Who is This Child?

today's sermon at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN

Text: Luke 2:41-52

I always have such a difficult time with moving on so quickly after Christmas. I remember when we lived in California—when the kids were little—taking a walk around the neighborhood the day after Christmas and it just made me sick to see Christmas trees thrown in the gutter for trash pickup on the afternoon of December 26!

It’s only 2 days after Christmas and we have the story of Jesus in the temple at the age of 12! Wait! He was just BORN a little over 48 hours ago! Don’t we need more time to think about the wonderful story of the manger birth, the singing angels and the shepherds trooping off to Bethlehem to see this wondrous thing that has happened?

Of course there aren’t many stories about Jesus growing up. There are a few that didn’t make it into the bible that tell of him performing child-like miracles as a toddler and young child, but the first and only biblical account is an important story when Jesus was 12 years old.

I have a set of books that provide cultural settings for all the gospel readings in the lectionary. The author provides helpful background information for our understanding of what is happening here between Jesus and his parents. As in many other cultures and times, a son in the Middle East at the time of Jesus (especially the oldest son) usually had a strong emotional bond with his mother and a marked sense of his own importance, to the point of being "spoiled" and of concluding that "his every word to women is like law." Having been raised in the tender protection of the women in his family, it's understandable that he eventually felt the need to join the men in the community; at this point, the young boy was "unceremoniously shoved out of the comfort of the women's world into the harsh and hierarchical men's world."[1] It seems that Jesus was probably in the midst of this kind of transition, in the gray area between one time in his life and another when he went with his family to Jerusalem.

It was in that gray area that Mary and Joseph both lost sight of him. Parents today can hardly imagine how anyone could travel any distance without realizing their son was missing, but scholars tell us they were probably traveling with a large group, including numerous kids, and everyone probably thought Jesus was with another part of the group.

When they finally found him, he was sitting squarely in the middle of a gathering of adult men, not, in some unnatural way, giving them all the answers to their questions, but engaging them "man-to-man," in an adult conversation about the questions pressing on them all. And the scholars of the Sanhedrin, like all those who heard the report of the shepherds, like Mary and Joseph hearing the prayer of Simeon on a previous visit to the temple, were "amazed" at what they heard.

According to another scholar, "It was not unusual in ancient times to tell stories of renowned people who at the age of twelve or so gave an indication of their coming stature." But this is no miracle story about Jesus, as much as we may have been taught otherwise: in fact, this one glimpse of Jesus as a youth left later sources dissatisfied, and that’s why they created stories of Jesus as a child performing the kind of miracles one might expect from a six-year-old.[2]

Instead of "miracle" stories which read more like stunts than the great wonders recounted in the familiar Gospels, this week we hear a quietly impressive story about Jesus the youth: "The text does not assume that Jesus is engaged in a contest and besting his opponents as though this were some first-century version of Jeopardy. [Instead], Jesus is engaged in a lively and respectful conversation and demonstrating a wisdom well beyond his years."[3]

Jesus seems to think that his parents should have known he’d be in the temple, but perhaps they weren’t really ready for that yet. So the story tells us he went home with them to Nazareth and implies that he was a “normal” teenager, aside from the fact that he “increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”[4]

But getting back to the Christmas story… it has to be one of the most amazing stories ever because it has inspired thousands of other Christmas stories, songs and movies. These stories are not just about the birth of Jesus… many of them are about the seeming “magic” of Christmas, or the change of heart that sometimes happens to people during the Christmas season.

Several years ago I read David Baldacci’s wonderful book, Christmas Train, the story of a journalist taking the train from New York to Los Angeles at Christmas time because he’s been banned from flying. The things that happen and the people he meets on the extended train ride awaken in him a long-lost Christmas spirit.

This week I read a book by Garrison Keillor called The Christmas Blizzard. It seemed really appropriate! It’s about a depressed wealthy man who wants his wife to go with him to spend Christmas at their Hawaii home instead of in their Chicago high-rise. His wife isn’t feeling well and as he’s debating whether to go on ahead or not he gets a call to go to his hometown in North Dakota to visit an uncle who may be dying.

He gets stranded there by a blizzard and has some very odd experiences—some may be hallucinations—in some ways almost a modern-day Scrooge-like story. But in the end he has a Christmas awakening that turns him around and sets him on a better and happier path in life.

Although the biblical Christmas story isn’t magic, it is wonderful because it reminds us how much God loves each and every one of us! God’s gift of love isn’t just for the wealthy or the powerful, it’s for the poor and the unnoticed and the “dregs” of society like shepherds who live in the fields with their sheep. It’s for you and me and for the average and the smart and the successful and the homeless and for every classification that human beings can come up with to put on one another. It doesn’t matter to God who we are or what we do, God loves us and gives the gift of love to everyone.

And that love is like a light shining in the darkness—it grows and brightens every corner. And as the Christ Child grows into the boy in the temple and the man who made a difference to everyone he met, that light shines brighter and brighter, bringing hope to all the people and joy to the world. AMEN.

Endnotes

[1] John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus Year C.

[2] Paul J. Achtemeier, Feasting on the Word

[3] William Herzig, New Proclamation 2006.

[4] Luke 2:52, NRSV.

Make Ready

my sermon from Sunday, Dec. 6, 2009 at Faith United Church, UCC, International Falls, MN.

Text: Luke 3:1-6

Why is Luke every historian’s favorite gospel? Why do we treat Luke’s account of Jesus’ birth as the “real one”—the one it wouldn’t be Christmas without hearing?

