not disappear into a private life of personal leisure that many of us long for. Instead he heard God’s call to public ministry as a deacon in this diocese. There is so much business in God’s household to take care of right here at Trinity, in Staunton. These affairs don’t require formal ordination, but they do require commitment to a journey. Affairs like teaching a Sunday School class; helping serve noon lunch or coordinating it; helping guide youth or serving in the choir or in the community; serving on the altar guild or vestry or a committee. Luke tells the story of how God calls Jesus out of private life into public ministry; today we are called to participate in that story.
Luke concludes his story by telling us that Jesus went back to Nazareth for a time and was obedient to his parents; and that “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” May it be so with us.