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Here we are: it’s first Sunday after Christmas and the last Sunday
of 2009. Advent’s anticipation has brought us to the festival of
birth, and quickly now comes the growth.
As the old year fades and new possibilities loom in all our lives,
let’s look back to see, perhaps, the hand of God at work. For we’ve
walked this ground before, most of us; and we know that the trail
ahead may look much like the way we’ve just walked.
Before turning to a new year, let’s consider a few of the memorable
moments of 2009:
Last January, Captain “Sully” Sullenbarger miraculously landed his
disable US Airways jet on the Hudson, and less than a week later an
African-American landed, for the first time ever, in the White
House.
We spent the money to rescue banks, and we continue to fight about
medical spending and how best to manage national health care.
The South Carolina governor redefined “soul mate,” and a SC
congressman defined political crassness by shouting at the president
during the State of the Union address.
Iranian elections seemed as tainted as those, earlier, in
Afghanistan, and the Middle East continued to distract us from
atrocities in Darfur and elsewhere in Africa.
Sarah Palin abruptly resigned from Alaskan politics in favor of a
national book tour, and, perhaps, some other agenda.
Sonia Sotomayor was confirmed as the first Hispanic to sit on the
Supreme Court.
The president spent political capital by announcing additional
troops and financial investment in Afghanistan, and by fighting for
health care reform.
Our culture said final goodbyes to these notable figures who died
during the year: Michael Jackson, Ted Kennedy, Farrah Fawcett,
Walter Cronkite, John Updike, Frank McCourt, Oral Roberts, Ed
McMahon. We said final goodbye to Vinnie Stabile, Heidi Sasaki, Olga
Burgett, among others.
More could be said, of course, about other notable events of 2009. I
simply hope to remind us of life’s inevitable change. Transitions
mark growth, and days gather into months that add eventually to
years and decades. All of us know this, of course, and for none of
us are the transitions more remarkable than for us who are parents.
We watch as children grow so quickly to adults, often with children
of their own.
It seems so for Mary and Joseph, whom we left just a couple of days
ago in the warmth of the stable holding their son up to the worship
of the shepherds and the imponderable gaze of donkey, sheep and
goats. We don’t know what any of them thought, really, though as new
parents Mary and Joseph surely must have felt like new parents
through the generations: exhausted and joyous, overwhelmed and
ecstatic.
The days, weeks, and years that follow apparently were unremarkable,
for to our lasting frustration, none of the gospels whisper a word
about Jesus’ early childhood. We’re left with assumptions and
projections, but little else. Some of us have had a glimpse of
children in poverty; we remember the children of Carlos Fonseca,
Nicaragua or even those living at the garbage dump outside of Leon.
But still we are projecting backward, to a time where we only have
guesses of dust and disease and determination, but smiles
nonetheless. Jesus’ life, we suspect, is just an ordinary life, like
that of most of the world through most of history.
But Luke gives us the lesson for today, drawing back the veil a bit
to see the boy Jesus at 12, nearly ready for his bar-mitzvah, in the
eyes of the community almost a man.
It’s such a prescient scene that we find it hard not to believe that
Luke tells it this way to make just the point: even when still a
child, Jesus confounds the leaders whom later his teaching will
confront. At the same time, his presence in the temple affirms his
life-long Jewish identity. Most notably, the cast of characters here
gathered will assemble again in this holy city, Jerusalem, in the
days leading to Jesus’ death. There will be more questioning in the
temple, as some of these very teacher and leaders put Jesus on trial
for his life. Even though Luke’s gospel is intentionally written
with a much more appreciation for gentile Christians, Luke always
affirms the Jewish community in which Jesus lives, grows, and dies.
This is a family drama, and, for Luke, the family is a big one.
In fact, that’s the point of the story, I think: the family of faith
is large and wide. Luke is telling us that Jesus, from an early age,
discerned his family as including more than Mary, Joseph and any
possible siblings. One example of how Luke sees this expansive
family is the way he plays with the word, “father.” Having lost
Jesus on the journey home, his parents return to Jerusalem in a
panic. When they find him, is mother complains, “Look, your father
and I have been searching for you….” Here I am, Jesus says, “in my
Father’s house.” (Luke 2:48 and 49) Luke knows, and we know, the
expansive irony of this exchange. This God whom Jesus claims as
“Father” is the same God whom Jesus invites his followers to claim
similarly as he teaches them to pray, “Our father….”
As we will discover through this coming year as we read passages
from the gospel of Luke, he expands the boundaries of God’s love.
For Luke, there’s wideness to God’s love, and an expansive quality
to God’s inclusion. Everyone is invited; it seems, to the table set
by Luke. And this hospitality, Luke might tell us, is not his
creation. The expansive quality of the gospel, Luke would have us
know, is born in the generous qualities he and his church find in
Jesus.
So we go into the New Year knowing that the God who shepherded Jesus
through his childhood’s transitions will shepherd us though the
inevitable transitions of our days, too. We conclude a year of
changes in our family knowing that the God who watches as every
child develops has been watching us, even guiding us, as well. We
enter a season of uncertainties in the world around us full of
confidence in the God who comes to us faithfully and often.
For myself, I’ve seen God’s hand in my own life’s transitions in the
past year. When my son was married this past February, God was with
him and with all of us. When we said farewell to Jennifer this past
June, God was with her and with us. As we welcomed Sabrina and
Marvin to our community, God has blessed us and guided us. As we
followed the Spirit’s guidance in continuing our process of
renovation in the face of financially uncertain times, God has been
with us and blessed us.
In the year just passed we’ve witnessed God’s grace and goodness,
each of us from our uniquely different perspectives. So we enter the
future hopefully, confident of the skills and the strength God has
given us; but we also walk securely in the knowledge that we live
not for ourselves alone, but in the grace and goodness of the One
who gives us breath, and whose Spirit sustains us in every journey.
We walk into these days trusting the very God who has brought us
here. “’Tis grace hath brought us safe thus far, and grace will lead
us home.”
Amen.
Mamaroneck United Methodist, December 27, 2009.
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