WISDOM - A REFLECTION

 This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on January 24, 2021.

Genesis 3:1-13 

Now the serpent was more crafty than any of the wild animals the Lord God had made. He said to the woman, “Did God really say, ‘You must not eat from any tree in the garden’?”  The woman said to the serpent, “We may eat fruit from the trees in the garden, but God did say, ‘You must not eat fruit from the tree that is in the middle of the garden, and you must not touch it, or you will die.’”

“You will not certainly die,” the serpent said to the woman.  “For God knows that when you eat from it your eyes will be opened, and you will be like God, knowing good and evil.”

When the woman saw that the fruit of the tree was good for food and pleasing to the eye, and also desirable for gaining wisdom, she took some and ate it. She also gave some to her husband, who was with her, and he ate it. Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made coverings for themselves.

Then the man and his wife heard the sound of the Lord God as he was walking in the garden in the cool of the day, and they hid from the Lord God among the trees of the garden. But the Lord God called to the man, “Where are you?”

He answered, “I heard you in the garden, and I was afraid because I was naked; so I hid.”

And he said, “Who told you that you were naked? Have you eaten from the tree that I commanded you not to eat from?”

The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.” The man said, “The woman you put here with me—she gave me some fruit from the tree, and I ate it.”

Then the Lord God said to the woman, “What is this you have done?”

The woman said, “The serpent deceived me, and I ate.”

1 Corinthians 8:1-3

Now concerning food sacrificed to idols: we know that “all of us possess knowledge.” Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up. Anyone who claims to know something does not yet have the necessary knowledge; but anyone who loves God is known by him.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

       Eternal wisdom make us wise.

  Amen.

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We all have verses from scripture that stick with us. At the end of today’s psalm is one that has stuck with me probably from the first time I read it,  “The fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom… .”  My initial reaction to it was to literally take it to mean “be afraid of God;” to watch out because God is unpredictable.  I later learned that fear in this sense was used to mean that we should show reverence where God is concerned.  Nevertheless, when I read this psalm again I took a second look at fear in the sense that I first understood it.

The path to wisdom as traced throughout our scriptures begins with being afraid. When Adam and Eve sought to be Godlike by knowing good and evil, their first experience with such knowledge was an immediate sense of being in danger.  Suddenly Adam and Eve felt themselves divorced from the intimate sameness they had possessed.  For the first time in their lives, they experienced discomfort with each other as they no longer felt sure of who they were or whose they were. They no longer felt safe with God.  They tried hiding the difference they saw in themselves because it was the cause of their painful separation. They knew if God was the one who made them, God could destroy them on the spot. When God came looking for them, they hid and when found, God questioned them. Being afraid, Adam and Eve wisely told the truth.

Things didn’t turn out as Adam and Eve originally thought they would and things didn’t turn out as they feared they would. They didn’t become Godlike and they didn’t die on the spot, but they knew the reality of death as they experienced the death of relationships between themselves and between God. It is through their story and the story of others that we understand the difficulties we face that comes with trying to go it alone.

The emergence of wisdom can be traced through the stories of individuals like Noah and Abraham and his descendants, the Israelites where hiding from God is converted to seeking God and carrying out the will of God in their lives.  Along with their stories, a profound collection of wisdom literature emerged; such as, the Psalms, Proverbs, Ecclesiastes, the Song of Solomon, and other writings that proclaimed the handiwork of God in all things.  Wisdom literature moved our primal fear of God as being afraid to meaning the deep respect and reverence due God.   

Fear as deep respect and reverence for the divine leads to humility and submitting to the fact that there is no such thing as a self-made person.  As our first canticle reminds us, “The Lord himself is God; he himself has made us and we are his.” Wisdom relinquishes the desire to become something one is not, to become a god unto oneself.

Wisdom is like a door that leads to a deeper understanding of who we are and whose we are. 

Wisdom opens us to the will of God and the willingness to participate in God’s will.  

Wisdom guides us in the right use of the knowledge we acquire.  

Wisdom is not the shrewdness or slyness employed by those who consider power, fame, and wealth the measure of one’s worth.  Wisdom sees the value of every living creature and the sanctity of all creation. Such wisdom is found in Jesus’ teachings; that holy wisdom which turns worldly knowledge and worldly values upside down. It is the type of wisdom where the first becomes the last and the last first, where the poor, the mournful, and the persecuted are more blessed than the rich, the self-satisfied, and the powerful. 

