Joel D. Kline
November 14, 2004
Highland Avenue Church of the Brethren
Junior High Sunday
United Methodist pastor Robert Raines some years ago wrote a book entitled New Life in the Church, in which he laments that too many Christians have an “automatic pilot” concept of the Christian life. The automatic pilot in modern airplanes is a wonderful device, promising, once the destination is set, to keep the plane perfectly on course. But when applied to our journey of faith, something is radically amiss, for there is nothing automatic about the Christian life! There is no guarantee that we will stay on beam, once we begin our journey with Christ, if we do not recognize that faith involves a daily, a continual, turning to Christ. While our initial decision to live as a disciple of Jesus is critical, that is where the real journey only begins. It is a journey that involves struggle, growth, movement, change. And it is a journey we do not undertake alone; we are called into community, into life together as the body of Christ, the church.
J.B. Phillips translates several verses of the letter to the Ephesians this way,
We are not meant to remain as children at the mercy of every chance wind of teaching…. But we are meant to hold firmly to the truth in love, and to grow up in every way into Christ, the head…until…we arrive at real maturity—that measure of development which is meant by the “fullness of Christ” (Ephesians 4:14, 15, 13).
This morning’s Gospel lesson reminds us that Jesus himself grew in wisdom and stature. “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor,” Luke tells us at the conclusion of this morning’s lesson. In The Message Eugene Peterson paraphrases these words this way: “And Jesus matured, growing up in both body and spirit, blessed by both God and people.”
Luke is the only Gospel writer to tell a story from the childhood days of Jesus—the story of Jesus, at age twelve, in the Temple at Jerusalem, sitting at the feet of teachers of the faith, listening to the teachers and asking questions of them. It is a story that tells us a great deal about life as Mary and Joseph experienced it in the growing up years of Jesus. Jewish law required every Jewish male to attend at least one of the three major annual festivals of faith in Jerusalem—Passover, Pentecost, and the feast of Tabernacles. Mary and Joseph and their family have traveled at Passover time, and when it comes time to return home, they blend in with their extended clan of neighbors and family from Galilee, accustomed to living together in close-knit mutual trust. As such, Mary and Joseph assume Jesus to be in the group, and it is only at the end of the first day of travel that they realize Jesus is nowhere to be found. Frantically returning to the city, the couple searches for three days before finding Jesus in the Temple with a group of teachers, amazed by the spiritual understanding and insight Jesus displays.
Careful readers of Luke’s Gospel may note that there is a story at the end of the Gospel, the story of the road to Emmaus, in which two disciples share their anguish over the three days that have elapsed since Jesus’ death. Jesus meets the two disciples and explains to them that “it was necessary” that the events surrounding Jesus’ death should occur. In like manner, when Mary and Joseph find Jesus in the Temple and scold him for staying behind, Jesus questions simply, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Both stories speak of the necessity of Jesus embracing the will of God, of Jesus continually being in the business of listening for and following God’s direction.
New Testament scholar N.T. Wright suggests that we might label these two stories something like, “On Finding the Jesus You Thought You Had Lost.” And perhaps Luke is writing his Gospel with this very purpose in mind, to remind us that finding Jesus frequently includes the element of surprise. Jesus doesn’t do what Mary and Joseph, or the two walkers on the road to Emmaus, were expecting. And so it is for us as well. Every time we think we understand all there is to know about Jesus, something happens that reminds us that we yet have a great deal of growing to do in our journey of faith. Discipleship, writes N.T. Wright, “always involves the unexpected.” And discipleship means that our search for Jesus is ongoing, that we never reach a level of completion in our walk with Christ. The journey of faith demands that we search, again and again, for the fullness of faith. There is no automatic pilot in the life of faith. Instead, with Jesus, we embrace a journey of continual growth and movement, of recurring struggle and seeking and searching. We must be prepared to search the Scriptures together, to pray for deeper insight, to seek the mind of Christ with our sisters and brothers in the church community.
The Youth and Young Adult office of the Church of the Brethren has taken as its theme for Junior High Sunday this year, “Maturing in Faith,” based on this morning’s Scripture text. It is another reminder that, no matter what our age, faith involves maturing. Faith is far from a once-and-done deal; faith is a matter of growing and stretching. Faith is so much more than intellectual agreement to a list of beliefs and a set of dogma; faith is transforming our deepest convictions into action. Faith is a verb. Robert Raines reminds us that “to become a Christian is to begin to see the world through Christ-colored glasses; it is to ask, in every new decision, ‘What is God’s will for me here and now?’”
