There are more than 20 framed family pictures on the wall in my parent's kitchen that chronicle the passing of over 30 years. Anyone who visits the old farm house usually stops to look at the images of passing years. The earliest family picture has my parents with six kids in 1969. The next picture is about 8 years later and there are two more females in the picture--two daughter-in-laws. From that point on the pictures were taken almost yearly and each picture contains the addition of either a new bride or groom or a grand child or two. The final picture taken this past summer pictures 31 people.
Each additional face calls for some comment or story--the passing of time chronicled in the changing faces and clothing. Whenever anyone stops to look at the pictures someone always seems duty bound to bring up some story that captures a particular year or offers some comment that recalls the passing years, and takes a measure of them. Stories are told to indicate how certain family members have matured or moved on--what lessons must have been learned because look at how they turned out.
Every life has the snapshots that chronicle the passage of time by pictures of those present-and those missing.
As we come to the end of another year it is impossible to not at least pull out the mental scrapbook and make some review of the last twelve months--and maybe more. The news magazines and air waves are filled with attempts to appraise this year. The categories are many and varied--most significant personality in politics-sports-science-the arts--evaluations of the economy--assessments of the environment--calculations of the world population-its size-its health-its poverty and wealth. Personally we have our own perspectives usually filled with the mixture of criteria that reflect the complexity of our lives.
Time passes--another year ends.
It is always fascinating to me how movies or television programs present the passage of time in order to advance the story. Usually the camera focuses on some object or face and then moves that object or face forward through time now embraced or presented in a new form. Often the object or image used is some how going to be meaningful to the ultimate turn of the story or suggestive of some story direction.
If you were to chronicle the passing years in your life what moment or thing would you use? The various cars you've owned over the last couple decades--the house you live in with various additions and improvements or maybe the various houses you built or lived in--how about the different schools attended or the places of employment where you worked--or maybe the measure of your life would be found in the faces of those around you--the friends and neighbors who passed through your life.
Could you measure your life by its growth in
wisdom and faith? That is the picture that the Gospel of Luke
turns to in our lesson for today. Barely a week after Christmas
with the nativity scene still before us and Epiphany yet to come
January 6 with the arrival of the wisemen. The first Sunday after
Christmas strives to move us from thinking of the baby in a manger
to an adolescent Jesus
growing in wisdom and in divine and human favor. Pictures
rarely capture the developing maturity of a person. It is not
uncommon to look at a teenager and wonder what they will do with
their life--some of us still wonder that about ourselves. The
lives of great figures of history are regularly reviewed by scholars
to see if there was some clue of their ultimate destiny while
they were but children or adolescents. Do future presidents of
the United States exhibit unusual skills of leadership or insight
in high school or college? Are the great actors of the world
exceptionally gifted in their school plays? We wonder if we can
anticipate the career callings of young people. Do future doctors
exhibit greater interest at an early age in the sick or suffering?
Do successful business leaders generally reveal a keen interest
in money and the need of it -or is that just true for all teenagers?
Can we predict from the actions and words of an adolescent their
future destiny in life? Had we met the young Jesus would we have
known that he was someone special?
The gospel from Luke presents us with a twelve
year old Jesus--on the brink of the teenage years. We need to
remember that 2000 years ago in the first century the Jewish faith
had not yet developed the life transitioning ritual of the bar
mitzvah--yet clearly this story captures for us a critical moment
of Jesus' transition from child to adulthood. The little boy who
had been in the care of his mother and played with other children
attends the festival of the Passover in Jerusalem with expanding
freedoms to be among the other relatives and friends. When the
festival is over the traveling party departs on foot for their
Nazareth home and the parents assume that Jesus is traveling with
other members of their party--a day passes before they miss him.
