The Struggle and the Faith (Romans 5:1-5)

The Struggle and the Faith

In the midst of his letter to the Christians living in Rome, Paul writes that we “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead.  He was delivered over to death for our sins and was raised to life for our justification”.  Here, Paul is thought to be referencing a creed, a statement of belief or words held in common by Christian believers.  Baptists have a history of ambivalence toward creeds, agreeing that the faith ought to be clearly expressed, yet we remember that creeds have been used in ways that are less about defining the faith for edification and more as a measuring stick for whether or not others shape up to the creeds you keep.  The effort to offer “words held in common” can lead to church disunity and strife when Christians use creeds as blunt instruments against any dissenters around or within their circles.  Creeds can be beautiful and helpful expressions of faith, yet Church history is dotted with stories of Christians who have divided more than united on what “words” should be held “in common”.

                  In our passage today (Romans 5:1-5), Paul is not looking to split the church or brow-beat.  In fact, Paul is hoping he can “preach to the choir”.   Do you know this phrase?  It means you are addressing a group of people who already believe.  It can be seen as an exercise in futility: why convince those who have already been convinced?  I imagine Paul relishes the chance to speak to a group who already believes.  He aims to help them deepen in their spiritual beliefs, not just settle for staying on the edges of the Christian faith.  Just before these five verses we explore today, Paul speaks directly to his reader, welcoming them into his line of thinking. Such goodness found in Christ is given to “us”, those “who believe in him [God] who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification”.  Paul is aiming to speak to the hearts of those who already profess Christ as Lord.  Paul wants to move his readers from the outer edges of faith and right into the intersection where life and faith intersect. 

                  And what happens when you leave the edges and move into the deep end?

                  As a kid, I was fairly terrified of swimming. I remember taking summer swimming classes, feeling terrified to move into water that was over my head. (Imagine the difficulty they had convincing me of baptism by immersion!)   Swimming around the pool was fine, though I always looked for the number marks along the pool edge giving the depth.  The water was great around the 3-foot mark.  Surely monsters lurked out there beyond the 6-foot mark!

                  I still get nervous in deep waters. (Again, let’s marvel at the irony of me growing up to become an ordained Baptist minister….).  Nonetheless, the “deep end” is a place that I can swim toward and muddle around in.  It took a great deal of determination to get out there into the depths, and once there, I might not know exactly what I’m doing, but I do have a sense of surety that I can at least get out there and tread water.

                  Life can feel a bit like the deep end: a place where monsters lurk or great uncertainties keep you from leaving the shallows.  I had a swimming instructor and a very insistent mother who kept coaching me onwards how to swim as well as how to keep telling myself I can actually do it.  It is not easy to listen to these things.  Life can seem more like lulls between chaos, or outright chaos, as you try to juggle family, bills, work or school, etc.  Paul has a word for those who “believe in him who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead”.  The word he has for “us” is one of peace, grace, hope, and love.  Our belief in Christ is not meant to be explored once weekly or only in cases of emergency.  What the faith has for us is a good word, a powerful word of encouragement that is best understood while wading through the deep end of life.  And these are words that we need to keep telling ourselves. 

                   Speaking a word of encouragement to the church in Rome, Paul asks them what word can be trusted most.  He claims that we have peace with God through Jesus Christ.  It is not just the consoling word of peace temporarily given to salve over our wounds.  Paul means that we have the sort of peace that other parts of the Bible call “shalom”, the vision of the world ordered by God’s specifications, not the world created by politics, social or economic disparities, or whatever curveballs life has thrown at us.  The idea of “the peace of God” resounds with a challenging tone to the church at Rome, living at the heart of the Roman Empire and its claim of “Pax Romana”, aka Peace for Romans, as long as you don’t get in our way. 