Probably because Luke adds all those lovely historical details that make the story come alive. Luke’s wealth of names, places, dates and events animates the ancient world, making it seem less like “scripture” and more like story time.

But what if we put today’s gospel text into a bit more current historical context—bringing Luke’s setting a little closer to home?

How about this?

In the 1st year of the administration of President Barack Obama, when Tim Pawlenty was governor of the state of Minnesota, Shawn Mason was mayor of International Falls and Doug Grindall was County Engineer in Koochiching County; during the time when Karen Smith Sellers was Conference Minister in the Minnesota Conference of the United Church of Christ, the Word of the Lord came to … YOU! And YOU went out into your neighborhood and appeared before your city council, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins.

Suddenly the beginnings of the Christmas story may seem a bit too real! It’s so much more comfortable and cozy to read Luke’s version, to feel the life pulsing through ancient characters, to sit here safely in the 21st century and know that this happened, like Star Wars, “long ago and far away.”

We don’t want the Christmas story TOO up close and personal! Today’s text is perhaps most disturbing when we move it into our own place and time. Suddenly, it begins to dawn on us how daring and bold John the Baptist’s message really was!

Of course, we can comfort ourselves with the thought that the first-century world to which the Baptist was called to preach was a very different place from the postmodern world of today. But was it really all that different? Luke describes it for us in traditional political terms all of us can recognize. First-century civilization was organized into political entities. There were local boards, city officials, regional directors, territorial governors and heads of state. Existing organizationally separate from this political structure was a religious structure. The religious leaders thought they wielded considerable authority. Political leaders tended to leave them alone until they threatened to interfere in something deemed important to the state. The two groups John the Baptist singles out, and the most reviled by the general population as needing behavior modification, are those the people in the street thought were always in their pockets—the “tax collectors”—and on their backs—the “soldiers.” (Luke 3:12-14)

Okay, so maybe the first century WASN’T all that different from the world we inhabit at the end of the first decade in the 21st century. But surely we can reassure ourselves that a raspy, rugged John the Baptist-type figure was needed in those days because it was a pre-Christian era, as yet untouched and unmoved by the Good News of the gospel. That culture was organized around the worship of pagan gods or simply designed around the political and economic powers of those who were rich and powerful, those who lived by different rules and standards than common people, those with money and status who became, themselves, popular cult figures.

So, now we can see what a difference there is between the 1st and 21st centuries, right?

Uhh… Well… maybe not!

The truth is, like John the Baptist, we are all now living in a pre-Christian era.

Yup, pre-Christian, not post-Christian. This is not a post-Christian era because “post” implies that Christianity was something we had so absorbed that it became part and parcel of popular culture. Can we honestly look at ourselves and our culture and claim it to be post-Christian? Has it ever really been a Christian culture in the first place?

The truth is, like John the Baptist, we are still living in a pre-Christian age. Humanity as a whole has yet to be touched, transformed and fine-tuned into communities that are the body of Christ. Facing this truth sets us free to do John the Baptist ministries. John’s message is still the precise one this culture needs to hear proclaimed: “Prepare the way of the Lord.”

Are you ready to stand out in a crowd like John did?

Are you ready to ruffle some feathers like he did?

Are you ready to speak out against customs and conventions that defy God’s ways, as John the Baptist did?

Are you as ready to look odd or foolish for the sake of the gospel as John the Baptist was willing to do?

Are you just as ready to live life “in God’s way” as John was?

If you are, then it’s time to make ready for the coming of Christ and the love he brings into the world—to all people, no matter what religion they may be!

Of course, things have changed since John the Baptist urged the crowds who followed him to participate in a “baptism of repentance.” Because Jesus entered into human life as a newborn baby, lived a human life as a simple man, and died on the cross that we all might live, we can now offer a message of salvation accomplished, offer a baptism of new life, and offer hope and love that transcends all human experience.

That’s why Advent is a season of preparation—a time to make ready. Christmas is not just the celebration of the birth of a baby; it is the beginning of a nuclear chain of events that transforms human existence. Christmas is not just recognizing God’s gift of the Incarnation—it is also our acknowledgment of what this Incarnation now means for EVERYONE. [1]

God is love, and Jesus came to teach humanity all about that love.

How are you sharing that love?

As a congregation we have begun a new ministry that I think prepares the way of the Lord. Our SOS [2] community shelter has its first guests this week while it’s been our turn to be the host site. And I found it exciting and rewarding. What a wonderful thing to open our doors to people who need a place to stay, and to provide a room with some semblance of homeliness because of the generous donations of church and community members! I find myself looking forward to seeing our guests one again tonight before they move on to the next location tomorrow afternoon.

Volunteers provide food, friendly faces, a warm welcome and conversation. And just as we were told (by the people from Bemidji) at the very first planning meeting, I find myself realizing that I am receiving at least as much as I am giving—if not more—simply by being involved in this project.

Advent is the time to make ready…to prepare the way of the Lord and to prepare a way FOR the Lord. We decorate our homes and churches, we give gifts, we celebrate love and joy, we recognize God’s amazing gifts to us and respond by loving and living as if we really are the Body of Christ. That’s how we make ready. That’s how we bring Christ into all the world—by living love! Amen.

Endnotes:

[1] Leonard I. Sweet, Homiletics, October-December, 1997, vol. 9, number 4, pp.59-61.

[2] Servants of Shelter