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| "Losing track of time" courtesy Pixabay |
Second Sunday after Christmas
The Rev. Vicki K. Hesse
St. Philip’s In The Hills, Tucson, AZ
Luke
2:41-52
I speak to you in the name of one God:
Creating,
Liberating, Sustaining. Amen
When I
was growing up, I was infatuated with horses.
Loved
them and everything about them
–
riding, grooming, mucking.
Often,
I would lose track of time and
it was
dinnertime before I realized the day had gone.
Did
this ever happen to you?
So we can
empathize with Jesus’
“losing
track of time” in the temple
at
around 12 years old.
Clearly,
he loved the temple and
the
“business” of the temple.
There’s
an old country western song
now
immortalized on YouTube.
It captures
the entrancing conversation
in
which Jesus and the elders engaged,
causing
him to lose track of time.
Perhaps
you know, it, it’s called
“On my
Father’s side”:
Just a
young boy / in the temple one day,
shared
with the doctors / they were so amazed,
never had they seen one so young speak so swift /
they asked him many questions /
never had they seen one so young speak so swift /
they asked him many questions /
the
conversation went like this:
What’s your name son,
on my
mother’s side my name is Jesus,
but on my father’s side they call me Emmanuel,
how old are you,
but on my father’s side they call me Emmanuel,
how old are you,
on my
mother’s side now I’m twelve years,
but on my father’s side I’ve just always been,
where are you from,
but on my father’s side I’ve just always been,
where are you from,
on my
mother’s side I’m from Bethlehem,
but on my father’s side it’s new Jerusalem,
but on my father’s side it’s new Jerusalem,
what’s your plan,
on my
mother’s side I’ll be crucified,
but on my father’s side in three days I’ll arise
but on my father’s side in three days I’ll arise
and
I’ll sit at my father’s side.
However
the conversation actually went,
we can
imagine Jesus
answering
questions,
losing
track of time, and
getting
chewed out by his parents.
This gospel
story sets the stage for his whole ministry,
including
his own “first words,”
“why were you searching for me?”
*pause*
Jesus’
parents were observant Jews
and fulfilled
all that the Torah required.
The
family had been attending
an
annual pilgrim festival in Jerusalem.
Like
most folks going long distances,
they did
so in a large group, a caravan.
After the
festival, the caravan left Jerusalem.
Jesus
parents were already a day’s travel away
before
they realized that Jesus was not with them.
Can you
imagine the panic of his parents?
They had
been
attentive
and observant,
abiding
to all the rules of the religion,
doing
as they as prescribed,
and yet
they had lost their first born son.
I
wonder if sometimes we, too,
feel
like we are doing all that
religion
asks and yet we can’t find Jesus.
Sometimes,
a spiritual sense of Jesus’ presence
is
palpable, but on the other hand, it is so elusive.
We
wonder, where is Jesus?
We have
been coming to church,
been
kind to strangers,
participated
in outreach,
contributed
generously,
volunteered,
and we
turn the other cheek when “enemies” strike.
We
wonder:
how
will God, in Jesus, find us?
*pause*
For
over fifty years, Mother Teresa’s spiritual life
was
characterized by
an
experience of the absence of God.
In her
spiritual memoir, Come Be My Light,
she
reveals a hidden life in which she felt
the
intense absence of Jesus –
a state
that lasted until her death,
according
to her journals.
Theologian
Dennis Hollinger wrote about this:
“That Mother Teresa did not “feel” God
did not mean the absence of God.
We may never know why her
feelings
failed to accord with her commitments.
…
The fact that she continued
to believe and to share the
love of Christ,
even without feeling divine
presence, demonstrates
the depth of her love and
the perseverance of her faith. [1]
*pause*
And
Jesus’ parents deeply loved him
and
persevered in their faith.
So, although
Jesus was “lost” to his parents,
he
himself knew exactly where he was.
Jesus
knew that he was with God.
Jesus engaged
in a deep and
serious
study of God’s work
with
teachers other than his immediate
family,
and
perhaps just lost track of time.
Jesus
replied to his parents,
“didn’t
you know that I *must*
be
in my Father’s house?”
Or
in the KJV,
“I must
be about my Father’s business.”
While
Jesus was “about” his Father’s business,
God had
found him even in his losing track of time.
Those
around him seemed to know and to see in Jesus
a
wisdom,
a
knowledge,
a
grace,
that perhaps
his kin
could
not necessarily see.
Jesus
found his identity
by affirming his relationship to God.
Sometimes,
although Jesus seems “lost” to us,
Jesus
himself knows exactly where he is:
– with
us, “Emmanuel.”
That’s
the gift of Christmas!
Today,
God
finds us,
when we
“lose ourselves” in our vocational call
(especially
in service,
such
as teaching or feeding or helping).
God
finds us,
when we
“lose track of time”
(especially
in beauty and art, or
hanging
out with children, or
engaging
strangers in conversation)
God
finds us
when we
“lose our agenda”
in
service of God’s dream,
(in
advocating for equal rights,
for
legislation that supports human dignity,
in
struggling through
pervasive
misunderstandings)
In all
these ways, God finds us.
John
O’Donohue, a Celtic philosopher,
suggests
that a way to experience the sacred,
(I
would say God in Jesus) is in conversation.
He describes
a sacred conversation as,
”…[one]
which [isn’t] just
two
intersecting monologues,
…[but one]
in which
you
overhear yourself saying things
that
you never knew you knew.
[one
in which]
you
heard yourself receiving from somebody
words that absolutely
found places within you
that
you thought you had lost
and
[one
in which] you were brought
…to
a different plane…that continue
to
sing in your mind for weeks afterwards.”[2]
We can
imagine
this kind
of conversation is
how
Jesus lost track of time.
This
kind of conversation arises
when we
lose ourselves as children of God,
loved
by God, being “about” our Father’s business.
This
kind of conversation arises
from a vulnerability
that invites growth and grace.
When we
are vulnerable, we allow ourselves
to be
curious about a person,
arriving
to a conversation with
a sense
of wonder,
a sense
of “not knowing,”
a sense
of humility.
Being
“about” our Father’s business
may
mean that we lose track of time.
But we
are not lost to God.
God
knows exactly where we are.
Our
baptismal covenant offers spiritual practices
to
guide us toward affirming
our
relationship with God:
1. by praying and
sharing Communion,
2. by “repenting” and
turning to see Jesus in the people before us,
3. by telling about God’s
love for all people,
4. by seeking Christ in the
face of others we meet,
5. by respecting the
dignity of every human being.
Today,
we hear the first words of Jesus,
“why were you searching for me?”
Today,
we are called to respond. For he has
found us.
And, for Mother Teresa, while
she rarely “felt”
the divine presence she longed
for,
I believe that God was with
her.
God is with us, here,
today.
For our faith is not about our
feelings –
but about the gracious God,
found in Jesus,
who is really here, and will
walk with us.
The
good news today is that in Jesus,
the God
we are seeking is also seeking us.
We
don’t have to do anything,
but
affirm our life in God.
*That*
is Jesus’ Father’s business.
*That*
is what Jesus is about.
*That*
is how we live into love for God.
And, as
we mature
in
both body and spirit,
so we,
too,
will
increase in wisdom and in years,
and
in divine and human favor.
Amen
[1] Dennis P. Hollinger,
Ph.D, “Spirituality and Emotions: What We Can Learn from Mother Teresa’s Dark
Nights of the Human Soul” as published in C.S. Lewis Institute’s Knowing and
Doing, cited
at http://www.cslewisinstitute.org/webfm_send/547.
Beautiful! Your congregation is blessed...
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