Mary Vance*

In our young adult Bible study a few weeks ago, we talked a little bit about the "historic Jesus" and about the scholarly debate that started some time around the 19^th century over the extent to which Jesus the human being understood himself to be Christ the Messiah. The popularity of the debate ebbs and flows and the focus shifts depending on what is catching people’s interest.

Currently there is the DaVinci Code phenomena that spawned other best sellers like De-Coding the DaVinci Code and countless segments on the History Channel and National Geographic. Dan Brown made a fortune by suggesting that Jesus was so human he had a wife and kids and I guess he probably had to fit in Cub Scouts and coaching soccer and taking the kids to ballet and band practice and all that.

What is really kind of funny is that those books that the DaVinci Code and others suggest were mysteriously rejected out of some sort of cover up conspiracy when the Bible as we know it was canonized, actually were intended to de-humanize Jesus. For the most part, the Gospel of Thomas, the Gospel of Judas and others you might hear about on the history channel, were books written by the Gnostics much later than the Mathew, Mark, Luke and John and they were very purposefully written to deny that Jesus was ever human at all. Some of them have stories about Jesus the toddler striking a playmate in anger and then miraculously curing him, or finding an injured bird and blowing on it so that it can fly away. These books are interesting and certainly worth studying, but when you read some of it you realize it didn’t take a male chauvinist conspiracy to separate the wheat of the Gospel from the chaff of the apocrypha.

This story in Luke about Jesus when he was 12 years old is the only story in the Bible that tells us anything about him between his birth and the beginning of his ministry as an adult. Luke probably didn’t anticipate the wild popularity of the DaVinci Code, but he might have had some inkling about the Gnostics. Clearly, he wants us to know that Jesus was a very human youngster who, like other humans his age, is starting to get an idea about his personal identity. For him that happens to involve divinity—but he’s still a 12 year old on his way to being an adult.

I think we can all relate very directly to this little exchange between Jesus and his birth parents. Those of us who are, or were or soon will be parents of teenagers feel great empathy for Mary and Joseph.

As I was thinking about this, I started remembering the times that our son Dylan was not where he was supposed to be at a certain time and place. I came up with quite a few examples. Once was at an outdoor music festival where there were hundreds of people and he was just a little guy. Another time he got lost in the woods when we were building our house in Jefferson County. That time we didn’t get a smart remark from him when we found him because he was as scared as we were. One time, when he was 18 or so, he visited his grandparents in London and he stayed out all night. He was just having a good time being in that cultural hub, visiting the pubs and meeting girls and he stayed out until the tube stopped running and had to walk home. Pat and Maurie were fit to be tied. Dylan was sort of like "Hey, I’m in London, what do you expect." When we heard about it from Pat later, I secretly relished in their annoyance because till then, they were sure that unlike James when he was young, Dylan was the perfect child.

And if you are a teenager, or you are going to be a teenager and if you ever were a teenager, You might read this and say "You go Jesus." I mean shouldn’t his parents realize he’s not some goof up. He has his reasons and they should trust his judgment. Just say, hypothetically speaking a couple of the kids in youth group decided that instead of coming on in and joining the group on Sunday night, it would be nice to take a stroll around downtown Tallahassee maybe looking at the Christmas lights, enjoying the beauty of the season. And suppose someone had seen them go, but by the time I went looking they were no where to be seen. I would be freaking out, and just before I started to act on one of the many options running through my head, there they would be.

I would be like WHAT ARE YOU DOING? And they would be like "What?" and I’d be like "What?"

A post-modern version of

"Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been searching for you in great anxiety."

⁴⁹ He said to them, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?"

Because then they would go on in and join the activities and have a great time because they would also be obedient and growing in wisdom and years, even if they weren’t divine.

So, Jesus is sort of thinking the same thing—Look guys, why don’t you just relax—I know what I’m doing and you really ought to too.

But what exactly was he doing? He was hanging out at church, basically. He is genuinely surprised that his mother didn’t figure this out on her own. Its interesting that the older translations he says I must be about my father’s business. You have to love the King James sometimes;

But I also love Eugene Peterson’s version in the message:

Why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that I had to be here, dealing with the things of my Father?"

So for the translators, trying to decipher the ancient Greek and be true to our understanding of the intent of the writer, its really the same thing—Going about my father’s business and being in my father’s house. Either way, this story tells us about Jesus being drawn to his calling. There is something irresistible about his relationship with God and his desire to investigate it.

And that is something else we can all identify with. It is at the heart of the reformed tradition—the idea that we are all called by God.

