What Child Is This?

Scripture:  I Samuel 2:18-21, 26; Colossians 3:12-17; Luke 2:41-52

One of my earliest childhood memories is of a time when I wandered off from Sunday school, at the age of 4 or 5.    I don’t remember the specifics of why I wandered off from Sunday school, but I suppose I wasn’t very impressed with the lesson that day.  I do remember that one of the teachers kept bringing in weird stories from Weekly World News, and I guess on that day I didn’t want to hear about Jesus and the Bat Boy or Jesus and the Alien or Jesus and Elvis.  So anyway, I was bored, and I decided to go home.  Of course, there was the minor matter of exactly where “home” was, and how to get there from church.  But I set out on my quest.  I don’t know exactly how far I got, but my vague memory was that I may have made it 6 or 8  blocks – in what direction, I have no idea – before my parents found me.  So let that be a lesson to our Sunday school teachers – don’t bring in articles from Weekly World News for the Sunday school lesson.  And, of course, you now know that even future pastors aren’t always crazy about spending time in church.

 

In today’s readings, we’re given, side by side, portraits of two boys who, unlike me, didn’t want to escape from the Lord’s presence, but wanted to live in the presence of the Lord - the prophet Samuel as a boy, as well as a glimpse of the boy Jesus at age 12.  Samuel, of course, was the much-prayed-for son of Hannah, who had been barren for so long.  As Hannah had promised, Samuel was presented to the Lord as a Nazarite, to minister to the Lord.  Today’s reading tells us that while Hannah and her husband Elkanah visited the boy Samuel each year, it was the priest of Shiloh, Eli, who was the formative influence in the life of the young Samuel – at least until he heard the voice of the Lord calling to him. 

 

 In today’s reading from Luke’s Gospel, we catch a glimpse of Jesus at the age of 12, becoming separated from his parents.  The lectionary series of Gospel readings this year does a weird time travel thing – we read about Jesus birth on Christmas Eve, today we read about Jesus at age 12, and next week on Epiphany Sunday, celebrating the visit of the wise men, Jesus will be about age 2.  Traditionally, the Sunday after Christmas is supposed to focus on the Holy Family, Jesus, Mary, and Joseph.  As it happens, we see Jesus beginning to show a bit of independence from his earthly parents.  And, unlike my childhood wandering away from church, Jesus got separated from his parents, not because he wanted to leave the Temple, but because he wanted to stay.

 

The parents among us can take comfort from today’s reading, in that even the Holy Family had its moments of tension.  We’re given to understand that Mary and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem  with their extended family in a large group, and so when Jesus stayed behind, it was easy for him to get lost in the shuffle.   His parents found him in the Temple in conversation with the teachers.  Mary tells Jesus that she and his father had been searching high and low for him.  And the boy Jesus replied, “Did you not know I must be in my Father’s house.”  And so we have two contrasting mentions of Jesus’ father, with Mary referring to Joseph and Jesus referring to God.  As far as Mary and Joseph were concerned, the house of Jesus’ father was in Nazareth, where they lived.  But Jesus saw the Jerusalem temple as his father’s house.  Luke tells the story in such a way that his account of the boy Jesus conversing with the teachers in the Temple would have reminded his readers of the boy Samuel ministering under the guidance of the priest Eli.  There is an earlier parallel between Jesus and Samuel in Luke’s account – Mary’s magnificat is very similar to the Song of Hannah. And both stories end with very similar words to the effect that “The boy Samuel or the boy Jesus grew in stature and in favor with God and the people.”

 

This story is really the only glimpse we get in the Bible of Jesus as a child.  There were some non-canonical “gospels” circulated among the early church that didn’t make it into the Bible, such as the infancy Gospel of Thomas, that portrayed the boy Jesus as having miraculous powers but a small boy’s immature outlook and peevish temper – so in these “gospels” the boy Jesus made clay birds and then breathed life into them so that they flew away, and struck dead a neighbor boy with whom he had a quarrel, and then brought him back to life.  But today’s Gospel reading has no miracles – after all, Jesus isn’t teaching the elders in the temple, just learning from them.  But the account does give us a sense that Jesus had some early insight that God had a special purpose for him.      

 

These stories remind us that even for Samuel, and even for Jesus, faith did not come fully formed from the moment of their birth.  We’re given to understand that both the boy Samuel and the boy Jesus had unusual insight for their age, but that insight needed guidance, as Samuel was guided by Eli, even with all his limitations, and Jesus sought guidance from the teachers in the Temple.  And their faith did develop beyond those early influences – not long after the events in today’s reading, Samuel receives an ominous word from the Lord with regard to Eli and his family, and as an adult, in his earthly ministry, Jesus would be quite critical of the leadership of the Temple. 

 

Our congregation, Emanuel Church, has been blessed to have children among us in recent years, after several years when we rarely saw children among us.  Just as Samuel needed the guidance of Eli, even with all his limitations, these children need our guidance, even with our limitations.     And age 12 is an important age – as I understand it, Jewish girls are bat mitvahed at age 12, and boys at age 13, and thus are held accountable for their own actions, and counted as full members of the worshipping community.  It’s also about the time when, in many churches, young people start the confirmation classes that mark their journey to full “adult” membership in the church.   It’s been a while since we’ve had a confirmation class, but our children are growing older, and I live in hope that in a few years, Emanuel Church will once again hold confirmation classes.  But even though we don’t have a confirmation class right now, we do have a Sunday school, and all of us, even those who are not Sunday school teachers, have a role in making this church a safe and nurturing environment for learning.

 

And growing and maturing in the faith is not supposed to stop age age 12 or 13.  It’s for all of us – children, teens, and adults of all ages.  We all, of whatever age, are called on by God to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature.  For many Christians, though, confirmation class is the last time they attend church regularly or receive any regular religious instruction.  Many teens depart from the church right after confirmation, and don’t return until there’s a wedding or a baptism, if at all.  And so, for many who don’t regularly participate in the life of the faith community and don’t engage in spiritual study and reflection on a regular basis, their faith development gets stuck wherever it was at age 12 or 13, while the rest of their lives are moving forward into adult maturity.  And when these people undergo difficult life transitions, faith that is at a teenage level of development isn’t enough to carry us through adult crises. 

I’m grateful that members of our congregation are willing to help our children grow in the faith.  But, ideally, none of us is ever done learning or growing in the faith, this side of the grave.  For our adults, we offer a time of study after worship on most Sundays.  And if anyone wants to schedule a Bible study or prayer gathering at some time other than Sunday morning, I’m certainly willing to listen.  And we can learn and grow just through our encounters with each other on Sundays from week to week.

 

St. Paul wrote these words to the church at Corinth, who were struggling to come to spiritual maturity:  “When I was a child, I spoke like a child; I thought like a child; I reasoned like a child; but when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.  For now we see in a mirror, dimly, but then we will see face to face.   Now I know only in part; then I will know fully, even as I have been fully known.”  Until that day when we all see face to face and know fully, may we at Emanuel Church continue to encourage each other to grow in wisdom and spiritual stature – and may we be a place where visitors can be supported in their journey of faith.  Amen.