Any parent with older children remembers the evening you didn't
have to hire a babysitter--the evening you were able to say, "Your
mother and I are going out
-make yourself something to eat." Later of course you would
return and ask them what they had to eat--but at least for a short
time you granted freedom. Jesus had a day without the tight parental
supervision--and he used it as he thought fitting. When Mary and
Joseph realized Jesus was not with their traveling party they
returned to Jerusalem to search for him. This is every parent's
worst nightmare--to not be able to find a child. This year on
Christmas Eve a 15 year old boy, who is retarded, wandered away
from the midnight service at the Crystal Cathedral in Garden Grove,
California and disappeared all night. Pastor Robert Schuller issued
a public call for help in finding the boy while police searched
all likely locations. It wasn't until 8 a.m. the next morning
that the boy called his mother from a pay phone in Anaheim about
the same time as a gas station attendant was calling police to
report a young teenager hanging around the parking lot. A church
spokesman said he thought the boy must have walked all night to
get to Anaheim where he finally found someone to help him call
his mother. Police were unable to determine how he had passed
the night but they did report that the boy seemed quite rested
and happy.
We like stories of missing children with happy endings. Luke's story has a rather curious twist to it however--Jesus is finally found at the temple engaged in discussion with the teachers of the faith--learned rabbis. There is no suggestion that Jesus had all the answers at this point in his life--in fact, Luke makes a point of telling us that Jesus sat among the teachers listening to them and asking questions. To listen and to question--such ultimately is the calling of every person who would learn--not just as an adolescent but throughout our lives.
Obviously the temple had not been where Mary and Joseph expected Jesus to be. It took them three days to find him--and when they did find him he replies to his mother's anxious question of why he would do such a thing by suggesting that this is where he belongs. To discern one's place in life--to recognize your calling--to know that this is where you belong--what you are destined to be when you grow up--to do with your life. Often this is the stuff of dreams--the Olympic hopeful--the struggling musician--the aspiring artist--the tentative entrepreneur--but sometimes the vision of youth is the prophecy of a life.
Jesus recognized that he was no mere tourist
to the festivities in Jerusalem--his was now a pilgrimage of faith.
We have now entered the Sundays after Christmas. The Christmas
presents are already a fading memory--if all that Christmas meant
was another commemoration of an ancient birth--then we have missed
it. We have been but tourists of the faith. The birth of Christ
is celebrated not as past event but as present promise. It is
the Christ born afresh in each of us--become incarnate in our
lives that is the point of the Christmas story. As we stand on
the brink of another new year we also stand on a threshold of
faith that is every bit as real
as the one Jesus encountered in Jerusalem. The New Year invites
us to begin our journey of faith once more. Our church provides
us with clear direction as pilgrims of the faith but it is important
that we remember as James H. Slatton observes, that "the
journey is not the same thing as the map--anymore than the menu
is the meal. There is no proxy faith. There is a difference between
a pilgrim and a tourist. Tourists take trips. Pilgrims make journeys.
Tourists are spectators. Pilgrims are participants. Tourists expect
to return to the same place from which they began the trip and
to be the same relatively unchanged as people. A pilgrim makes
the inward as well as the outward journey." A visit to the
Grand Canyon may provide you with some memorable pictures of nature.
Or it may awaken environmental concerns and commitments in you.
A visit to the city may provide fine eating and entertainment.
Or it may challenge us to strive to find solutions to problems
of homelessness.
As we enter the new year we are not just tourists
of time-we are pilgrims on a journey--we are involved in this
time and this place
and we will be different because of the encounter. The choices
of the coming year will be many and varied--in faith we seek the
wisdom to make the right choices and to guide those who journey
with us. We rejoice in the gifts we have been given to make the
journey--sacraments of grace--nourishment for the journey--and
comfort in the moments of doubt.
Our lesson for today is the story of the transition years in the life of Jesus--we come to this day of transition between one year and the next--we come to this moment with the opportunity to choose once more whom we will serve--Jesus made it clear that no person can serve two masters--he chose to commit himself to serving His heavenly Father--we also are invited to live that same choice--to embrace that path--to make the New Year truly new.
And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years
and in divine and human favor.
May such also be each of our callings in the year to come as we
continue our pilgrimage of faith.
Amen.