Rev. Jenny Shultz
United Church of Chapel Hill
I am sure that many of you here have seen the movie “Home Alone?” Where McCaully Culkin plays a pre-teen boy whose family decides to travel to Paris for the Christmas holiday, and accidentally leaves him at home alone. In the movie, it’s not just the boy and his parents, but they are traveling to Paris with lots of extended family: aunts, uncles, cousins, brothers, sisters, and parents… We can probably all recollect, at one time or another, having been part of a large family gathering; maybe not our own families, but a spouse's, or a friends’ family. Basically, the more people involved, the more moving parts, the more noise, the more needs, the more wants, the more confusion, clutter and chaos. It’s great to spend time with family over the holidays, but let’s face it it’s not entirely unrealistic that a parent might leave the house without one of her rugrats in tow. This has yet to happen to me, and I pray it never does, but I have empathy for those parents for which this is close to home! I will never forget two different times when I was left behind by my parents’ well, my dad. My father took my older brother and I on a fishing trip when we were 6 & 8 years old.. I fished for about 30 minutes and then got bored of staring at the orange ball floating atop the water, so I wanted to play. He told us to stay close to a large particular rock while he fished alongside the river bank...but then I lost sight of him, and it grew began to grow dark, and it got darker and darker…he says that he forgot about us- clearly, and while the sun was setting he realized he’d need to get back to the truck and suddenly remembered he wasn’t alone! The second time I was left at church after an evening meal, again, by my father and it was only when he made it home to my house that my mother asked of my whereabouts that he realized, once again, that he hadn’t gone to church alone?!!
So, when reading Luke’s story today, I felt like Jesus and I had something in common! I believe we find Jesus, a pre-pubescent teenage boy, in the temple not just because it was the time to assert his independence and reveal his exceptional relationship to God, but because he got lost in the shuffle between Mary, Joseph and the extended family caravan on the way back home from Jerusalem. Perhaps he had an almost 3 year-old cousin, who goes by the name Sage, who was driving him absolutely mad, so he lingered behind a while hoping to escape a day’s journey of 1000 questions (Jesus, where are you going? What are you doing? Are you gonna play with me? What’s that? Are you gonna play with me? What’s in my diaper? Are we there yet? Are you gonna play with me?” or it’s entirely possible that over the years (having been at the Passover festival each year since his birth) he had met a young man or woman that caught his eye with whom he longed to spend more time with, and so wanted to hang out a little longer. Or maybe it’s as simple as Jesus being the precocious child that he was went quickly to the place he knew he would be we received and could show off a little. When he got lost, wandered off, got left behind, however we interpret it, when he realized that the family mob had left without him he went to a familiar place. Luke tells us two times in verses 41 & 42 that this was a faithful family, who attended the festival every year, that this was their usual practice. Jesus probably didn’t feel lost or abandoned, but felt at home in the temple, so regardless of the reason for skipping out on the family reunion it makes sense that he would end up there.
So, why include this periscope at all, then? Between the time of his circumcision and his baptism this is basically the only story that exists in the gospels about Jesus. Number one, I think it knits the story together well as it brings flesh and bone to the divine, a human agenda alongside a Messianic call, and reveals the everyday messy life of this holy family. Secondly, Luke’s brilliant literary technique brings credibility to this holy story drawing us into two worlds, of classic themes from ancient literature as well as ordinary familial motifs that establish both Jesus and his family as having similarities to other ancient heroes such as Cyrus, the King of Persia; Pythagoras, the famed Greek philosopher; and even young Moses of the Hebrew scriptures. Luke further aligns this new testament story with an historically rich Jewish one with the story of Hannah and Samuel, a barren mother calling out to God, and a devoted child living in the temple as an act of redemptive grace and allegiance to God. So in true Lukan fashion, he’s painted a broad stroke picture for us, establishing Jesus’s credibility, as well as guiding our understanding of this particular text in the entirety of the narrative.
There are numerous interpretations of this text and many of them focus on the “coming of age” theme, where Jesus is beginning to separate himself from his earthly parents to begin to testify to the divine wisdom that he has been given as God’s son. This interpretation quickly lends itself to a focus on the parent/child relationship and the anxiety that typically accompanies this developmental transition period for all involved.
