University Presbyterian Church - Chapel Hill, NC

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A sermon preached for

University Presbyterian Church, Chapel Hill

by Anna Pinckney Straight

December 27, 2009

1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26

Samuel was ministering before the LORD, a boy wearing a linen ephod. His mother used to make for him a little robe and take it to him each year, when she went up with her husband to offer the yearly sacrifice. Then Eli would bless Elkanah and his wife, and say, "May the LORD repay you with children by this woman for the gift that she made to the LORD"; and then they would return to their home. 

Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.

Luke 2:41-52

Now every year his parents went to Jerusalem 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. 

It was tradition, Luke tells us.  Every year that Jesus went to Jerusalem with his parents for the festival of Passover.

Tradition.    Good weather or bad.  Happy year or sad year.  Every year.

We don’t know much about Jesus’ upbringing.  Hardly anything, to tell you the truth.  Luke gives us more information that any of the other gospels, and still, all we have is this one glimpse at a twelve year old Jesus. 

We see Jesus at the temple when he is an infant, being dedicated, and blessed by Simeon and Anna.

And then, it’s twelve years later, and Jesus is at the temple again, sitting with the teachers.

We will see Jesus next some eighteen years later, being baptized, tempted, and beginning his ministry by teaching, in the synagogues.   

Three entries over thirty years, It’s not like today, is it?  With the internet and cell phones, and video, rarely does a drawing or performance miss getting recorded and sent across the World Wide Web within moments of its completion.   Last night I checked my online file of family photos from 2009, and there were almost 1,000. 

This glimpse into Jesus’ adolescence is the only glimpse we have.  There are some apocryphal, extra-canonical accounts that have Jesus turning clay birds into live birds, striking down playmates, showing amazing wisdom and knowledge at school, but none of these tales, more likely midrash than actual account, make it into the gospels.[1]

And so, on one level, it seems like Jesus grows up quickly.  It takes just a few minutes to read his life from birth to middle age.  It’s almost like he was just born two days ago and already he is twelve years old.

Ironically, in these few brief glimpses, contained within one chapter of one gospel we are told that Jesus grew up just like all other children grow up, with days that seem long and years that fly by. 

And, that, according to Luke, Jesus received a traditional upbringing, one focused on faith and ritual.

There’s something about traditions and the ways in which they hold us together, and accountable.

Something that has nothing to do with the traditions themselves, for those change over the years as life and circumstances change, but the meanings beneath them, that say something about who we are and what we believe.

When it comes to my own family’s traditions, I can’t help but think of my mother’s stuffing.  Pine nuts, mushrooms, spinach, sausage.  It’s good.  Really good.   We had it every Thanksgiving when we were growing up.    It’s my family’s tradition.

But we’re not children any more.   My parents are divorced and remarried and we don’t all gather around the same table anymore.   We three who were, once upon a time, children now bring spouses and our own children to the table. My husband can make my mother’s stuffing.  We have it on other days now, if we’re not together for Thanksgiving.  In fact, we’re having it this evening at my sister’s house.    Every year we have it.  When we are together.  Around a table.  Giving thanks for the privilege of being together. 

We may talk about the stuffing, but the real tradition is being together.  At table.  Together. And being thankful for the privilege.

We heard from 1^st Samuel this morning about the traditions of Hannah, Samuel’s mother. Hannah, who wanted a child so desperately that a priest mistook her fervent prayers to God as the ramblings of a drunken woman.  God gave Hannah a son, and Hannah gave him back to God, to be trained to be a priest, as soon as he was weaned.  And it became her tradition to make her son a new piece of clothing and take it to him each and every year.  The tradition of visiting her son melding with the tradition of their annual sacrifice, woven together traditions, each a sign of devotion to God.

What are the traditions of your family?  How have they changed over the years?  How have they shaped you?

What about the traditions of this church family?   The Sacraments ~ more than traditions, signs of God’s grace~ Baptism and Communion.   The worship which places The Word of God at the center.  The music.   All standing on the deeper beliefs in the Love of God, the invitation of Jesus Christ, and the presence of the Holy Spirit.   The ways in which we learn and grow by being together, week after week, as God has asked. 

Jesus goes to the temple, for dedication, for Passover, for teaching, placing at the center the things God has asked of his family, of him, and holding to it.  Putting it first, consistently and always, and then allowing other things fall into their place.

It is easy to think, because we don’t know that much about his schooling or thoughts or words during the first 30 years of his life, to think that Jesus simply falls into place.  Wakes up one day ready to be the savior of the world.   Luke wants us to know that this isn’t the case. Jesus wasn’t just born the Messiah, he grew into it, surrounded by faith and the community.

The tradition didn’t bind him, it gave him the foundation on which his ministry would be built.  Jesus was a child of the faith and tradition, it was out of that context, and no other, which he spoke.

Context is what we have pledged to give all of the children baptized in this place. 

David, Pike, Monty, Jack, Tyler, David, Miles, Abby, Cole, Christopher, Katie Grace, Margaret Rose…

Theses are the names of the children baptized in this sanctuary in 2009.  Baptized, as is our Presbyterian tradition, without undue haste and without undue delay.

We have pledged to give them context.  To tell them that they are loved and called by God.   To show them through our own worship what it means to love and be loved by God.  To rejoice with those who rejoice and weep with those who weep.

Children grow up so quickly.  They do.  And we have such a little time to teach them what they will need to know.  To be people of faith.  To embody what it means to be children of God.

To give them the traditions they will need to build lives on the foundation of faith.

To teach them, b0rrowing words from Bruce Reyes-Chow,  the Presbyterian Church’s moderator,  not “that they can be whatever they want to be when they grow up, but rather that they should seek to become who God intends them to be.”[2]

Luke reminds us today, that this understanding, this perspective on life does not spring forth from the ground in full bloom, it is cultivated and nurtured. 

But to think about these things ONLY in terms of the baptized children of this congregation is missing ½ of the story.  The other ½ is knowing that we are on the same journey, living into our own Baptismal vows.   In each day as we learn what we need to know to be people of faith, to embody what it means to be children of God, embracing the traditions we need to build lives on the  foundations of faith.

Living into our Baptisms, which are never complete, until they are completed in death.

And so that list from earlier, I want to add some other names.

Nancy.  Katherine.  Judith.

Thomas.   John.   James.

The name of the person on your right.  The name of the person on your left.  Your name.

There is a rumor that one of Bob Dunham’s friends in his lectionary study group, The Moveable Feast, would call out to his teenage daughter, as she left the house with a date, “Remember your baptism!”  I’m not sure if that is true (though it does give me an idea), but if it is[3]…

If a child of this congregation were to hear that, what would you want them to remember?  What faith, hope, community, and love would you want them to call to mind that might impact who they are and how they live?  How are you a part of the faithful traditions being cultivated in their lives?

And.  If someone were to call that out to you, what would you remember?  What faith, hope, community, and love do you call to mind that  impacts who you are and how you live?  How are faithful traditions being cultivated in your life?

We grow up so quickly, and yet each day is a new and unique opportunity to reflect and dig deeper into the love of God. The years may fly by, but they are made up of days, each and every one a full gift from God.  The God of Samuel.  The God who is Jesus.  The God of all and the God of this day.

Thanks be to God.