Luke 2:41-52
December 28, 2003
Sermon preached by Rev. Donald Ng at the First Chinese Baptist Church in San Francisco.
Being a parent is hard work. Somebody once said that the best two gifts you can ever give your children are roots and wings. You can give them roots so that they’ll know where they come from; so they’ll know right from wrong; so that no matter where they go in life they’ll be able to look back and remember all that you gave them, all that you did for them.
The second gift is wings—that’s the other really important gift parents can give to their children—wings so that they can fly away, so that they can make a life of their own, so that they can become independent.
Of these two gifts—roots and wings—wings seems to be the more difficult gift to give. Why is it so hard to let our children go? Of course, we want our children to grow up, or so we say, but do we really mean it?
Remember how hard it was to drop off your child for his first day of preschool? How about when we watch our teenager with her brand new license drives off alone for the first time? For many of the Sojourners, how about the time when your first child went off to college and your house was suddenly empty? And how about the time when your child is at the altar about ready to join up with this stranger who will take your child away to become a member of another family. Of course, we want our children to grow up, but why so fast? Why does Nemo have to go out to the edge of the coral reef?
Twelve-Year Old Jesus
Mary and Joseph must have felt like us parents. Luke tells us that every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. They taught their son the great story of the Exodus, how God delivered the people of Israel from slavery in Egypt. Undoubtedly, they also told him how the Jews were waiting for another deliverer—a messiah who one day would sit on the throne of his ancestor David and reign over the house of Jacob forever. And so every year they made their religious pilgrimage to Jerusalem to give him roots.
But this year was special. Because young Jesus was now twelve year old, he has reached the age according to Jewish tradition of becoming a man. Here lies the heart of the problem.
On their way home from Jerusalem to Nazareth, this twelve-year-old boy or man stayed behind. For some reason, he didn’t tell his parents what he was up to. As a result, Mary and Joseph went a whole day’s journey before they even realized he was not a part of the large caravan of pilgrims making their way home. It’s like getting into your SUV and realizing that half way home you left your preschooler in the playground!
Can you imagine how Mary and Joseph must have felt—fear, anxiety, panic—gripping them as they rushed back to Jerusalem. Frustration must have filled them as they searched for three days all over the city for him. When they finally found him in the temple talking with the rabbis, they were amazed. But almost instantly, just like us parents, Mary and Joseph got mad.
“Child,” says Mary, forgetting that her twelve-year-old son was now a man, “Child, why have you treated us like this?” Your father and I have been all over this city looking for you. You have scared us half out of our minds!
And yet, can you blame Jesus for exerting his independence? After all, according to his religious tradition, he was on the verge of becoming an adult. He was standing on his own two feet. He was growing up. He was spreading his wings to fly.
And like any typical youth ready to challenge his parents’ authority, Jesus didn’t answer his parents’ questions. Instead, he answers them by asking them questions! “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus was growing up and becoming independent.
Coming of Age
When does a person become a “grown up”? Some young people think they’re grown up when they turn 16 and get their driver’s license. Others might say that it happens when you turn 18 and become old enough to vote. In our Baptist church, a person is grown up in faith, when she is baptized. Others say not until you’re 21 and old enough to walk into a liquor store and buy whatever you want. Your car insurance company says its 26 when you theoretically have finished college, got your first job, maybe gotten married for your insurance rate to go down. Now as Chinese Americans, you are not a grown up until you’re married and then instead of getting red envelopes, you are expected to hand them out!
Jesus was on the verge of being a grown up—trying to spread his wings when he decided that in the temple was where he needed to be. Engaging in questions and answers with the rabbis, Jesus was learning and increasing in wisdom. In the temple, Jesus was in a community that not only transmitted knowledge that he hungered for but he received the necessary nurture to discover the meaning for his life.
During these Christmas holidays, it is good to see many of our college students home from school and young adults, home from serving at other churches. In similar ways, our young adults are growing up. And maybe not according to our timetable! It’s only been three days ago that we observed Christmas and on the Sunday after Christmas, we see the infant Jesus at twelve-years of age. “They grow up too fast!” we say.
As your pastor, let me share with you how we as a church community serve in the development of persons—that what we see happening to our young adults trying out their wings of independence is what we expect to happen. Just as Jesus found in the temple, knowledge and insights that added to his wisdom, our youth and young adults are finding wisdom in our church as well as learning to use their wings. There are three significant roles that our church plays in the development of our young people.
First, the church holds us and keeps us from falling apart at critical moments in our life journeys. As parents, we share in this task through our involvement and participation at church. We nurture our children and teach them the faith at all stages. We learn to care for one another when we hit rock bottom. When the church holds together our lives, we are setting down deep roots so that life storms would not uproot us and blow us away.
Secondly, the church is also the place that lets go of us at times critical to our development. To encourage us to progress and to make moves in our lives that increase our interdependence between self, God, parents, and others, we are sent forth like going to school and eventually out into the world. We grow in our faith but we also engage the world as faithful participants eager to bring God’s realm to others. The church encourages us that it’s time to leave something behind and move ahead by using our wings to embrace something new. We have seen this stage in our young adults.