The wisdom of Jesus is symbolized in his cross; that paradox where being disgraced led to grace, where the fear and hatred that tired to eradicate Jesus’ life and message was eradicated by his forgiving love, and where the curse of death led to the promise of life,.   

While the worldly continue to mock holy wisdom as weakness, it is the wise who, throughout our tumultuous history, have time and time again picked us up from the wreckage of battling over our perceived differences. The truly wise know the limitations of the knowledge we acquire.  As much as we know or think we know, we will never know enough to go it alone.  We will always need God’s loving guidance.   

If fear is the beginning of wisdom, love is its end.  As Paul wrote to the Corinthians, “Knowledge puffs up, but love builds up.” Ultimately, wisdom is rooted in the love of God and in loving that which God loves.     Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

JONAH - A REFLECTION

This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on January 24, 2021.

Jonah 3:1-5, 10

The word of the Lord came to Jonah a second time, saying, “Get up, go to Nineveh, that great city, and proclaim to it the message that I tell you.” So Jonah set out and went to Nineveh, according to the word of the Lord. Now Nineveh was an exceedingly large city, a three days' walk across. Jonah began to go into the city, going a day's walk. And he cried out, “Forty days more, and Nineveh shall be overthrown!” And the people of Nineveh believed God; they proclaimed a fast, and everyone, great and small, put on sackcloth.

When God saw what they did, how they turned from their evil ways, God changed his mind about the calamity that he had said he would bring upon them; and he did not do it.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

Eternal power, be our support. Amen.

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The story of “Jonah and the whale” is one of the most well-known stories in the Bible, and it is that particular part of Jonah’s story which sticks with most people but there is far more to his story than being swallowed by a big fish and the city of Nineveh being spared. The main focus of this story is Jonah himself, an individual called by God to be God’s prophet.

The story of Jonah begins with Jonah trying to duck out of his obligation to deliver a devastating message from God to the people of Nineveh by taking a cruise to Tarshish in order to get as far away from Nineveh as he could. While out to sea, the ship he is on encounters a storm and begins to sink. Jonah confesses the ship is going to sink because he is trying to evade his calling. He tells the captain and crew to throw him overboard in order to save themselves. They try to

row to shore to avoid that option but their attempt proves futile. Then, repenting for any wrongdoing they might commit, they throw Jonah overboard. Immediately, Jonah finds himself swallowed by a big fish in whose belly he remains for three days and nights. During that time, Jonah becomes repentant and is belched up on a beach pointed in the direction of Nineveh, which is where our first lesson picks up the story.

The story continues after the people of Nineveh repent. Jonah goes a distance from the city in a huff to sulk because he is angry that they were saved and builds a makeshift shelter to stay out of the sun. God come to his assistance by having a bush to grow to provide extra shade. Jonah is pleased with the bush but doesn’t take care of it. Overnight the plant dies and Jonah starts to complain about the plant dying. At that point, God questions him with the following:

But God said to Jonah, “Is it right for you to be angry about the bush?” And he said, “Yes, angry enough to die.” Then the Lord said, “You are concerned about the bush, for which you did not labor and which you did not grow; it came into being in a night and perished in a night. And should I not be concerned about Nineveh, that great city, in which there are more than a hundred and twenty thousand persons who do not know their right hand from their left, and also many animals?” [Jonah 4:9-11]

With that question the story of Jonah ends.

Jonah’s story is a parabolic story that presents a dramatic scenario in order to teach us something about ourselves and our God. It brings to mind Jesus’ use of parables like the “Good Samaritan” and the “Prodigal Son,” which he used to show us ourselves and our capacity to act like the characters in those stories. The story of Jonah personifies the stubbornness of people who know better but refuse to do better simply because of their personal fear and hatred of someone or something.

Jonah’s dramatic scenario is centered around God sending him to Nineveh, the capital of the Assyrian Empire to warn its people of its imminent destruction. The Assyrian Empire was noted for its excessive cruelty to those it defeated. Assyria was the empire that destroyed the Kingdom of Israel and carted its populace into captivity. They were very close to destroying Jerusalem but were prevented by a plague that wiped out the army [See 2 Kings 19]. They were ultimately defeated by the Babylonians.

For Jews returning from the Babylonian exile, the memories of the Assyrians were far more dreadful than the Babylonians who eventually destroyed both the Temple and Jerusalem and took them into captivity. The likelihood of God sending a prophet to a people considered more heinous than the Babylonians in order to tell them God was going to destroy them, yet alone save them, had to strike those who heard this story as an utterly ridiculous notion as it did for Jonah.

