Preached at Westminster Presbyterian Church, Durham, NC
This morning’s Gospel reading illustrates the Christ’s dual-nature (his simultaneous fullness of humanity and fullness of divinity). Luke’s account of twelve-year-old Jesus and his nuclear family is refreshing andsomewhat comforting. The brief narrative gives us a glimpse into Mary and Joseph’s wrestling with understanding what it means to raise the Son of God.
Christ’s humanity is made evident by the account of a childhood event that’s easy to understand for anyone who has hidden in the clothing rack of a department store or for anyone who has been the adult frantically searching for the child in the midst of the hiding game. Perhaps you accidentally played this game while toting family to and from Christmas get togethers just as Joseph and Mary did while toting their family to and from the Passover festival.
The difference here is that Jesus is not playing a game in Luke’s story. No, Jesus wasn’t playing a game of hide and seek or the somewhat twisted game I played of “how long will it take for Mom to notice that I’m no longer behind her in this store?”
Jesus matter-of-factly responds to his mother, “Did you not know that I would be in my Father’s house?” This response is Jesus proclaiming his own divinity. Up to this point, readers of Luke have seen the messenger Gabriel, Jesus’s relative Elizabeth, his mother Mary, local shepherds, and elders of the temple declare the role Jesus will play in the kingdom of God. Now, twelve-year-old Jesus is naming his own identity as the Son of God.
As you heard from what Lynn read, today’s lectionary gives us not one, but two, stories of children in the temple. In our reading from the Old Testament, we see the boy Samuel being dedicated to the Lord by his parents and serving in the temple. Professor Emeritus of Old Testament at Columbia Theological Seminary, James Newsome, writes that Samuel’s narrative occurs in a time when there is “a background of pessimism generated by the lack of a royal figure in Israel’s life and by both intimidation from the outside and lawlessness within.”[1]Samuel will go on to identify and anoint David as king. And we know that the Jesus came to bring humankind closer to God; to teach us how to love one another.
In both stories, God answers the prayers of God’s people by sending her wisdom and guidance through human beings. The good news of Christmas is evident in Christ’s name, Immanuel. God with us. God is with us and Luke teaches us that, through Christ, God’s wisdom is with us. That wisdom continues to dwell among us.
There’s more to learn from this morning’s lessons than just the identity and role of Christ. I think there are clear examples being made of the temple’s teachers and of Mary. They show us how to respond to an unexpected event that reveals God’s wisdom.
But what if we don’t recognize that wisdom? What if the teachers in the temple immediately dismissed adolescent Jesus? What if they said, “Children should be seen and not heard,” and continued on their discussion of the Torah while pushing Jesus out of the circle?
Jesus was “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” This paints the ideal setting of a confirmation class. At Westminster, when a young person is in eighth grade or older, they are invited to participate in the confirmation class, which is a time of learning about the Presbyterian Church’s confessions and creeds, the stories, letters, and poetry of Scripture, and what it means to be a part of the church.
It paints the ideal setting for a children’s sermon. It is what our children go next door to the Holderness Mission Center to do. Westminster’s young people enter the Godly Play room, church school classrooms, and the youth suite for opportunities to actively listen and ask questions in a respectful and open environment.
Westminster has a commitment to this mutual style of learning. In 2016, the congregation adopted a new Welcome Statement which begins with, “Westminster Presbyterian Church welcomes all to participate fully in the life of the church.” This full participation is opening the pulpit to our youth twice a year for youth Sundays. It is ordaining people of all ages and thinking as elders and deacons. It is the intergenerational setting of all-church retreats. It is young acolytes like Graham and Ty, who usher us into and out of worship. We’ve opened up our campus to be a place when all expressions of God’s wisdom can be heard and acknowledged.
On the second day of a Hebrew exegesis class, our professor asked us to answer the question: What are your sources of wisdom? My answer was my family, music, and Twitter.
If I were being honest, I only access these sources of wisdom when they are convenient or when I know I can relate and easily agree with them. I certainly didn’t ask for advice from my parents as much as I could have when I was in high school, and I was often guilty of shutting out their input.While there is some diversity mixed into my musical preferences, my general taste is overwhelmingly folk bands from North Carolina who sing about experiences that are familiar to me. And I have a carefully curated Twitter feed of voices and news sources that I know will share wisdom that benefits me.
How might we, knowingly or unknowingly, ignore and reject wisdom in our daily lives? Who are the sources we are quick to dismiss and what can we learn from them?
Three years ago, I was working at a homeless shelter for women and children. The shelter wasn’t officially associated with a specific denomination, but the language that was used about God and God’s people was different than what I had grown up with. I was in a Christian environment but felt very much like a minority in my work space as far as expression of faith went.
I began the year of work telling myself that I could just do what was asked of me and avoid engaging too much in theological reflection with my coworkers and guests of the shelter. Despite my intention to be distant, the women around me regularly talked openly about their faith in nearly every conversation.
I arrived at work almost every day between seven and eight o’clock as the residents were waking up and beginning their days. Each day, without fail, a resident named Ava[2]would be one of the first ones to deliberately walk by my office and ask how I’m doing. While I said some variation of “I’m fine” or “Doing well, how are you, Ava?,” she would always respond with “Blessed by the grace of God to be alive for another beautiful day,” followed by an enormous, loving smile.
For the most part, I smiled politely and said, “That’s great, Ava,” but internally, I would remember the rain I stood in while waiting for my second bus of the morning and wonder how she could genuinely say that day by day.
Whenever things became overwhelming at the shelter – someone failed a drug test, someone got into a dispute, someone had a bad child protective services visit – my instinct was to step back and create a plan of action to bring the chaos level down a bit.
But each time, my plan was put on the backburner as the director of the shelter called an emergency staff meeting in her office. We would close the office door, mute the phones, and someone, never me, would volunteer to pray. We held hands and prayed for God to give patience to the staff and guidance to the residents in the midst of whatever chaos was happening. I believed in those prayers, but I was always distracted. I was busy thinking about how we could be better using that time.
It took a whole year of stepping back from my assumption that my way – my way of viewing the world, my way of working, my way of relating to God — is the best way to truly appreciate what the women around me were teaching me. Ava and my praying coworkers shared their wisdom of God’s grace and omnipotence on a daily basis.
Think about what could happen if we start to seek wisdom from unexpected places. What could happen if we continue to expand this tradition of maintaining respectful learning environments?
If we truly believe that all of humanity is created imago Dei, in God’s image and likeness, then surely every being holds bits of God’s wisdom. Just as Mary and Joseph didn’t quite understand Christ’s wisdom, I don’t think we will ever be able to truly understand all that God is. But recognizing God’s wisdom in every person around us can help us piece together who God is calling us to be.
Imagine the wisdom we could gain if we included generations outside of our own. Imagine the wisdom we could gain if we gave platforms to those who don’t have professional titles next to their names. Imagine the wisdom we could gain if we listened to those in the other party or other country, without making hasty assumptions.
In times that feel like all we can do is pray for a Samuel or Christ-figure in our lives, look around. Who is being left out of the conversation? Invite them in, gain understanding, and, as Mary does, cherish every word in your heart.
Friends, as we continue this season of Christmastide and enter into 2019, let us welcome God’s wisdom in unexpected sources. Let us form communities of mutual learning, in our church and beyond.
All glory be to the Creator, Christ, and Holy Spirit. Amen.
[1]Newsome, James D., Texts for Preaching: A Lectionary Commentary, Based on the NRSV.Louisville, KY: Westminster/John Knox Press, 67.
[2]Name changed.
Rev. Natalie Wolf 