But thirdly, the church provides an incredible gift by remaining in place so that we might return with increasing wisdom and knowledge. In other words, even as parents send their children off to explore and engage the world, they remain in place in a critical and emotional way. Children not only leave, they also deserve a secure place to come back to, at least emotionally, when their world changes around them. With their strengthened wings, they are able to come home to their roots when necessary. When the blackout hit the church on Sunday, we remained open to be a steady presence in the life of the community, offering sanctuary and a place to come home.
In many ways, the story of Jesus in Jerusalem carries a similar comparison. Jesus has been coming with his parents to Jerusalem for 12 years to hear how God delivered the people from slavery. Since his parents nurtured him in the faith, Jesus is increasing in wisdom. But then, Jesus decided to not leave Jerusalem with his parents. He was seeking to move ahead with his life. And later on in his ministry, Jesus will repeatedly find himself at odds with the religious leaders as he gained wisdom and understanding of God’s will.
Growing up and spreading our wings are necessary steps toward matured faith. When we see our young adults exerting their interdependence and stepping out to serve in other places, we should celebrate because we have done a good job in encouraging them to increase their wisdom and knowledge. They are becoming grown ups.
Stop Growing
But the problem that we have is that many people make the mistake that once they have become a Christian, they think that’s it. They think that when they say, “I believe,” that’s the end of the journey, when in fact it’s only the start of the journey. Not only do we grow up in age, we must also grow in our faith. This problem exist with all of us.
Some of us think that since we have completed our Sunday school Christian education that we have graduated. But if your childhood Sunday school classes are all that you have to hold on to throughout the rest of your life, that’s probably not going to be enough.
Consider this: let’s assume that you attended Sunday school every week, 52 weeks a year, from the time you were in kindergarten right through your senior year of high school, never missing a class. You might be tempted to think that if a person did that, they would have achieved a pretty thorough knowledge of their faith. But the number of hours that student would have spent in Sunday school over those 13 years would be the same amount of time that a public school student would have spent in class to get from September to February of the kindergarten year.
We are still in kindergarten with our faith! It’s sad that many people never want to grow up anymore. Only six months of education in kindergarten is hardly enough to be prepared to go out and face the world. Many of us live our entire lives as spiritual children who have never grown up, never grown in our faith beyond the bare basics we learned as children in Sunday school. There are very little roots here to keep us from being blown away.
The Christian faith is also not a “hand-me-down religion.” Borrowing your faith from someone else is like wearing somebody else’s clothes—it just doesn’t fit. Although we give thanks for the faith that has been passed down from generation to generations, it’s also true that our faith will never become vital and alive until it becomes your faith. It must be forged through the fires of questioning and searching and spreading your wings.
As a twelve-year-old boy becoming an adult, Jesus went to the temple in Jerusalem where his parents found him “sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions.” He knew very well what his parents have already taught him, but he needed to forge a faith that was his own. Jesus was spreading his wings. He was probing, he was questioning until both his life and his faith became uniquely his own.
And that is what’s happening with many of our young adults. They have deep roots at FCBC but they also have received strong wings from us to fly away and to exert their interdependence from us. As parents, giving the gift of wings is never easy. But because we have also given them deep roots, they are blessed with both gifts to claim a faith uniquely their own.
Risks of Growing Up
In her best-selling book, Traveling Mercies, Anne Lamott writes about her seven-year old, Sam.
At seven, he was separating from me like mad and has made it clear that I need
to give him a bit more room. I’m not even allowed to tell him that I love him these days. He is quite firm on this. “You tell me you love me all the time,” he
explained recently, “and I don’t want you to anymore.”
“At all?” I said.
“I just want you to tell me that you like me.”
I said I would really try. That night when I was tucking him in, I said, “Good
night, honey, I really like you a lot.”
There was silence in the dark. Then he said, “I like you too, Mom.”
After Jesus began his public ministry, once his mother and siblings came to see him. They were concerned that he has lost his mind. Someone said to Jesus: “Your mother and your brothers and sisters are outside, asking for you.” And he replied, “Who are my mother and my brothers?” And looking at those who sat around him, he said, “Here are my mother and my brothers! Whoever does the will of God is my brother and sister and mother” (Mk 3:31-35). Jesus had exerted his independence; he has grown up.
When we use our wings, gifts given by our parents and this church community, we learn to claim our own faith and make it uniquely our own. And when the times come and we all know that these times will, we are also blessed with deep roots to lead us to come home where we would be steadied in life’s journey in the holiness of this sanctuary, a place of Sabbath for all generations.
Let us pray.
Precious Lord God, thank you for giving us parents, mentors, teachers and advisors who have taught us your truth. They have modeled for us in their lives on how your power and guidance are reliable and long-lasting that we too have grown to depend on your presence. Bless us with strengthened wings to test our faith in new places for ministry and grant us the courage to return to our roots when our days are troubled and changing. Lord, help us to be like Jesus when he was twelve year old and know that you also have a plan for our lives to bring you glory and praise. Amen.