                  Paul claims we have peace, and therefore no alienation or barriers should be allowed to keep us.  The “peace” of the Bible is powerful in its testimony to God’s “final say” over the way the world ought to be.  Through the cross of Jesus, we are given freedom to live.  Exchanging these words of Christ’s peace in the service each week is less of a liturgical “good morning”.  It is our chance to tell one another what we really need to remember.  When you exchange the peace of God/Christ, it is your chance to throw a lifeline to the person whose hand you are shaking.  We speak a word of the hopeful future our faith promises while gifting another person with perhaps the first “good” word they’ve heard in awhile.  Just like being in the choir, it’s about the singing.  It’s also about the camaraderie of living together in this same hope our faith holds in common.

                  While Paul offers this word of encouragement, he is fully aware of the brokenness of the world and our lives.  Elsewhere in Romans (cf. chapter 8), he speaks of Creation “groaning”, as if in labor, awaiting the opportunity to be free and liberated from the sufferings and travail of a sin-fractured world.  People of faith are not exempted from suffering and the twists and turns of how your life plays out.  The gift of faith that we have in Christ who, as Paul encourages us to confess and remember, “was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification”. 

                  Properly understood, hope gifts us and empowers us to look at life with new perspective.  Paul hopes he is preaching to the choir again, for those of us who call upon Christ as Lord are given words of hope and trust that ought not to be forgotten.  Faith is not blind trust or a wishy-washy hope that sounds best when cloaked in trite phrases.  Faith does not shy from the deep end or the precipice.  In fact, these are the times that faith’s promises are best recalled and called upon.

The Episcopal writer Barbara Brown Taylor recalls a congregant, “though dying of cancer and burdened with an oxygen tank slung over her shoulder, [climbed to the pulpit to] read the lesson for Christmas Eve” (summary by Richard Lischer, The End of Words, Eerdmans, 112). She remembers,

Her tank hisses every five seconds.  Every candle in the place glitters in her eyes.  “Strengthen the weak hands,” she reads bending her body towards the words, “and make firm the feeble knees.  Say to those who are of a fearful heart, “Be strong, do not fear!  Here is your God.”  When she sits down, the congregation knows they have not just heard the word of the Lord.  They have seen it in action.  (Home by Another Way, Cowley, 140, cited by Lischer, 112.)

                  The word for us this day is the same word for the first century Christians of Rome.  To those of us, whether in the first or twenty-first century, “who believe in him [God] who raised Jesus our Lord from the dead, who was handed over to death for our trespasses and was raised for our justification”, Paul gives us these very pastoral words of encouragement for the world has not changed much.  It still awaits its fulfillment when there shall come a new Creation birthed from the old order in its decay and sorrow.  Nonetheless, the peace of God, the hope in Christ, and the love of God poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit work into our lives as we invite the words of faith to become the words for our journey through life, in times of challenge and in times of celebration. 

                  To those us who believe, let us take heart.  AMEN.

Good Friday 2010 (Hebrews 10:16-25), offered at St Peter's Episcopal Church

Good Friday homily (Hebrews 10:16-25)

         On such a night, it is customary to retell the story of Calvary, the crucifixion of Jesus and the last moments of his earthly life before he gave up his spirit.  We have heard a retelling of the last few hours of Jesus’ life through the gospel of John.   No matter how many times I hear this story, I feel the loss, despite knowing how the story shall end two days hence.  We are here in the valley of the shadow of death this evening.  As the faithful, we must not skip blithely from last Sunday’s palm procession to the first acclamations of the Easter vigil.  Here, we enter into the painful pause of Good Friday and Holy Saturday. 

         On this night, we remember Christ the condemned.  After betrayal by one of his inner circle, he was given a “show trial” before imperial and religious leaders. His disciples scattered and hid in fear.  Christ went to his death, mocked, beaten, and forced to carry his own cross to the place of his execution. There, in the place called “Golgotha”, he breathed his last.

         In this tragic moment, Christians claim great hope is to be found.  In the brokenness of the crucified Christ, Christianity finds wholeness made possible.  In this one moment, the faith carried out by two millennia of believers is given over to proclaim God’s solidarity with the sufferings of the world.   In this death, the sins of humanity find the forgiveness and restoration we could never achieve ourselves.