Ironically, Jonah’s fear was centered in knowing God to be merciful. His fear was that the people of Nineveh would receive the message he was sent to give, repent, and God would spare them, which is exactly what happened. Jonah was so entrenched in his hatred of the people of Nineveh that he preferred death rather than be involved in their salvation.

That sounds really messed up, doesn’t it?

Jesus used this story to demonstrate how messed up things were during his time. In today’s lesson from Luke, the main religious/political groups of Jesus’ day were the Sadducees and the Pharisees. For the most part, they were ideologically opposed to one another but who, on rare occasion, might come together when there was someone like a would-be messiah who threatened their status quo. Like Jonah, they knew what God required (to be just, merciful, and walk humbly with God) but they were so entrenched in their differing views on Judaism and maintaining a hold on their lifestyles that they had little time for anything else.

Jesus was not about to play their give-us-a-heavenly-sign game. Instead, Jesus gave them a down to earth sign. Paraphrasing Jesus’ response in our second lesson, Jesus was telling them, “You already know the signs. You already know what God wants, but if you want a sign. I’ll give you one, the story of Jonah. Do you see yourselves and what you are doing in Jonah’s story? Do you see yourselves running from the what the Lord requires in order to stay entrenched in the misery of your religious and political haggling?

Jonah’s story is a story for every age, including our own. The story of Jonah serves to remind us that, as children of God, we cannot escape God. God goes where we go and God’s will is done even if we don’t like it.

We all have Jonah moments in our lives. We all have moments when we know better but fail to do better.

Like Jonah, we can try and escape our callings as God’s children. We can try to do our own thing and have it our way.

Like Jonah, we can ride the troubled seas of our making only to find ourselves swallowed up in the misery we created.

Like Jonah, we can became entrenched in our idealism, our fear of those we perceive to be our enemies, and our hatred of those we find disagreeable.

We need to consider who are the Assyrians of our day and in our lives? Who do we fear so much that we would not wish them to exist? Is it a nation? Is it some ideological group? Is it a person?

If there is an answer to any of these question, consider placing those answers in the context of God’s closing question to Jonah in order to understand the direction God is pointing us in.

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God of mercy, have mercy on us, break the bonds of our fear and hatred, strengthen our faith so that we may live in peace with one another, and instill hope within our hearts that we may live according to your will through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

TRUTH - A REFLECTION

 This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on January 17, 2021.

1 Samuel 3:1-20

Now the boy Samuel was ministering to the Lord under Eli. The word of the Lord was rare in those days; visions were not widespread.

At that time Eli, whose eyesight had begun to grow dim so that he could not see, was lying down in his room; the lamp of God had not yet gone out, and Samuel was lying down in the temple of the Lord, where the ark of God was. Then the Lord called, “Samuel! Samuel!” and he said, “Here I am!” and ran to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call; lie down again.” So he went and lay down. The Lord called again, “Samuel!” Samuel got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” But he said, “I did not call, my son; lie down again.” Now Samuel did not yet know the Lord, and the word of the Lord had not yet been revealed to him. The Lord called Samuel again, a third time. And he got up and went to Eli, and said, “Here I am, for you called me.” Then Eli perceived that the Lord was calling the boy. Therefore Eli said to Samuel, “Go, lie down; and if he calls you, you shall say, ‘Speak, Lord, for your servant is listening.’” So Samuel went and lay down in his place.

Now the Lord came and stood there, calling as before, “Samuel! Samuel!” And Samuel said, “Speak, for your servant is listening.” Then the Lord said to Samuel, “See, I am about to do something in Israel that will make both ears of anyone who hears of it tingle. On that day I will fulfill against Eli all that I have spoken concerning his house, from beginning to end. For I have told him that I am about to punish his house forever, for the iniquity that he knew, because his sons were blaspheming God, and he did not restrain them. Therefore I swear to the house of Eli that the iniquity of Eli’s house shall not be expiated by sacrifice or offering forever.”

Samuel lay there until morning; then he opened the doors of the house of the Lord. Samuel was afraid to tell the vision to Eli. But Eli called Samuel and said, “Samuel, my son.” He said, “Here I am.” Eli said, “What was it that he told you? Do not hide it from me. May God do so to you and more also, if you hide anything from me of all that he told you.” So Samuel told him everything and hid nothing from him. Then he said, “It is the Lord; let him do what seems good to him.”