To see with Christ-colored glasses is to begin with the affirmation that each person we encounter is a child of God, that each has been created in the image of God, and that God yearns for each of us to know, deep in our souls, that God loves us with a love that will not let us go. The noted cellist, Pablo Casals, once questioned,
When will we teach our children in school what they are? We should say to each of them: Do you know what you are? You are a marvel. You are unique. In all the world there is no other child exactly like you. In the millions of years that have passed there has never been another child like you. And look at your body—what a wonder it is! Your legs, your arms, your cunning fingers, the way you move! You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. You have the capacity for anything. Yes, you are a marvel. And when you grow up, can you then harm another who, like you, is a marvel?
Casals’ message, that each of us is a marvel, needs to be spoken not only in our schools, but in our homes and in the church and in our neighborhoods and in the larger world. To see with Christ-colored glasses is to celebrate the wonder of creation and to be in the business of drawing forth from one another our deepest potentials. To see with Christ’ colored glasses is to affirm the sacred quality at the heart of all of life.
Problem is, we seldom live up to the faith we profess. The apostle Paul, you may remember, confesses to the church at Rome that all too frequently, “I do not understand my own actions. For I do not do what I want, but I do the very thing I hate” (Romans 7:15). Who among us this morning ought not make the same confession, and who among us does not need the support of our sisters and brothers in the faith community, as we seek to mature in the life of faith?
Many of you will remember the life story of Dietrich Bonhoeffer, imprisoned in Nazi Germany during the years of World War II for his outspoken leadership of the Confessing Church, those Christians who resisted the Nazi message and endeavored to hold fast to their faith in Christ and their commitment to Christ’s way of living. Bonhoeffer’s fellow prisoners frequently looked to him for encouragement and support, yet Bonhoeffer knew that deep inside of him was an aching and struggling person. Included in his Letters and Papers from Prison is a poem that acknowledges his inner struggle. The poem is entitled “Who Am I?”
Who am I? They often tell me
I step from my cell’s confinement
calmly, cheerfully, firmly,
like a squire from his country-house.
Who am I? They often tell me
I talk to my warders
freely and friendly and clearly,
as though it were mine to command.
Who am I? They also tell me
I bear the days of misfortune
equably, smilingly, proudly,
like one accustomed to win.Am I then really all that which others tell of?
Or am I only what I know of myself,
restless and longing and sick, like a bird in a cage,
struggling for breath, as though hands were compressing my throat,
yearning for colors, for flowers, for the voices of birds,
thirsting for words of kindness, for neighborliness,
tossing in expectation of great events,
powerlessly trembling for friends at an infinite distance,
weary and empty at praying, at thinking, at making,
faint, and ready to say farewell to it all?
Who am I? This or the other?
Am I one person today, and tomorrow another?
Am I both at once? A hypocrite before others,
and before myself a contemptible woebegone weakling?
Or is something within me still like a beaten army,
fleeing in disorder from victory already achieved?Who am I? They mock me, these lonely questions of mine.
Whoever I am, thou knowest, O God, I am thine.
When we recognize that faith is not static but rather involves growing in wisdom and in stature, we trust that the God whose love is made known to us in Christ Jesus—this God is ever with us, challenging, upholding, encouraging, supporting, prodding us to stretch and to grow. We are not alone. Nor are we on automatic pilot. The God who has formed us as marvelous beings, the God who makes all things new, even now empowers us to reach toward maturity, to set aside those things that hinder our walk with Christ, even as we put on the compassion and loving-kindness, the peace and the grace, the self-giving love and hope of Jesus. And through it all, whoever we are or whoever we become, thou knowest, O God, we are thine.
God of each of us and God of all of us, Creator of the earth and the ends of the universe, bow your ear to us now. We come before you, acknowledging our need for a power far beyond our own, our need for your gracious love and your comforting hand. In a world of deep division and pain, a world in which fear so frequently seems to gain the upper hand, a world in which fighting rages on in Iraq and elsewhere, we come seek your comfort and your grace, O God. Hear us now as individually we confess our fears and seen your presence….
O God who yearns for all your people to experience the power of forgiveness and new beginnings, open now our hearts to the gift of your forgiving grace that sets us free from self-centeredness and greed and a need to always be on top. Fill us instead with the heart of a servant, even as Christ Jesus came among us, not to be served, but to serve. In moments of silence, we express, O God, our yearning for your forgiving grace, that we might be freed to live anew….
God of healing, we remember those in special need of your healing mercies. We pray for…
May your empowering Spirit, O God, come among us, deepening our love.
God of peace, incline your ear to us as we pray for peace to become an ever-deepening reality in our hearts and in the world you have created. Forgive our warring madness, and grant us courage to be peacemakers, even as Jesus came to model a higher righteousness, the way of peace and compassion and self-giving love. May our eyes and ears and hearts be open to the Spirit of Christ at work this day. We pray with these yearnings deep in our hearts, confident of your love and grace. Amen.