         To tell this story, the early Christians proclaimed this “good news” through narratives called “the gospels” and through a variety of writings, mostly letters between wise leaders and the small congregations steadily populating the known world of the era.  Indeed, the New Testament writings can be read as a variety of efforts by early Christians to make sense of Christ’s crucifixion as well as the death and decay that reigned so freely on Saturday, and then the remarkable story of Easter morning. 

In the book of Hebrews, the writer draws upon the sacrificial imagery of the people bringing their sacrificial offerings before the priest to give account and atonement for their sins.  Remarkably, the writer claims Christ serves as priest and sin offering alike, bringing to an end the need for further sacrifice.

         The Hebrews reading for this evening sketches out the implications of Christ’s death upon the cross.  The writer calls upon the faithful to worship with true hearts, confessing with firm belief, and encouraging one another to live a life shaped by love and good deeds.  Christ’s death is just the beginning of a new way of life.  In our worship, we testify to a cross-shaped way of living in the world.  From death shall flower a faith proclaiming new life.

In these practices, Christians make known their conviction that death does not have the last word.  We are a people unafraid of illusions of authority cast by the powers that be.  Instead, we seek out a different path that embodies the truth and grace of Christ Jesus the crucified yet resurrected Lord. 

         The epistle writer encourages the reader to take up belief in Christ, a different faith than we hear about otherwise.  In the day of the earliest Christians, following Christ meant living against the grain of the ways of Rome and joining together with persons across social, economic, and gender lines in a way that the dominant culture found contrary, if not a bit unsettling. In our modern culture, following Christ as U.S. Christians is likewise a daunting task.  We are told to have faith in political figures, in the products of corporate America, or in the ideological movements of the day.  Instead, we are to be a people who welcome and include the marginalized and forgotten, serve our neighbors near and far, and live with values often contrary to the social and economic conventions of “mainstream” culture. The Church worships, confesses, and lives as a witness to Christ crucified, who is understood best, as Paul puts it, as the scandalous message of God to the world.

Earlier in the book of Hebrews, the epistle writer begins with what is thought to be a confession of early Christians.  At the outset of the epistle, the writer confesses an understanding of the Christian faith:

Long ago God spoke to our ancestors in many and various ways by the prophets, but in these last days he has spoken to us by a Son, whom he appointed heir of all things, through whom he also created the worlds.  He is the reflection of God’s glory and the exact imprint of God’s very being and he sustains all things by his powerful word.  When he had made purification for sins, he sat down at the right hand of the Majesty on high, having become as much superior to angels as the name has inherited is more excellent than theirs. (Heb 1:1-4)

May we worship, confess, and live together in the light of this witness.  May we testify with our lives to Christ, our High Priest.  AMEN.

Along the Parade Route (Luke 19:28-40)

            I love a good parade.  The marching bands, the floats, the merriment of the children as they watch the parade go by (or their giddy excitement as a handful of candy comes sailing towards them).  Back home, one of the small towns had an annual parade around the time of the county rodeo.  The parade consisted of a line of floats being pulled by tractors and pickups, a marching band, a few kids on bikes and four-wheelers, and a handful of people on horseback.  The parade was small enough that at the end of the four-block parade route, the parade circled the block and went back down the street, just in case somebody missed it. 
            Last November, Kerry and I spent Thanksgiving in New York City. We wanted to see the Macy’s Day parade, however, we soon realized that everybody else had the same idea.  The streets were packed with people, so we stayed in and watched the parade on the television.  Afterwards, we found ourselves walking along the parade route about two hours after the parade.  The city cleaning crews were busy sweeping up an entire forest’s worth of confetti on the street, and we waded past piles of litter knee high. 

            The night before, we went to the place where the famous balloons were inflated and then tethered down.  We thought it might be fun to see the balloons.  Unfortunately, everybody else had the same idea.  Before we left, I was able to see one of the balloons on its side, so I like telling people I got to see a Macy’s Day balloon up close.   Unfortunately, it was just a fleeting glimpse of the hem of Sponge Bob’s square pants….

