January 3, 2010
Grace Church
Rev. Robert E. Hensley

Jeremiah 31:7-14; Psalm 84; Ephesians 1:3-6, 15-19a; Luke 2:41-52

      Let us pray.  “God of steadfast love and faithfulness, we your people come to kneel at the altar. Some of us come offering praise, for your power has delivered us from a time of trial. Some of us come with desperate pleas for your strength and protection as we face life’s dark valleys. But in all things, both good and bad, we come with thanksgiving, for all you have done and all you will do for us. We know that your steadfast love will surround us and deliver us for your purpose. Amen.  (Based on Pslam 138)  

      Did any of you happen to go down to breakfast on New Year’s Day and announce: "I'm so hungry, I feel as if I haven't eaten since last year!"? 

      It's fun to play with all the brand-new possibilities that are open to you on January 1. Go jogging this morning, and you've exercised every day this year. Get through lunch without eating potato chips or a candy bar, and this year reflects a whole new healthy and perfectly-kept diet regime. So far this year, perhaps you have never cussed at someone, never yelled at the kids, never forgotten to floss, never thrown your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor and never forgotten to read the Bible in the morning!  Congratulations! 

      On January 1 of a new year your entire life can be transformed. For one day at least, all of your good intentions can be jump-started, and all of your bad habits can be unplugged. At least for a few hours (or minutes?), the year is a perfect reflection of the very best that you can be. 

      But January 1 is followed inevitably by January 2 and January 3. Someday soon you will potentially opt for staying in a cozy bed a few more minutes rather than plunging out into the cold on that jog. Pretty soon candy wrappers will start appearing in your desk drawer again. By the 4th or 5th, you will surely have been aggravated enough at a bad driver or a dropped glass or a stubbed toe to have let loose a blue streak of bad words or unsanctified thoughts. By the 7th, your socks are back on the bathroom floor and your dental floss is gathering dust. By the 10th you fall asleep before you can even get the Bible open.  

      For all but a few of us, most New Year's resolutions get packed away with the last of the Christmas decorations. By Epiphany on January 6 our behavior and the whole New Year are just as tarnished as they were before January 1.

      The problem with most of our resolutions is that they are too safe, too sensible and too self-centered.  We resolve to make tiny cosmetic changes in our lifestyles – but refuse to consider restructuring our lives and changing the paradigms by which we live. Luke's single story about the boy Jesus offers us an example of what it would mean if we were to transform our lives by making the ultimate resolution, the mother of all New Year's resolutions, the resolution that ends all resolutions – to declare that from this day forward we will be "about [our] Father's business." 

      Joseph and Mary, their friends, neighbors and relatives, all made the required pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover feast. But as soon as the allotted time for the holiday was over, they hit the road – eager to beat the post-holiday traffic and anxious to get back to all the chores and responsibilities that filled their lives. Joseph, a craftsman working with stone and wood, undoubtedly had projects awaiting his attention. Mary would have had the hundreds of time-consuming tasks it took to keep her family fed and clothed. Like most of us at the end of an extended vacation, they were probably looking forward to getting back to the comfortable familiarity of their own hearth and home. 

      But the young Jesus has other ideas and refuses to let his relationship with God be regulated according to some prearranged, culturally imposed schedule. Instead of going along with the return-to-business-as-usual attitude, Jesus answered the most important call of all – to be about his Father's business. 

      What do you suppose that it would it mean if we were to act in a similar fashion? What would it mean to live, not according to human expectations or cultural patterns, but according to what God required of us? What does it mean to be about God's business, rather than other people's business, or even more importantly, to my way of thinking, other people's definition of God's business? Jesus discovered at this early age that answering God's expectations can get you in trouble – even with your own family. In fact, focusing on God's business may put an unexpected crimp in the family business. "Business-as-usual" may not be the way God does business. And for the most part, the secular world as well as the church find that unnerving. 

      The ultimate New Year's resolution does not challenge us to cut fat grams, or quit smoking or get to aerobics class twice a week. The ultimate resolution a Christian can make is to live in the light of divine intentions, not human inventions. The New Year's resolution to end all resolutions is to live under the umbrella of God's expectations and to make it my business and your business to be a part of God's business. 