As Samuel grew up, the Lord was with him and let none of his words fall to the ground. And all Israel from Dan to Beer-sheba knew that Samuel was a trustworthy prophet of the Lord.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

Eternal hope lift up our eyes.

Amen.

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The story of Samuel and Eli is a story that sheds light on what it means to fulfill one’s calling and answer to one’s calling faithfully.  Their story has particular relevance given the recent event in which our nation’s capital was stormed by a mob attempting to forcefully overturn our nation’s certified presidential election.  That this event occurred on the Feast of Epiphany, a day of revelation, should not be lost on Christians because, surely, it was a day that shed light on the darkness infecting our nation.

In today’s lesson, we read the story of Samuel as a young boy being called by God to be a prophet.  It is important to understand that Samuel’s was not an easy calling.  He immediately was tasked with delivering a devastating message to Eli, his mentor and protector, who was a father figure to him. Naturally, Samuel did not want to tell Eli what God had instructed him to say, but Eli had the integrity and the obligation of his calling to hear what God had to say, and so Samuel delivered a hard and devastating message to Eli and Eli accepted it.

The trustworthiness exhibited by Samuel to his calling has been in short supply by those occupying positions of leadership in our nation; in particular, those who have chosen to stoke fear, to promulgate rumors as facts, and incite acts of violence as a means to obtain and hold onto power. 

By God’s grace and with a determination not to be cowered by mob violence, the members of Congress completed their constitutional duties they were called to do on that day, and we witnessed a moment of integrity when Senator Romney rose to encourage the senate and, in particular, members of his own party to accept the truth and proclaim it to their constituents as the only way forward to heal the divide that exists in our nation.  

As South Dakotans, we can be grateful for having a congressional delegation who  demonstrated their faith in our constitutional processes and remained loyal to their oaths of office and their calling to lead with honor. 

Our democratic republic is dependent on fact-based truth-telling, not rumor-spreading; on trust in the principles of our constitutional government, not on conspiracy theories designed to cast doubt on its efficacy. 

As Senator Romney exhorted us on the night of Epiphany, the only way forward and the only way to restore the integrity of our nation is to accept the truth, to speak the truth, and find the courage and have the determination to do so with honest humility.  It is not just our elected officials who must find such courage and determination, it is incumbent on all of us to do the same.

As followers of Christ, we are called to be healers and peacemakers.  Let us take up the task of healing our nation by being honest and truthful with ourselves and our neighbors.  Let us listen to each other and talk through our differences based on fact rather than speculative rumor; person to person with civility and keeping in mind that we are children of God talking to children of God. 

If our nation is to fulfill its calling and mission to establish a more perfect union, we need to follow the examples of Samuel and Eli. 

If there is to be hope for our nation (and there is hope), we must listen to the pain of our nation and address it honestly and with sincerity.

If we are to engage hope, we must trade our weapons that can destroy us for the tools that can heal and build us up and the world we live in.  

If we are to foster hope, we must change the rhetoric of revolt to the language of reassurance, reconciliation, and recommitment to our nation’s calling and to our calling as follower of Christ Jesus.

Let us pray:

 

Lord, make me an instrument of your peace:

where there is hatred, let me sow love;

where there is injury, pardon;

where there is doubt, faith;

where there is despair, hope;

where there is darkness, light;

where there is sadness, joy. 

O divine Master, grant that I may not so much seek

to be consoled as to console,

to be understood as to understand,

to be loved as to love.

For it is in giving that we receive, 

it is in pardoning that we are pardoned, 

and it is in dying that we are born to eternal life.

Amen.   

(A prayer of St. Francis)

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE BAPTISM OF JESUS - A REFLECTION

This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on January 10, 2021.

Mark 1:4--13

John the baptizer appeared in the wilderness, proclaiming a baptism of repentance for the forgiveness of sins. And people from the whole Judean countryside and all the people of Jerusalem were going out to him, and were baptized by him in the river Jordan, confessing their sins. Now John was clothed with camel’s hair, with a leather belt around his waist, and he ate locusts and wild honey. He proclaimed, “The one who is more powerful than I is coming after me; I am not worthy to stoop down and untie the thong of his sandals. I have baptized you with water; but he will baptize you with the Holy Spirit.”