            To understand the entrance of Jesus into Jerusalem, imagine the scene with me:  It’s the great metropolis, and a parade is coming down the street.  The people start craning their necks to see who is coming.  There’s a lot of commotion: people shouting and singing.  Instead of the grand procession they expected, it was a humble little affair, a group of peasants escorting some thin fellow riding a young colt. 

It was not what Jerusalem expected.  It was Passover, so the religious fervor was in the air.  More pilgrims flooded into the city daily, singing and carrying on. A passerby might have expected the noise as a sign some important Roman official was making his way through the city.  A huge entourage accompanied Pilate or a military general, reminding Jerusalem who really ran things.  The crowd of ragged looking peasants and the rather solemn looking rider did not fit in. Jesus rides into town on a very young colt, likely he struggles with dragging his feet on the ground and trying to keep the colt under control.  Pilate and the other Roman officials would be riding only the finest steeds.  

The Triumphal Entry was about as ludicrous as a New Yorker expecting to see the grand balloons, marching bands, and celebrities, and instead down the road came the parade from small town Kansas, tractors puttering down Broadway.

            The story of the “triumphal entry” only got this grand name after the fact.  In the moment, Jesus appears to be in the midst of some political and religious mischief.  The disciples sing a song of praise, paraphrasing the 118^th Psalm, “Blessed is the one who comes in the name of the Lord!”.  Note the disciples add the rather subversive title of “king” to their psalm singing.  His followers while on the way to the Temple proclaim Jesus royalty.  Upon arrival, Jesus will claim religious authority by his “cleansing” of the Temple, chasing away those who he believes exploit the Temple’s true purpose.  As scholar N.T. Wright observes, Jesus is coming to Jerusalem with the intention to claim his royal authority, despite what the imperial and sacred authorities would say (Jesus and the Victory of God, Fortress Press, 1996, p. 490-3).

After creating the commotion that church tradition calls the “cleansing” of the Temple, Jesus stays in the Temple complex for quite some time (the next two chapters!), teaching all who gathered to hear him.  By occupying the Temple, Jesus is claiming the seat of power that the people would claim as the true power over Israel, the Temple, and Jerusalem. “It was the king [long awaited in the messianic hope of the people] who had ultimate authority over the Temple” (Wright, p. 492).

The crowd of disciples seemed so happy, so optimistic, just a few days before, singing of Jesus:

Blessed is the king who comes in the name of the Lord.

Peace in heaven, and glory in the highest heaven! 

Anyone familiar with the Christmas carols picks up on this latter phrase.  The disciples echo an earlier section of Luke as the story of Jesus’ birth is told.  The angelic host sings in the heavens above as Jesus is born.  The disciples sing as Jesus enters into his last week of life.  For Luke’s gospel, the glory of God and the peace of heaven and earth resound at both ends of the story of Jesus’ life.  Nonetheless, this story will not stay in the heights of praise.  In a few short days, the story will come crashing down.

These scenes of “triumphal entry” and “Temple teachings” fade quickly as Luke furthers the story.  The religious rulers are furious and conspire to deal away with Jesus.  One of the inner-circle disciples decides to conspire with the powers that be.  The week that began with such high praise shall end with the drama of a betrayal, a show trial, and then a summary execution.  The disciples will lose their euphoria and disappear into the night, frightened for their very lives.  Jesus will be written off as yet another zealous messianic type, consigned to death by Pilate, a Roman official who just waves the matter away.  Soon, Jesus will be put to death, abandoned by even his closest of disciples, and his corpse is left in a hastily selected tomb.

This story filled with its drama and tragic turn is our focus for this week.  Holy Week is our journey with Jesus.  By undertaking this journey, we encounter the deadliness and finitude of Good Friday.  In the days leading up to the Cross we mourn the world in its ease with resorting to violence and escalating conflict.  Holy Week reminds us that the world has yet to allow the peace and hope taught by Jesus to take abiding root. 