      But of course this just begs a bigger question: What is God's business?  

      Well, I would venture to say that God's business is transformation. An electrical transformer takes high voltage and transforms it into energy that we can use in our everyday lives. Without a transformer, there could be no light in the darkness, no safety in the storm. At Bethlehem, God came to us and gave us Jesus the Christ, who transforms in his life the love and power of God into the impulses of grace and salvation that the world so desperately needs. 

      So what does the Christian who resolves to be a part of God's transforming work on January 1 do on Monday, January 2? There are two essential requirements: First, we must go deeply into the Word. Second, we must go widely into the world. 

      First, the Word. When the young Jesus felt called to live beyond business-as-usual and answered the call of God's business, he first went to the temple. In other words, he steeped himself in the meanings and messages of God's Word. Knowing what God intends for men and women, learning what God has already said and done and promised for this world, is a necessary first step in the transformative process. 

      Second, the World. Being about God's business doesn't mean we do nothing but sit in the temple – in the church – all day long and discuss theology. Remember that while Jesus started out in the temple, he then obediently followed Joseph and Mary back out into the world. 

      We cannot be a part of transforming the world unless we stand in its midst. That is the trouble with our traditional New Year's resolutions – they never step outside the confines of our own self-centered existence.  

      What if instead of resolving to lose 10 pounds this year, you resolved to eat according to a diet that could sustain the whole world? 

      What if instead of resolving to get more exercise this year, you resolved to exercise some spiritual muscles and organized a prayer-chain across your community? 

      What if instead of resolving to spend less time in front of the TV and more time reading some good books, you resolved to teach those struggling with illiteracy to read those books to you? 

      What if instead of resolving to spend more "quality time" with your family, you resolved to take your whole family on a mission project for a week, or a month or even longer? 

      Your life, your commitment to the ultimate resolution, can help the love of God through Christ to transform the world. Today is the first Sunday of a new year. A fresh New Year lies unblemished before us. What is it that you resolve to do from this day forward and for the rest of your life?  Amen.

 

Luke 2:41-52 – Some background information 

Despite all the miraculous pronouncements and portents surrounding Jesus' birth, Luke never allows his narrative to soar too far away from the essential Jewish roots of Jesus' heritage. Luke is never too shy to claim a miracle. But he also refuses to allow the occasion of miracles to be a shortcut around law and tradition. Thus it is that Luke's birth narrative celebrates and glorifies the extraordinary events that accompanied Jesus' nativity -- the special prophecies and messengers and guests -- only quickly to bring back into focus the traditional aspects of Jesus' arrival. After the angelic messengers and shepherd admirers depart, Jesus was, like any other Jewish infant, circumcised on his eighth day. Additionally, also according to honored Jewish tradition, Jesus is presented in the temple for the dedication service of a firstborn son, even as Mary herself goes through the standard purification rituals that all Jewish women had to experience. 

In similar fashion, the events recorded in this week's gospel text celebrate many of the traditional aspects of Jesus' childhood, while also realizing that in this ordinary Jewish boy something unique and wonderful was present. The scene opens by affirming the obedience to the law that Joseph and Mary maintained in their home. As ordained by Mosaic Law, they did make the required trek to Jerusalem each year on the festival of Passover. Whether Jesus always accompanied his parents on this journey is not clear, but verse 42 implies that when he was 12 years old, Jesus also went to Jerusalem for the Passover celebration. 

Jewish tradition commonly recognized 12 as the beginning of the end of childhood. At 12, a boy could be held responsible for keeping binding vows. Parental punishments increased in severity, and at 12, fasting for an entire day became an expectation. In short, all those special allowances granted very young children were gradually being revoked and replaced by greater expectations and responsibilities. Not yet a full adult under the law, at 12, Jesus was also no longer a child. 