On one level or another we all know about that tug. We call it different things. Sometimes we are very sure that what we are doing is searching for God. In that case we know that we want to be in our father’s house. Sometimes people are more ambiguous, like those people that like to talk about how they are in touch with their spirituality but they aren’t religious. If you ever meet one of those people ask them what that means. First they’ll be surprised, because they probably haven’t ever tried to say what it means, they just like the sound of it. But get them talking and they will probably tell you that they believe in God, but they don’t go to church because you don’t find God in church. They don’t go to church, so its hard to know how they know whether to find God there or not. If you pursue the conversation, they don’t really know what they mean when they say they believe in God either. But I don’t think they’d be saying it if something wasn’t pulling them—or calling them.

And then there are the seekers. According to some popular approaches to evangelism in America today, this country is full of people who are seeking God and they are going to those mega churches you hear about to try to find him. You just hire a band, buy an expensive sound and power point system and put a sign out front that says—SEEKERS MEET HERE.

I’ve never met anybody who called themselves a seeker. Not that long ago, someone in this church who is very wise and strong in her faith suggested that maybe I was a seeker. I didn’t even know what she was talking about. Turns out she was right, I just didn’t know it then. A sign outside the door wouldn’t have brought me in, but maybe it works for some.

A couple of weeks ago when I was doing my rounds as a Chaplain intern at the hospital, I met a 72 year old woman from Moultrie Georgia in the cardiac ICU. She was one of the most optimistic and upbeat people I have ever met in my life. She was sure she was going home the next day, although her medical chart didn’t say that. She told me right away that her husband had just gone down to the cafeteria to get something to eat, but that he had been by her side her entire stay in the hospital, sleeping in the uncomfortable chair in her little ICU room. She kind of smiled and said we’ve only been married two years. Then she proceeded to tell me about how they met and about their courtship of a couple of months before they got married. I won’t repeat the whole story, but the key was that she was a self described "prayer warrior" at her church and he had been on her prayer list. When he recovered, they were introduced by a mutual acquaintance. He is 9 years younger than her and on their first date she told him she was too old for him—but not how much too old. He said he didn’t care about a couple of years difference in their age and he still didn’t care when he found out how many it was. In the course of her telling me the story, she mentioned several ways that she was active in her church. After a while she looked at me and said in a sort of conspiratorial way, like she knew she was talking to someone who would get what she was talking about— she said If people would just realize how good it makes them feel when they have God in their lives, they wouldn’t put him on the back burner, they’d have him right up there on the front burner. I started thinking about how I had come in to minister to her and here she was ministering to me.

So, here it is, New Year’s eve and some of us have been trying to think of a New Year’s resolution that won’t be too hard to keep. Some of us gave up on making New Year’s resolutions a long time ago because we got tired of making resolutions and then feeling like a failure for not keeping them. And I know there are a few of you out there who actually make and keep New Year’s resolutions, but I myself am not in that category.

Have you ever tried a new years resolution that actually provided instant gratification? The closest thing I ever found was the Atkins diet—the trouble with that one is that after the initial gratifying results it gets just as hard to keep as any other resolution—as soon as you face that box of chocolate on Valentines day if you make it that far. I am talking about resolving to do God’s business. To deal with the things of our father, To be in our father’s house.

How do we do it? Donovan just read Paul’s very simple instructions to us:

I do believe that Jesus was truly human, but I don’t think he was married with children. But if he had been, I still think his parents and his family and friends would have known they could always find him going about his father’s business. Instead of going to athletic events, finishing a project he didn’t get to during the week, or working on the Sabbath, he would have been taking his family to Temple. And as he was going about his ministry all around the Sea of Galilea and up and down the Jordan river, he would have had the family in tow. There is some indication in the Gospel that that is exactly what some of his followers were doing. So, it can be done. We just have to put God on the front burner instead of the back burner.

I don’t have to worry about my child fighting for his life in Iraq. I don’t have to worry about my husband being captured, tortured or killed if he tries to go out and find work. I am not worried about whether I’ll be clothed and fed and sheltered next year. I’m worrying about what I’m going to be doing in the most trivial sense when we think about what is going on in other parts of the world.

We can’t ignore the troubles in this world, and we can’t fix them. But we can be grateful for the gifts we have.

So, my New Year’s resolution is to keep God on the front burner. To keep God the focus of my life instead of focusing on things that I know will in fact work themselves out. I know its not always the path of least resistance, but I also know that it is the most personally rewarding effort I can make.

Think about joining me. But don’t do it for me or Brant, or for Michael or Christy. Do it for yourself. Do it because there is nothing that this world has to offer that will make you a happier or stronger person. You might know I’m right on this one or you might be in for the surprise of your life. But don’t take my word for it, just try it.