In those days Jesus came from Nazareth of Galilee and was baptized by John in the Jordan. And just as he was coming up out of the water, he saw the heavens torn apart and the Spirit descending like a dove on him. And a voice came from heaven, “You are my Son, the Beloved; with you I am well pleased.”

And the Spirit immediately drove him out into the wilderness. He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and the angels waited on him.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

Eternal light shine in our hearts.

Amen.

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The Gospel of Mark is perhaps my favorite gospel account that introduces us to Jesus.   Apart from being from Nazareth of Galilee, Mark offers us no other information about Jesus’ past.  Jesus simply shows up to be baptized in the Jordan river by John the Baptizer.  In fact, we have more information about who John the Baptizer is than we do of Jesus at the start of Mark’s gospel.  

This lack of information in Mark’s Gospel strikes me as being in line with God’s signature involvement in human affairs; the out-of-the-blue selection of someone no one would suspect.  God chose a lot of average (and some unlikely) Joes and Marys throughout scripture to carry out God’s will.  

For example, consider Abraham and Sarah who, in their seventies, were called to begin a journey to a promised land that their yet unborn offspring would inherit or a deceptive Jacob who steals his elder brother’s birthright or an arrogant dreamer, Joseph, who antagonizes his brothers with his prophetic dreams.  Consider God’s choice of  a murderer like Moses who is on the run for killing an Egyptian only to be called to return to Egypt and lead his people to the Promise Land or a young shepherd like David, thought to be a non-contender for the for role of Israel’s king by his father Jesse.  

In keeping with God’s signature move in human affairs, Mark places Jesus on the world stage simply as a person who shows up to be one of many who decide to turn things around in their lives by being baptized by John. This sparsity of information surrounding Jesus at the beginning of Mark’s gospel also serves as an invitation to get to know Jesus better as we follow his story through this gospel. 

In Mark’s gospel, a new day dawned when this previously unknown Jesus left the waters of John’s baptism and found his life turned upside down by the immense revelation of being identified as God’s beloved child and experiencing the pleasure of our Father descend on him as a renewing spirit.  

When Jesus emerged from the waters of John’s baptism, he found himself in new spiritual landscape.   Being driven by that new spirit into the wilderness (scripture’s universal metaphor for the world of our making) Jesus found himself equipped to deal with his own demons and, having dealt with them, found himself to be equipped to deal with ours.

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There is a new day recognized in every baptism that takes place.  

Like Jesus, baptism is our entry into our life-calling to be a child of God, no matter where we come from, what our circumstances are, or where this life’s journey leads.  

Like Jesus, we are sent into the wilderness of this world where we encounter our demons and those of others; those dark moments and places where we are tempted and feel threatened.  

Like Jesus, we find strength through the Word of God instilled in us; that Word which sheds light on that darkness, which such darkness cannot overcome.

Like Jesus, we will find ourselves attended by angels, often unaware. 

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Heavenly Father, send your life-giving and life-sustaining light into our hearts that we may be guided by truth in the darkness of these times, and grant your holy angels to attend and protect  us and our nation and the people of all the nations from forces of darkness that would tempt and threaten to disturb and disrupt, through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm

THE MISADVENTURES OF A 12-YEAR OLD JESUS - A REFLECTION

 This Reflection is taken from the Sunday Devotion written by this blogger for Christ Episcopal Church, Yankton, SD on January 3, 2021.

Luke 2:41-52

The parents of Jesus went to Jerusalem every year for the festival of the Passover. And when he was twelve years old, they went up as usual for the festival. When the festival was ended and they started to return, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem, but his parents did not know it. Assuming that he was in the group of travelers, they went a day's journey. Then they started to look for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they returned to Jerusalem to search for him. After three days they found him in the temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And all who heard him were amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him they were astonished; and his mother said to him, "Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety." He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" But they did not understand what he said to them. Then he went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them. His mother treasured all these things in her heart.  And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

New Revised Standard Version Bible, copyright 1989 by the Division of Christian Education of the National Council of the Church of Christ in the USA, and used by permission.

REFLECTION

+ Give us strength to set our hearts on the pilgrims’ way. Amen +

Apart from the stories about Jesus’ birth in the Gospels of Matthew and Luke, there is nothing said about Jesus’ growing up years, except this one story of a 12-year old Jesus going with Mary and Joseph to the Temple to celebrate the passover.  The question that comes to mind is why Luke bothered to include it.  Apart from it being a quaint story of a young adolescent boy staying behind in the Temple to talk to scholars and showing his parents some attitude, it doesn’t seem to offer us anything that we don’t already know about Jesus…  or does it? 