What parent hasn't experienced "that sinking feeling" that Mary and Joseph felt -- the horror of realizing that your child is one place when in your mind he or she is somewhere altogether different? The scene Luke draws suggests that Joseph and Mary had made their pilgrimage with quite a substantial crowd of friends, neighbors and relatives. As the caravan turned towards Nazareth, it undoubtedly took on its traditional form -- men traveling together at the head, animals and possessions in the center, women bringing up the rear. The children would normally be assigned a beast or a bundle to superintend, but their movement within the group was much more fluid. Little wonder that Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus to be somewhere in the midst of the caravan's chaos and did not miss his presence until everyone stopped and settled in for the night. Immediately Joseph and Mary retraced their steps and trekked back to Jerusalem.  

For some unstated reason, they apparently proceeded directly to the temple site -- perhaps already suspecting they would find Jesus there. We should not read this scene as anything other than ordinary. Jesus has mistakenly been portrayed as some first century "whiz kid" who had set himself up as a teacher to the teachers in the temple. Public teaching in the temple was customary at this time, especially during the special occasions of feasts and holy days. The traditional Jewish method of learning involved a question and answer dialogue between the teacher and the student -- a technique that appreciates all teachers as students and all students as teachers.  

For Jesus to be asking and answering questions is not unduly odd or out of the ordinary. The supposed centrality of Jesus' position in the temple should also be viewed contextually. This was now the third day since Joseph and Mary had lost track of Jesus. As a good narrator, Luke reports how the scene at the temple appears to the two desperate parents. From Joseph and Mary's perspective, whether all eyes were turned upon the young Jesus or not is irrelevant. To panicky parents, Jesus' presence fills the field of Mary and Joseph's vision. 

Luke continues to show remarkable restraint in describing Jesus' experience in the temple. The writer simply records that those listening to the exchanges being bantered back and forth were "amazed at his understanding and his answers" (v.47). Jesus' precocity could hardly be interpreted here as "miraculous" or "divinely inspired." There was certainly no dearth of miraculous tales about the child Jesus that Luke could have chosen to weave into his narrative. Instead of Gnostic gossip about the boy Jesus' bringing dried, salted fish back to life or zapping nasty neighbors who had abused his earthly family, Luke chooses only this straightforward, unspectacular glimpse into Jesus' childhood. He is a bright, articulate student -- but then Luke has already confided to the reader that as Jesus grew up he was "filled with wisdom" (v.40). Luke is not concerned with chalking up some genius childhood points to further credentialize Jesus' adult ministry. Instead, Luke appears to be firmly establishing the moment when Jesus himself claimed his dedication to the Lord's service as had been promised during the ceremony recorded in verses 22-24. 

But that long-ago event is far from Joseph's and Mary's minds as they confront Jesus in the temple. Mary's words to her son are taken from fixed accusatory formulas used in the ancient Near East. Her demand, "Why have you treated us like this?" insinuates that an intentional act of deception or betrayal may have motivated Jesus' action. The "great anxiety" these parents confess to feeling in the NRSV (to "cause pain" or "anguish and grief" are more literal and visceral translations) does not do justice to the gut-wrenching accusation of this almost hysterical mother. 

The sharp accusatory tone Mary assumes toward Jesus evokes a strong response from him as well. Instead of a simple "Why?", Jesus' answer ,"Why is that?", articulates his genuine mystification and amazement at her display of desperate relief and bottled-up anger. Jesus' response also reveals that he has now taken on for himself the responsibility of living up to his infant-dedication to God. "I must be in my Father's house" demonstrates that at the age of twelve, Jesus clearly felt the call of his heavenly Father. The somewhat less accurate rendition of this response -- that Jesus must be "engaged in my Father's business" -- helps to broaden our concept of God's "house." Jesus is not claiming that he is only to be in the temple from now on. The most literal rendition of Jesus' words leads to the far more nebulous pronouncement that he must be concerned with "the things of my Father." 

Despite his newly-claimed identity as one who must be about God's business, Jesus accepts his role as a good, obedient Jewish son. Although Joseph and Mary apparently do not celebrate this moment in Jesus' life -- they don't understand what he has said -- he nonetheless obediently follows them back to Nazareth. As he waits for true adulthood, Luke's Jesus continues to be the dutiful Jewish son of Joseph and Mary -- beyond reproach in either his actions or his attitudes.