Reflections on Luke 2.41-52 by the Rev'd Tasha Carrothers (RCL Christmas 1C, 30 December 2018)

Here is today's sermon as preached by the Rev'd Tasha Carrothers, 

our Honorary Assistant Curate, at the 10.00 Eucharist.

Click here to listen to an audio recording of the Sermon.

Sermon for Holy Family Sunday

Luke 2:41-52

December 30, 2018

Holy Trinity Cathedral, New Westminster

I was in the car, in the middle of pre-Christmas errands, feeling hard-done-by because there was too much to do and not enough time, when yet another Christmas song came on the radio. But this song I had never heard before. It was Three Generations, by Canadian singer-songwriter Hawksley Workman. 

Wash the dishes
Wash the dishes
The Christmas dinner dishes
Three generations in the kitchen all at once
And go and get a camera
And go and wake up grandpa
Three generations in the kitchen all at once

The song goes on about putting the turkey away for sandwiches, making soup from the bones (except the wishbone!), putting the good china away until next year, all those banal details that repeat themselves every year, if we’re lucky.

And I became a bit weepy, and finally felt some Christmas spirit. This was a scene that I could relate to and feel nostalgic about; endless dishes that you didn’t really mind doing because there were lots of people around helping out. And I realized that Christmas is about feeling joyful, yes, but it is also about feeling sad, missing people and places that are far away or gone forever. And then I realized that on some level it is about missing something that never happened, a nostalgia for the perfect Christmas that no one has actually experienced. All of these feelings are inextricably mixed up with each other, like the ingredients in a loaf of bread. 

I think we see that mixture in today’s gospel reading. The original perfect family would have to be the Holy Family: Mary, Joseph and Jesus. And I suspect that they are also the perfect family that never was, hidden behind those golden creche scenes.  

Those tensions between perfection and reality are present in today’s reading from Luke. We often see depictions of the scene of Jesus in the Temple, sitting in the middle of the teachers as they listen to his wisdom. We see this preternaturally wise boy, holding his own in the company of the great religious leaders of the day. The image of the perfect young Jesus, hinting broadly at the man he would become. 

We don’t usually see Mary and Joseph in their frantic search for their missing son. He’s only twelve years old, and he’s missing for as many as five days, in a strange city full of soldiers and travelers. We don’t see them retracing their steps, to the rooms where they stayed, the market stalls where they got food, the streets and alleys. When they finally find him, Mary asks the question all parents ask, and no child can answer—why did you do this to us? Why did you do this to your father and me? 

Faced with this story that includes the very real and imperfect family losing track of their child as well as the amazingly wise boy taking his place with the elders, we tend to let the imperfection slip into obscurity. 

But perhaps the imperfect Holy Family is just what we need right now, a reminder that, in Jesus, God is born into this imperfection. They do their best; the text tells us that Mary and Joseph are faithful people who go every year to Jerusalem to observe Passover. This year, when Jesus was twelve years old, they went as usual. It is only after they have been travelling home for a day that they realize that their boy is not among their relatives and friends. When they finally find him back in Jerusalem, days later, they have this extraordinary exchange. Well, it starts ordinarily enough—"why have you treated us like this? We’ve been sick!”. But Jesus gives an extraordinary reply: “Didn’t you know that I would be in my Father’s house?” I imagine that it just came to him in that moment; the first words to come out of his mouth, unfiltered. “But of course I’m here, where I belong.” And of course Mary and Joseph, being ordinary parents, don’t understand at all. Then the story gets back into familiar territory: having found their son, they all return to Nazareth where, the story goes, Jesus was obedient to his parents. Back to being an ordinary family after that glimpse of what was to come. I wonder, though, if he really was all that obedient, or if he was an ordinary child who sometimes did as he was told and at other times was headstrong. 

Interestingly, this is the only story about the young Jesus that made it into Scripture. There are other stories that came later, and they are pretty fantastical. It is as if later storytellers felt the need to add a little something more interesting; possibly the account in the book of Luke didn’t meet their expectations. There’s the one about the time that five-year-old Jesus made little birds out of clay, then set them to flight with a clap of his hands. There’s the more sinister story about the time he was accused of pushing a child to his death off a roof. Outraged by the accusation, Jesus brought the boy back to life so that he could testify that it wasn’t Jesus who did the pushing. By comparison, the story in Luke is pretty restrained. The writer of the gospel chose to tell a story that reflected a more ordinary child—no superpowers—as a better way for us to learn about who this extraordinary Jesus was. 

Crucially, Luke’s story takes place in the temple. This is where years earlier Mary and Joseph, the good observant parents, brought infant Jesus to be dedicated, where Anna and Simeon recognized him for who he was. And once again, now that he is twelve, it takes others to see Jesus for who he is. “And they (the teachers and observers in the Temple) were amazed by his answers.” 

And here we are today, hanging for a moment between Christmas and New Year’s, between nostalgia and striving for the future. How do we know who we are? Perhaps, like Jesus, we learn who we are by how others see us. Perhaps others can see a calling in us that we can’t see for ourselves. 

Maybe you just had the perfect Christmas of your expectations, or maybe you just got by. Whichever it was, know that Jesus was born into this world of imperfection, that God comes right alongside us. And as you contemplate New Year’s resolutions, you might wonder about what amazing things your community sees in you, that have been there from your birth and that God is calling you to live into.