UCC Church of Charlotte

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I Samuel 2: 26
Colossians 3:12-16
Luke 2:41-52
Growing In Wisdom (Christ’s Peace)
This has been a tough year for most people, especially in Michigan. It’s hard to be proud of our state “Being #1” when the subject is our unemployment rate, or housing foreclosures, corporate bankruptcies, % of young people planning to move out of state, or similar statistics. However, there are more positive ways to view our current predicament: the national and world economic situation appears to be better than during the Great Depression of the 1930’s, Michigan is taking steps to diversify our economy, and many agencies in Charlotte are working very hard to help create some kind of a safety net to help people in dire circumstances. Sure the politicians have not had brilliant diplomatic success yet in creating plans for improving health insurance, helping college students or public school systems, or creating peace & justice around the world. Problems will remain as we go into the New Year, and people are feeling stressed-out by the struggle to survive.
So, as people of faith, what can we learn from scripture this morning to help us cope most effectively with our challenges? What can we do as a congregation to support each other? Are there insights we can use as we celebrate the end of 2009? I believe there are some wonderful lessons for us in the three passages Katherine shared with us today.
Samuel lived in a time of social unrest and oppression, and his family had been struggling. You see, his dad had two wives, and Samuel’s mom had been trying unsuccessfully to get pregnant; the other wife had several sons and daughters, but she was jealous of Samuel’s mom, because Samuel’s dad clearly loved her more. The other wife made Samuel’s mom so upset that she couldn’t eat, and eventually she prayed to God that if she would get pregnant, she would give the child to the Lord. When she actually did have a child, she took the toddler to go live permanently at the Temple, and only saw him very briefly at their annual pilgrimage to offer a sacrifice. The child, Samuel, grew up to become the great prophet who anointed the first kings of Israel, Saul, and then David. But as a child, he was serving the chief priest, Eli, and sleeping in the Temple by the Ark of the Covenant. The problem was not with the priest Eli, it was his two sons, who were totally corrupt, and exploited all of the people who came to worship and offer sacrifices. But in the midst of this context of family strife and Temple corruption, young Samuel , “was growing in worth in the estimation of the Lord and of men.”
Then we have the wonderful story from Luke, of Jesus around the age that we would now think of as time for his bar mitzvah. After the annual pilgrimage to Jerusalem for the Passover, Mary & Joseph packed their things and left with all their neighbors from Galilee to head back home. Since neither twelve year boys nor their parents have changed much over the millennia, it took a full days’ journey before Mary & Joseph realized that Jesus really was not with his buddies in the crowd of people heading back home. So, they retrace their steps, one day back, up the mountain to Jerusalem, and then start searching the entire city. Luke does not provide any quotes of Mary’s comments to Joseph, but just says that on the third day they found him, and they had been searching for him in sorrow.
I guess we probably don’t need any more details about how they were feeling.
I’d say that when Joseph & Mary left their friends from Galilee to try to find Jesus in the city, their stress level was pretty well maxed-out. Probably weren’t sleeping too well at night. Probably having trouble staying positive. Really could have used another visit from those angels who said “Be not afraid.” And then, to top it all, that climactic scene of Mary & Jesus!!! “Why have you done this to us, son? Your father & I have been searching for you in sorrow.”
{Insert reference to “Avatar”, Air-bender.}
Jesus, of course, doesn’t seem to quite relate to what all the fuss was about, as his experience was more about having fun sharing ideas with these really cool guys he’d met at the Temple! See, back in their hometown, there were some reasonably intelligent teachers who had studied the Torah & the Prophets, but now in Jerusalem, it was like hearing the speakers at General Synod last summer in Grand Rapids! It was like having lunch with Prof. Walter Bruggeman, well, OK, maybe if you are Pastor Phil! Jesus was excited about all the questions, ideas, & insights he was hearing, and wasn’t really thinking about returning to Nazareth. But, when the family had been reunited, they seem to have not wasted a lot of negative energy on being angry, but fell back into their pattern of living with their reality of having an apparently gifted child, who still needed to learn the basics of how people learn to live together.
And how are we to learn about how God wants our lives to be in balance? In St. Paul’s letter to the Colossians, he lists the virtues that we have been given to bring us into God’s Kingdom. “Let the Word of Christ, dwell in you. In wisdom made perfect, instruct one another.” What is this wisdom? ~ Judge yourselves and others with mercy, with kindness, with patience. Forgive as the Lord has forgiven you. And over all the virtues, love binds the rest of them together and makes them perfect.
Not too hard of a concept, but usually we allow ourselves to be distracted by our fears, we distort our sense of who we are by over-reacting to guilt & shame, and we worry about the competition. Not a very healthy way to live, really. So how do we make that jump from blaming ourselves or others for the past and worrying about the future, to, “clothing ourselves with heartfelt mercy.” It changes how we pray and how we treat our most important relationships. But it does take some effort to recognize when we are caught-up in the sins of the world, and what we need to do differently to have that peace of Christ ruling our hearts. Paul’s advice to us is to direct our efforts to, “Dedicate yourselves to Thankfulness.”
So, today, as we prepare for the end of 2009, some folks make a list of things they want to do, New Year’s Resolutions. Often these lists come from feeling we have fallen short of who we could be. Often we set goals that will be rather difficult to attain. Instead, what if we didn’t put our energy into trying to push ourselves harder, compete more intensely, and worry more about how we are not OK, and no else is either? The option we have this New Year’s Eve is to practice these virtues from Colossians 3: 12-16. We may have the option of spending some time with an elderly person with dementia who doesn’t worry much about the past or the future, or a young child, who is also able to enjoy people for who they are, and accept people and situations. But can we live as responsible adults and also incorporate these insights of living in the here & now?
Jean Vanier, a former naval commander and founder of a community called L’Arche, feels that one of the challenges for us to really become human, is for us to understand the question of how we react to pain. Too often we have a hard time honestly facing our own pain or the pain of others, and instead we try to hide suffering, to live in denial. Reacting out of fear and denial generally increases our fear of whatever pain we are trying to avoid. Facing our fears and facing pain honestly makes us much more aware of our need for more mercy, more kindness in how we treat ourselves and each other. So, this year our New Year’s Resolutions may be a little different. We don’t have to worry about the Y2K bug closing down all the computers, like people worried about ten years ago. It seems we don’t have to worry about the eminent collapse of our national economy like people were thinking last year. The amazing thing about taking some Sabbath time to reflect, to breathe, to ponder life’s paradoxes in wonder, is that we do hear God’s voice! We do gain a healthier perspective, instead of just reacting blindly and assuming we always have our priorities straight. This year we can grow in wisdom and experience Christ’s peace in our lives by facing our pain, accepting the reality of life’s challenges, and dedicating ourselves to Thankfulness.
Maybe the most important thing is not so much about tying harder to do more, but rather our challenge is to learn how to live in kindness, humility, and compassion. Thanks be to God, Amen.