I think there is great merit in highlighting such implications as we are never fully developed, we never reach a maturation level that frees us from the complexities of renegotiation: in relationships, in physical and mental capacity, in the emotional journey that begins as we travel the birth canal entering, into new life where all is celebrated and made complete, one year after another, until that completeness becomes feeble- and feared… and the wisdom and integrity that accompanies age is slowly siphoned off, and replaced, again, with what is new, young and celebrated.
When I first read Luke’s words in preparation for today I heard an audible plea, a groaning…from parents far and wide, and maybe even a distant cry from the divine mother herself. But This text is not merely about Jesus, about the significance of his notoriety as a well-advanced Jewish student among his peers and temple leaders, about his very typical relationship to his parents, or even more simply about a foreshadowing of the pascal events to come. This text, though I think we can still find meaning in each of these interpretations, is not really about Jesus at all. It has more to do with the societal structures in place that either feed or inhibit our ability to recognize the divine in our midst. The awe and wonder which accompanies the mystery of this small boy’s understanding, the divine renegotiation that takes place within each of us as we learn to cradle the babe born in the manger both within ourselves and within that which is beyond our understanding; stretching our capacities for compassion, forgiveness, and completeness.
This pre-teen boy, left “home alone” per se is the story of our lifetimes, and ironically the story of our beloved hand-crafted, pew-painted, freedom born white Church… we will not only be caught leaving the house without our Jesus’s with us, we will leave him time and time again, in the manger, in the bedroom, in the closet, in our lockers, at the border, in picture books and red-lined lettered stories, in nicely decorated sanctuaries and cemeteries, We will even leave Jesus in the mirror . We will leave our white Jesus hanging upon our white walls, we will even leave our Jesus in the mail, on paper, in plastic, on a mug, at the altar, cast in our own likeness. Perhaps up to this point we have managed not to leave our children on large rocks near a river while casting our nets wide, but without a doubt we could be here all night narrating one another’s failed attempts at keeping Jesus in sight, of speaking his language of love and grace, of expecting the power of the incarnational experience to transform our lives. About Luke’s story of the young and confident Jesus, Theologian Wes Avram says “[At 12 years old] Jesus is not only listening and learning; he is engaging and responding in rabbinic fashion. He is Teacher. Then when he is recognized again by John and by the Spirit, he is Son of God. He is first recognized as the one who fulfills the promise as Messiah. He is then seen as the one who interprets the promise as Rabbi. He is then anointed as the one who enacts the promise as God’s son.
So while acknowledging the power of the incarnation to transform and transfigure, having just celebrated this holy infestation of the soul on Christmas Day Luke positions this story as a follow-up to the completeness found in the birth of Christ as a reminder that we, in relationships, to Jesus, to God, to one another, are in constant need of renegotiation.
Whether you carry Jesus with you wherever you go and understand him to be teacher, Son of God and Rabbi - or whether the white walled white faced Jesus has left you wondering whether you want anything to do with this young hero of old, do not leave the baby in the manger this Christmas season. Crowd around, and stay awhile… take the ornaments off the tree, put the lights back in their boxes, and the wrapping paper back in the attic, carry the tree to the curb and then sit awhile at the manger. The shepherds have sheep to tend to, Mary and Joseph obviously have other plans… so stay and sit a while...just you and Jesus. I think you’ll find that even though we as Americans fear failure and disappointment almost as much as anything that the risk associated with picking the baby up is incomparable to that of walking away from the manger- remaining in the pew, a passive onlooker, a bystander, afraid of renegotiating the terms of relationship, of life’s biggest and hardest questions, of faith.
There has never been a time where the call to renegotiate the terms of our covenant has been more clear. We, the church, must recognize the drunkenness of the past, the sins of the white-walled Jesus days and look more closely at our likeness, pick-up the Jesus whose Jewish heritage incorporated most of us sitting here today into the story of an Abrahamic God, whose Mosaic law led to the deliverance of a people who found themselves “home alone”, wandering a desert in search of their “home”. This Jesus, my friends, this Jesus is never home alone when we allow the Christ child to be birthed within us, to be home for the spirit of the other, to live as a lifeline for those seeking refuge and solace, to provide space for those who have no home to share in the mystery of the manger not only during this holy season of Christmas, but each night as the light of Christ continues to guide us on our way.
May we continue to make room for Jesus in our lives, and live more fully into our call as co-creators and avenues of peace and hope for an orphaned world. Amen.
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