While we enjoy the parade of children with palm branches and the food awaiting us at each of our three services, the festivities will take a necessarily solemn character as well.  During these next few days, Christianity goes on a journey that guides us through disturbing questions about the world’s brokenness.  Jesus heals the marginalized and excluded, yet he is ‘rewarded’ with a humiliating death. 

We see in Pilate and the Temple priests the brutal consequences of humans exercising power and authority with little sense of restraint.  We move along the narrative arc of Jesus’ life and death, facing that dreadful pause of Good Friday’s aftermath and the reality that we do not skip over death when telling the gospel story of the life, death, and resurrection of Jesus.

            Along the way, if we learn how to tell the gospel story rightly, we sort out the curious “final word” of Jesus as he rides down the parade route.  As the parade is going by, the Pharisees, longtime critics of Jesus, step forward and criticize the raucous singing of the disciples.  Jesus will have none of this.  “Even if my disciples were to be silent, these stones would shout!”

            Where do Jesus’ words about the stones shall shout fit in with the rest of the week ahead of him?  If you find this language puzzling, you need to read the gospel of Luke again.  In Luke’s gospel, people cannot help but burst out into song.  (The Nativity as told by Luke is a veritable musical.)  The parables of Jesus that Luke alone records (i.e. the Prodigal Son is the most celebrated) cannot help but speak of the Kingdom of God being like the party that the father gives when the ne’er-do-well youngest son slinks back home after blowing his inheritance. 

For Luke, the heavens and the earth shimmer with stories of God’s abundant love, and Jesus eats heartily alongside the people that the religion and politics of the day had written off as expendable or without redemption. Nothing will stop the praise of God and the Kingdom that Jesus sees well on its way.  Even the inanimate stones will join in God’s praise if we would somehow fall silent or forget.

There is surely a cross looming large as the gospel draws to a close.  There will be great loss ahead, for this story is part of the world’s story where brokenness and tragedy are to be found.  Yet in this story, cross-shaped as it is, we shall find a joy that breaks forth, beckoning all to join and sing of the King who comes in all humility, with all justice and peace for which this world has been yearning. 

Preaching Back Home (Luke 4:14-21)

      The first sermon:  every preacher has a story about the first time standing in the pulpit, trying to keep it together.  One minister suggested the pulpit for a first time preacher ought to have a glass of water, a decent reading light to see your notes, and most important, an oxygen mask.  First time sermons can be a bit painful to deliver (and sometimes to hear), but folks know that you need to support the first-timer, smile a bit while wondering if the sermon, a valiant attempt surely, ever will come to an end.  One venerable preacher was told of another church hearing a young seminary student giving a first sermon.  He asked, “So, were there any casualties?”

      The passage from Luke is called often the first “sermon” of Jesus.  Jesus is back in the town that raised him.  Indeed, in the Greek text, Luke describes Nazareth as the place that nourished him.  Here Jesus came into his own, growing up in the midst of the people, and now they are eager to welcome him into this new calling.  As he enters the synagogue, he is welcomed as a teacher respected enough to be invited to read and interpret sacred text in the midst of the assembly. Perhaps one can imagine the assembly filled with persons beaming with pride.  This is a great day, welcoming one of our own!

Jesus reads the text and then gives what is the briefest of sermons. The response moves from silence, to puzzlement, to grumbling, to rage. For readers familiar with the gospels, the way the story ends is well known.  Those who nourished him and raised him up will try to toss him off a cliff.   (Come to think of it, my first sermon didn’t go so bad after all….)

      The crux of this story revolves around the ways one responds to Jesus’ teaching.  Jesus reads the text from Isaiah and claims the prophet’s word has been fulfilled.  The comment is made, “Is this not the son of Joseph?”

