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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