A little history that is not obvious to us in Luke’s telling of this story might be helpful in understanding Luke’s reason for placing it in his Gospel.  The Jewish Talmud records a tradition that during the Second Temple period (the time in which this story took place) it was customary for families to take their first born sons to the Temple, particularly on the Feast of Passover, to do their first fast recalling the 10th plague of the Exodus story in which the firstborn of the Egyptians were slain.  After such a fast, the firstborn son would be taken to the Temple to be blessed by the sages. [See Exodus 13].  

This is most likely why Luke mentions Mary and Joseph taking Jesus to Jerusalem as a 12-year old.  We can deduce from that encounter with such scholars, the inquisitive and bright boy that Jesus was had a lot of questions and was learning quite a bit from them. In fact, his claim at having to be in his Father’s house likely proceeded from those conversations; hence, his rather smart aleck question addressed to Mary and Jospeh, “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”  

Obviously Mary and Joseph did not know. 

After loosing track of Jesus a days journey away from Jerusalem, they came racing back to the still over-crowded Jerusalem and having to take three days to finally find him in the Temple conversing with these scholars, they likely would not have been in a mood to be questioned about what they did or did not know.  One can only imagine the immense relief they had when they found him and the frustration they soon felt after finding Jesus calmly conversing with a group of scholars who were taken by this bright 12-year old’s answers, but who also might have had it in mind to question Jesus where his parents were.  

We get an understated sense of  Mary’s and Joseph’s frustration with Jesus in Mary’s question, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety.”  As if to add fuel to the fire, Jesus had the effrontery to basically say, “Why did you bother coming to find me?  You should have been able to figure it out where I’d be.” 

The simple fact is that Jesus knew all of that and didn’t bother telling Mary and Joseph of his intent to stay behind, and then acted annoyed at being confronted. Like any headstrong 12-year old who was determined to have his own way, Jesus didn’t want to risk the answer he likely knew would be “No.”  Luke saying that Mary and Joseph didn’t understand what Jesus was saying is a mild way of saying they had enough of Jesus’ sass.  Perhaps the most revealing comment in this story is “Then he (Jesus) went down with them and came to Nazareth, and was obedient to them.”     

Why Luke added this story may have been to illustrate that after all the hoopla of Jesus’s birth as the Son of god, Jesus is truly one of us and what is true about us is true about Jesus also.  Jesus had to go through all the “growing up” things we did.  He made mistakes, and he sinned.  

In this story we see Jesus committing both a sin of omission in not telling his parents what he was planning on doing and then committing the sin by following through with his plan.  To top it all off, he tries to place the blame for Mary’s and Joseph’s anxiety on them for not having figured out what he was up to.  While we might tend to overlook these obvious transgressions because we know Jesus is God’s Son, the simple fact is Jesus did things he shouldn’t have done and, like us, he had to learn from them, which he did.  The last line of today’s lesson tells us that Jesus just didn’t hit the earth running with the fullness of God’s knowledge and wisdom when it says, “Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.”

Amidst the chaos of that moment, Mary grasped the truth unfolding in her son.  I can imagine that for Mary every such moment of watching Jesus grow into the son God shaped in her womb took her back to the day Gabriel greeted her with the news that she would be Jesus’ mother.  Any parent can relate to incidents when a child acted less than stellar.  Often such events are the ones we end up cherishing the most because they demonstrated how much that particular child needed us and reminded us how much we loved that child. 

Jesus never claimed to be a a perfect human. He was not some sort of superhuman, or some type of divine “bot” infiltrating the human network. In spite of his imperfections and perhaps because of them, Jesus grew into the forgiving perfection of our Father’s love toward all creation, a task he accomplished on the cross.  Jesus did not make this a personal pursuit. Everything Jesus did he envisioned his followers doing because just as what is true about us is true about Jesus, what is true for Jesus must be true for us.  As Jesus grew into the perfection of our Father, he encouraged us to seek such perfection, when he said in his Sermon on the Mount, “Be perfect, therefore, as your heavenly Father is perfect” [Matthew 5:48]. 

May we, like Jesus, strive to grow in the perfection of God’s love for all creation as we set our hearts on the pilgrim’s way.

  Amen.

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Until next time, stay faithful.

Norm