Sunday, December 30, 2012

Lost and Found




Luke 2:41-52
Prescott Baptist Church
December 30, 2012

When I was two years old my mother got sick with tuberculosis.  My father said he could take care of my three older brothers but he needed help taking care of a baby girl. So the church women took turns caring for me for two weeks at a time. A year and a half went by while my mother was sick and recovering. During that time my mother says that I had a blue overnight case that went with me from house to house. Mrs. Nalls took me to her house. They had a nice backyard with a playhouse that their daughter, Helen, had outgrown. Mr. Nalls liked to play games with me and I thought he was handsome. Mrs. Booth took me for two week stays and I loved it there because there were three daughters in the Booth family (Yvonne, Joanne and Dian) and they had so many dolls and tea sets and tables and good toys to play with. Besides, Mrs. Booth was one of the most loving people I ever met. Mrs. Haufler took her turn at keeping me for two week intervals. The Hauflers owned and operated a big farm.  They had cows and horses. The men in the Haufler family wore cowboy hats and boots. They worked in the field growing peanuts, watermelon and cantaloupe. Mrs. Haufler took me with her when she delivered lunch and cold water to the men in the field. My mother was sick but I did not lack for love or nurture. Our faith community saw to it that I was cared for.

 Each household where I stayed was a Nazarene household, a family I was familiar with from Sunday worship, Sunday school, Monday night Bible study, Tuesday night visitation of sick and shut-ins, Wednesday night prayer meeting, and Saturday work days at the church. Fall and spring revivals. Camp meetings. We knew each other well. And while there was nothing perfect about my own family or any of the families that helped to raise me, it was a perfect example of how it takes a village to raise a child. I went from house to house but the faith tradition of each household was the same.  I was deeply steeped in the life of my church and the principles and practices of the Church of the Nazarene. I belonged and I understood that it was more than church women who claimed me. I belonged to and was claimed by a faith that would care for me always. 

The faith that claims me now is no longer limited to a particular denomination although the Nazarenes, Methodists and United Church of Christ have all contributed mightily to making me whole. I’ve also been given gifts from my relationships with American Baptists, Presbyterians, Episcopalians, Catholics and Unitarians. These days if anyone asks me what church I belong to, I have my answer ready: I belong to the Church of Jesus Loves Me This I Know. And I do know. I started knowing it back when my mother got sick with TB and I was not abandoned. I saw for myself, while I was totally dependent on others for my survival, that there were matters of faith that belonged to me. I saw that I could count on being claimed and cared for. I recognized the abundant gifts of our faith.

Being a community of faith means more than coming together in a building on Sunday morning. It involves more than administrators in nice offices in big cities, more than monthly slick magazines. It touches us more deeply than doctrines and creeds can touch us. As a community of faith we travel together. We belong together. And as people of faith we create a better future together. 

Luke wants us to know that Jesus was a true Israelite. He was steeped in the traditions of his faith community. Circumcised on the eighth day, dedicated to God at six-weeks when his mother was purified, bar mitzvah at age twelve as well as the Passover pilgrimage to the temple. It was after the seven day festival and on the return pilgrimage, when Mary and Joseph suddenly realized, after a day of traveling, that Jesus was not among the friends and family as they had thought he was. In such a caravan it was not surprising that a boy among friends and family would not be missed by his parents. He belonged to the faith community and was claimed by many mothers and fathers in the crowd. 

Hillary Clinton wrote her book, It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, in 1996. She describes her childhood as ideal but not perfect.  She was born in Chicago and spent her childhood in Park Ridge, Illinois where her father owned and operated a plant that screen-printed and sold drapery fabrics. Hillary’s father and mother dedicated their time, money and energy to their children and made sacrifices to give Hillary, Hugh and Tony the tools they would need to live a better life than the previous generation had lived. They were Methodists and Hillary writes, “The church was an important presence in our lives.” The church exposed her to a world beyond her all-white middle-class suburb. She learned that prejudice against other people was wrong in God’s eyes and God created different kinds of people on purpose, to enjoy a world with diverse gifts and beauties. 

Clinton writes about our nostalgia for the past, for the 1950’s. We look back longingly as if everything back then was ideal. But, she says, ask African American children who grew up in a segregated society, or immigrants who struggled to survive in sweat shops and tenements. Ask women whose choices were limited by the men in power. Ask those who grew up in picture perfect houses about the secrets they desperately concealed. The 1950’s were not as ideal as we wish they were. We look back with rose colored glasses and that backward longing keeps us from belonging to the possibilities and gifts of our present life and community. In fact that backward look locks us into a focus on the deficiencies of our present life and community.