      Sometimes, going home is the hardest journey one makes.  Sometimes you feel like persons see you still as that young child, chasing after butterflies in the backyard or buzzing by on a bike on a hot summer day.  People can treat you like you’re forever the kid, the daughter or son of the folks at the end of the street, failing to recognize you or give you credit for being who you are today.  Going home sometimes feels great.  Other times, you wonder why you put yourself through it all, feeling treated as the juvenile version of yourself at best, and at worst, realizing the “you” who you have become might as well be invisible.

      The Harvard chaplain Peter Gomes recounts an experience when serving as a resident scholar at Emmanuel College in Cambridge, England.  He found the faculty reserved at first, however, he began to enjoy collegial friendship, though he notes he was “the only person of color on the premises”.  At the end of the term, he remembers one of the college staff saying, “Well, Gomes, considering your background you’ve done well here.”  Gomes notes, “Never have grace and malice been more subtly mixed and administered as they were then” (A Scandalous Gospel, p. 39).  Years later, Gomes claims empathy with Jesus when the crowd mutters, “Is this not Joseph’s son?” (i.e. the subtext of “who do you think you are?”)

      When Jesus came to speak to the hometown crowd, I would argue that he gave his teaching not seeking to cause controversy.  Admittedly, this can happen. Sometimes people show back up in town with a chip on the shoulder, ready to set those folks straight.  Garrison Keillor recounts in his novel Lake Wobegon Days of a longtime town resident nailing 95 theses to the door of the Lutheran Church.  This list included just about every aggravation he had with his fellow churchgoers and town in general.  He did not get them affixed to the church door that night, as the church was hosting the Luther League’s Halloween pizza party, and he didn’t want to be caught with list and hammer in hand.  Instead, he waited, and sent it in for the local paper to publish.  Thankfully the local editor always found some other story to cover in the newspaper…. (Cf. Keillor, p. 251ff.) 

Three of the four gospels tell variants of this story of Jesus before the Nazareth assembly.  Luke places this story up front in his gospel.  The “first sermon” is part of the introduction to Jesus and his ministry, a foretaste of what will be unfolding in the rest of the story.   Reading Luke, I suggest this passage needs to be bookmarked, to refer back as you read of Jesus’ parables, ministry, miracles, and engagements with disciples and opponents alike. If you want to understand Luke’s gospel, this text is a good touchstone to learn how to “read” Luke and understand the Jesus he proclaims. In preaching Isaiah, Jesus establishes himself in the tradition of what has gone before him especially the prophetic tradition’s affirmation God will not forget the marginalized or those who are otherwise written off.    

To side with the poor, the captive, the blind and the oppressed will not win you the victory parade through the streets of Jerusalem or Rome.  He gets into the gritty part of human existence, dealing with the hard questions of people getting exploited and those enduring hardship.  Most important, he stands upon the traditions of the sacred text, which call the faithful to look out for the most vulnerable. The gospel Jesus proclaims is one of inclusive hope.  His gospel goes against the grain of the worldview of the villagers, the powerful within the religious establishment, and the prevailing ethos of Rome.  His gospel fits within the ancient witness of the prophets before him, and like the prophets, Jesus is learning he is not welcome among his own people.  The violence of the crowd demonstrates the costliness that can come with such effort. 

The controversy revolves around Jesus’ commentary after his first remarks.  Not only does he claim his ministry will be to those otherwise forgotten, he cites scriptural narrative where even the Gentiles will be included.  Even the complete outsider shall be part of “the fulfillment” Jesus claims to have brought about. It becomes an unsettling word to consider. The question of “who’s in” and “who’s out” challenges us to be clear about our beliefs and practices.  When we say of our ministry that “all are welcome”, do we live it out?  These are questions people of faith do well to answer, though admittedly, such self-examination can go neglected or discouraged.

            A few months ago, the town of Americus, Georgia, held a ceremony celebrating local persons who made a difference in their town.  Of interest was a very posthumous recognition for a man who died in 1969.  The Baptist leader Clarence Jordan was remembered for his civil rights leadership by the town leaders, an odd turn of events, considering town officials back in Clarence’s day tried to talk him into leaving town.  They didn’t want his controversial beliefs in integration and civil rights disturbing the peace.  Forty years later, the same town that rejected Clarence Jordan gave thanks for his work.  It is a remarkable testament how times change and the determination and clarity of vision it takes to be a prophet in your own hometown.

“Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

Reading Luke’s story of the “first sermon”, the faithful reader is challenged to ponder what effect Jesus would have if he were the guest preacher in your own congregation.  Would he be thanked at the door or tossed out of it?  Jesus presents an ambitious vision of the gospel, the same gospel we are called to carry out.  To care for those who are vulnerable, to engage in efforts to meet basic human needs, these are signs of the gospel coming to life.

A couple of weeks ago, I was at the end of a very long day.  I had been behind the computer screen working on administrative matters for so long, I lost track of time.  I looked outside and thought it was looking fairly overcast.  Actually, it was nighttime.  I got up from my desk to head for home.  (The dog doesn’t walk herself. She does, however, take me for walks.) 

By this time of day, the free clinic had set up its waiting room space, which crowded with patients, mostly young adults hoping to see a doctor.  Just around the corner, in the fellowship hall, the church choir was in the midst of rehearsal.

As I walked through the hallway and into the fellowship, moving from the murmur of patients shooting the breeze to pass the time to the choir working on the Sunday morning anthem, I felt a bit of joy rise up above the fatigue of wading through paperwork. Some days, it seems a bit up in the air, this effort to be a missional church engaged in the community while keeping up with all of the necessary elements of congregational life. Moments like these help me make sense of “the big picture” of ministry here at First Baptist. 

As the choir sang, the patients waited for a nurse to say “Next!” I could swear I heard another voice in the mix. 

“Today the scripture has been fulfilled in your hearing.”

The Potential in a Child (Luke 2:41-52)

      During the holiday season, perhaps you had a family gathering and saw some members of your extended family tree you haven’t seen in a spell.  You look at that teenager moping around text messaging incessantly on her cell phone, and you catch yourself remembering a Christmas not that so long ago when she was barely able to walk.  Then you look over at the girl’s mother and think, “Oh dear, I remember her when she was barely able to walk….”

      Kids grow up.  We joke a bit about it.  “Oughta put a brick on his head,” we say of a child as he starts going through clothes and shoes at seemingly overnight pace.  In some households, you find curious scratches on the doorpost of a kitchen door, marking the growth of each child.  Or somewhere in the attic or a storage closet, a “baby book” and every single school yearbook is kept safe.  Or with today’s kids, parents hope the computer hard drive crash didn’t wipe out the pictures of Junior’s third birthday party. 

      We love keeping track of the kids and marveling at their achievements, great and small.  I’m sure you have started thinking a bit about your own ways of keeping the kids.  I’m curious to hear a quick memory or two from the crowd.  What have you done to keep track of your kids’ growth over the years?                 [Comments from the congregation.]

      The gospel story today might seem a bit of a surprise.  We just finished Advent and Christmas Eve, and here we are just two days later, and Jesus himself has grown up while we weren’t looking!  We put him in the manger the other night, and we sang songs to him.  And now he has grown up on us!  Heavens!

      The lectionary reading from Luke today moves us away from Bethlehem, and we hear of the only gospel account of Jesus as a child.  And what pray tell is the young Jesus up to?    As far as his family is concerned: mischief!

      Raised an observant Jew, Jesus is on the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem.  The family has caravanned their way to the holy city, made their religious observances, enjoyed their time, and then they started for home.  In the hubbub of an entire clan of people going out, it is highly likely that Mary and Joseph just kept thinking, “Oh, he’s back there playing with friends”.  When enough time passed and still no child to be seen, that is when Joseph and Mary realized he was not with them.

      Have you noticed how children can disappear?  Nowadays, parents have a variety of ways to keep track of their kids, including those leashes that you strap to the kid’s back.  I saw a child so tethered to a parent in New York City a few weeks back.  I kept marveling the family was able to walk through the busy streets and the kid didn’t “clothesline” another pedestrian.

