St. Paul’s United Church Sunday August 26, 2007
GROWING WITH GOD – Rev. Cathy Russell
Based on the window Jesus grew in wisdom and stature
What was Jesus like as an adolescent, during his pre-teen and teenage years? Did he have acne? Was he physically clumsy-did his voice crack, was his taste in music beyond the appreciation of his parents, did he get nervous around girls? The bible doesn’t give us a lot of help here, indeed, the new Testament gives us very little information about this period in Jesus’ life, and in fact, the window before us this morning depicts the only canonical account of the adolescent Jesus in the New Testament.
The verse quoted in the window comes at the very end of the story, after all the earlier drama- including the frantic three day search of Mary and Joseph for their lost son, is over. So clearly the artist is not so much interested in the narrative of the story, the traveling, the searching, even in Jesus’ extraordinary answer to his anguished parents, as it is in the theological claims Luke uses it to make.
WHAT THE WINDOW DEPCITS
The picture shows the young Jesus holding in his hand a scroll of the Law, standing beside what can only be an altar. The entire scene is framed by the solid columns of the temple building. The window explicitly connects Jesus’ growing wisdom and understanding to the temple- to the sacred teachings and rituals of the space and place that has been dedicated and set apart for the worship and service of God. For Luke, it is no accident that it is when the young Jesus is in the temple that he shows the first signs of understanding both who he is, and the mission God has given him.
WHAT THE WINDOW REVEALS
By including these signs of Scripture and Table the window gives us a helpful reminder, especially when we feel impatient or irritated with some of the traditions of church, that they are still powerful signs of the Christian community. If you were to walk into a dingy basement room in the humblest of homes, and you were to see a table with a bible, a table cloth and an oversized cup, you would know instantly that this was a sacred place to Christians, a place to proclaim the Good News, and share in the table of God’s Grace. A place where people seek, through an encounter with the Risen Christ, to grow in wisdom and understanding.
WHAT THE WINDOW LEAVES OUT
On the other hand, what we don’t see in the window, are any of the people who made the scriptures and rituals of the temple live and breathe and have meaning. There was a time when the Church thought of Jesus as incapable of receiving anything from anyone- Jesus could give all kinds of things- healing forgiveness, salvation, to you, but there was nothing you could give to Jesus-certainly nothing that he wanted or needed. Well, that would make him inhuman. Because none of us become who we are, or learn how to do anything on our own. To teach a child to become a hockey player, you need more than a hockey stick, a sheet of ice and a rule book- you need people, parents, aunts uncles, teachers referees and coaches to foster and demonstrate the skills of the game. To teach a child to become a follower of Jesus Christ, you need more than a bible and the liturgy of the sacraments, you need people, parents, teachers, Board members, ministers, men and women, young adults, the whole congregation to foster and embody the marks of discipleship.
JESUS’ FAITH WAS FORMED IN COMMUNITY
Jesus himself had that kind of community- beginning as it does with any child, with his parents-with Mary and Joseph, who dedicated Jesus in the temple when he was still very young, and who brought him back again year after year to celebrate the sacred time of Passover.
As he grew, that community expanded to include his fellow Jews. The learned scribes and priests who read, commented on and discussed the scriptures, the friends and relations with whom his family traveled to keep the Passover, the fellow worshippers who taught him to pray the psalms, the, parents who like Mary and Joseph, came to dedicate their children to the God of Israel. All of these faithful folks, in the power of the Spirit, contributed to young Jesus’ spiritual growth as he passed from childhood into his adult years and the period of his unique ministry.
WE TOO WERE FORMED THROUGH OTHERS
Each one of you here has someone, perhaps many someones who were important to your growth with God, to your faith development. Perhaps it was a parent or grandparents, a friend, a Sunday School teacher, a youth leader, a spouse, a minister or just a warm friendly person who made you feel welcome and at home in the house of God. Those people were God’s gift to you, and your faith, and they in turn helped to nurture in you that wonderful gift, a gift that grew with God’s blessing, a gift that will last long after you hockey playing days are over.
A STORY ABOUT MR. ROGERS
Growing up in the States for three years, I became a devoted fan of Fred Rogers’ and his PBS children’s television show, Mr. Rogers’ Neighborhood. In the last years of his life, Fred Rogers was showered with awards and honorary degrees for a lifetime spent teaching children that they were special and valuable just for being who they are. At each of these events, Mr. Rogers would use the honors as an opportunity, to remind his audience that all of us have had special people along the way who have loved us into being. And then he would say something like
I want you to take a minute now to
think about any people who have been an important part of you life. Some of them may be here right now. Some of them may be far away. Some of them may even be in heaven. Wherever they are, if they’ve loved you and
encouraged you and wanted what was best in life for you, they’re right inside
you. So let’s just take a minute to think
about those people who have cared for us along the way. Just one minute.
And then raising his watch he would say “Ill watch the time.”
I’m going to ask us to do the something similar this morning. I’m going to ask you to look at this picture of the window with Jesus and the Scriptures and the Table, and I’m going to ask you add to that window in your mind some of those people, maybe just one person who helped to bring you here today, who have been an important part of your own growing with God. “I’ll watch the time.”
(One minute of silence)
I’ll quote Fred again by saying “Whomever you have been thinking about, just imagine how grateful they must be that you are remembering them with such gratitude”. And I’ll add that they’re probably surprised as well, surprised that the time they spent with you as part of your community of faith turned out to be so important. Perhaps at the time they had no idea that the Spirit was using them to grow and nurture a faith -perhaps, as no doubt some of my own Sunday School teachers must have done occasionally, they felt more like they were banging their heads against a brick wall instead! I hope that now they would be thrilled, or at the very least relieved.
WE CAN CONTINUE THIS HOLY PROCESS
Surely we all want to think that the
same holy process is at work in