Memphis is home to a staggering number of churches and religious buildings. The Greater Memphis Metropolitan area contains more than 2,000 churches in total, with all major religious beliefs and denominations being well represented in the city itself, including Buddhists, Christians, Hindus, Jews and Muslims. We are all in this city together and our children need to know that they matter, we claim them and they are invited to belong to something greater than themselves. They are not alone or abandoned.

While it is true that 39% of our children in Memphis live in poverty, it is also true that those children belong to us as well as to the mother and father who gave them biological life.  The percentage of Memphis children living in poverty is double the national rate and steadily increasing.  That is true but there are unlimited possibilities for those children and for each one of us when we stop wringing our hands and wishing that someone else would come up with a solution that would meet the basic needs of Memphis children.

What does it mean to value the family? Is the family defined only as those who have blood kinship? Only the few who share a mailing address? And can we value a family when we have diminished them down to nothing more than a troubling statistic?

Jesus was born in a stable, homeless at birth. And then his parents became fugitives and headed for Egypt in an effort to save their son’s life from Herod’s slaughter of the innocents.  In the midst of these profound challenges the boy understood himself as a valuable member of a life giving, nurturing faith community. Judaism claimed him and carried him. 

It’s so beautiful to me, this story about the Passover pilgrimage. Mary and Joseph walked along toward home for an entire day before they wondered if Jesus was in the crowd. There were any number of mothers and fathers who might have been walking beside him and Jesus’ parents trusted their community to claim and care for their son. Discovering Jesus’ absence frightened Mary and Joseph, of course, and forced them to retrace their steps. 

Remember, Jesus was twelve. And when his parent found him he was in the temple with the elders. Listening. Talking. Receiving wisdom. Giving wisdom.  Jesus’ understanding of his identity was deepening and growing wider. His distraught parents stare. “Why have you treated us this way? Didn’t you realize we would be out of our minds with worry?” And the tensions become obvious as the boy looks blankly at his parents, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”

He was so lost in belonging to the faith that it was the only place he could be found.  His family was already larger than his biological parents, his world already wider than the place where he lived. 

You may have read the editorial in yesterday’s Commercial Appeal, the one written by pediatric surgeon, Kurt Newman. Dr. Newman is chief executive of Children’s National Medical Center in Washington DC and he has spent a great deal of time thinking about the larger issues that affect children and their ability to reach their full potential. He urges us in our various cities and villages to form task forces, forums and expert panels to respond to the shootings in Newtown, Connecticut. We must ensure the well-being of our children, he says, or we will have failed the children who were killed on December 14th and those we are still fortunate enough to have in our care.

Where do we begin to keep our children cared for and safe? How do we restore our communities into places of possibilities and generosity? How do we nurture our children with the gifts we’ve been given and show them the abundance of good things in life? How do we help them belong to something more meaningful and rich with faith?

Peter Block has helped to answer those questions in his book, Community: The Structure of Belonging. He says each one of us needs to take responsibility for our own part in making the future what we want it to be. Our community (this city, this particular church) will be restored when citizens and church members recognize the value of the gifts they have been given and use them to create safe places for children to be born, grow, play, learn and become contributing members of the restored community. 

When we recognize that although we have been lost as a people we can be found in the faith we cherish- our children will be less afraid and less focused on the deficiencies in their lives. When we begin to live into the abundance of good things we claim, good things like God’s grace that claims us, when we learn to celebrate our gifts rather than to bemoan what used to be the good old days—our children will long to belong to the faith that lights the way. They will travel with their elders: parents, teachers, neighbors, coaches and friends. We will belong together. 

We will all find ourselves lost in the goodness of our faith. And once we are lost in faith we will be able to find Jesus there-answering our prayers, listening to our wisdom, affirming our gifts and giving grace back to us in abundance.

Amen


Interpretation/ Luke, A Bible Commentary, Fred Craddock, John Knox Press, Louisville, 1990
Community: The Structure of Belonging, Peter Block, Berrett-Koehler Publishers Inc, San Francisco, 2009
It Takes a Village and Other Lessons Children Teach Us, Hillary Rodham Clinton, Simon & Schuster, NY, NY 1996

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