      Of course, parents struggle with keeping track of the kids.  I remember the time I discovered elevators.  Being a farm family, we rarely traveled that far, so being in a store with an elevator was quite the experience. As a five year old, I was fascinated by these doors that would open and close, and what child does not automatically reach up and hit every single button?

      My fascination grew to the point that as soon as my mother and grandmother were distracted, I wandered off to the elevator door.  I got on, and the elevator doors closed. 

      I enjoyed riding it for a few minutes, as the doors opened and closed.  Then I realized I forgot which floor my family was on.  I started asking adults to help me find my family.  One adult asked me, “Did you get on at housewares?”
            “I don’t know,” I said.  “What’s a houseware?”

      Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the Temple, where he is engaging the wise religious leaders. The momentary parental anxiety is met with an interesting response.  “Why were you searching for me?  Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  (I tried that line on my parents.  It didn’t work….).

      Here, we get a glimpse of Christian theology.  Christianity confesses Jesus as “fully human/fully divine”.  Jesus is in the Temple, even at an early age, engaging the Temple elders in conversation, speaking with an authority far beyond his years.  Can we also read this text with a bit of wonder at Jesus, the one who grew up just like us?   The authority, the power, and the divinity is in tandem with birth, growing up, and becoming an adult.  Jesus did not exempt himself from life, showing up as the babe in Bethlehem and enduring the passage of years.  The one confessed as “very God of Very God” is made known in the gawkiness of humanity.

      Jesus offers himself in the fullness of human experience, as one who struggled to walk those first steps, who fussed a bit when told to go to bed.  He cried and laughed.  Jesus lived the mundane realities of human existence.  Luke alone records a story of Jesus’ younger years, and arguably, he tells the story to fit into the themes of his gospel.  Hearing this story on the Sunday just after Christmas, the text serves as a friendly word to enjoy the season upon us and avoid the mistake of thinking of Jesus only in the contexts of manger and cross.  There is a long journey Jesus takes, the one called “being human”.  This text illumines the fullness of Jesus as Son of God as well as the firstborn of Mary.

      I wonder if we could think a bit about the influence of Mary and Joseph on this young child.  Jesus was raised up in the midst of a household, woven into the fabric of a family’s life.  The gospels do not dwell extensively on Jesus’ upbringing (Mary appears in the gospels later in Jesus’ life and Joseph’s story begins and ends with the nativity narratives), yet Jesus surely must have benefitted from the raising up he received in that little off-the-beaten path town of Nazareth, son of a carpenter. In short, Christ was indeed “Immanuel”, “God with us”. 

            In celebrating Christmas, can we also marvel at the part “family” plays in our faith?  We are blessed with upwards of a dozen children active in our congregation.  I take delight in them.  Ivy will run into my office and jump up into my arms. I believe Tea finds me a bit magical.  Calvin once told his grandmother (“ammu”), “Hey, it’s the church man!” when I came to their home.  Each child we have in our midst is a blessing and part of what makes us “First Baptist”.

            I believe each member of the congregation should have a vested interest in each and every child in our midst. We may not have the dozens of children common in church decades ago, but we have “our dozen”, a group of delightful kids who could benefit from the larger family of faith.  May I challenge us to make this coming year a time for growing our ministry with children?  It would be delightful to welcome more children, and we will work on that.  I would likewise challenge us to be working just as diligently on the nurturing of the children as well. 

            Would you consider this task as holy work?  Jesus grew up in the midst of a web of family around him.  Could we see ourselves as that holy caravan on pilgrimage?  Could we see ourselves as the wise old elders welcoming the child into our midst and marveling at their contributions to the ongoing dialogue?

            I may not have children of my own, but when I come to this place, I have a dozen kids that need my love, care, mentoring, and presence.  I would suggest this way of thinking is limited only to clergy or religious education instructors.  Each one of us needs to be “family” to these kids.  It is indeed holy work.  Will you join in this effort?