Jesus!!! | a Sermon on Luke 2:41-52
A Sermon by the Reverend Mother Crystal J. Hardin for the people of St. George’s Episcopal Church on the Second Sunday after Christmas on Sunday, January 3, 2021.
Luke 2:41-52
This year more than any other, I sought solace in Christmas movies – some of which played on a steady repeat at our house, decking the halls of our COVID-tide Christmas.
There’s something about a good Christmas movie that gets the nostalgia stirring, pulling at the heart strings in all the right ways. The truly good ones ask questions about home: what is home? What does it mean to leave home? To come home? As they explore themes of redemption and reconciliation better than any sermon could. And they do it while putting on full display the messiness that is being human, so that even if you haven’t experienced the exact scenario playing out on the screen in front of you, well, it doesn’t matter. You’ve still been there, somehow.
Take Home Alone, arguably one of the best Christmas movies ever made (at least in my opinion).
Kevin Macalister, a precocious 8-year-old, is doing his best to get some attention in a house crawling with people. His family is already loud and large, and his extended family has also joined the fray, all bustling about the house making ready their bags for tomorrow’s big trip to Paris, where they will spend Christmas. Eventually, Kevin is sent to bed by his mother for bad behavior, in the attic of all places because the house is filled to the brim with people and stuff. Right before climbing the steps he looks his mother straight in the eye and wishes he never had to see his family again. The next morning, he wakes up alone, to a quiet house. I made my family disappear, he whispers, before breaking out into celebration. Hilarity, mess, and mischief ensue.
Things do get a bit more serious of course when a pair of robbers show up on the scene, bent on taking all they can from the Macalister’s picturesque neighborhood and doing in Kevin in the process. Don’t worry, and spoiler alert, Kevin gets the best of them in the end. And, his family does return, on Christmas morning as is appropriate, after his mother realizes mid-flight to Paris that they’ve left Kevin behind.
Today’s Gospel marks the first and last story about Jesus as a child, still dependent upon his immediate family, the Son of Mary and Joseph, and yet growing in awareness of what he is and what he will be: The Son of God.
Jesus is 12 years old, and the Holy Family has traveled to Jerusalem for the festival of the Passover, as is their custom. Everything has gone smoothly enough, one can imagine, until the journey back, when Mary realizes that Jesus is not with them. (Jesus!!) It’s no surprise that she panics and searches frantically for him. Jewish custom said that a boy became a man at the age of 12, but even back then no one would have seen Jesus as anything more than a boy, especially his own mother, who exclaims upon finding him: “Child, why have you treated us like this?”
There is an unspoken question, an unresolvable tension, behind Mary’s outburst. She is a mother, caretaker, of that which she cannot ultimately contain or control. That which will ask her to let go when she only wants to hold tighter. How can this be? And yet how could it be any other way?
It’s interesting how your perspective shifts over time, sometimes without even realizing it’s happening. When I was a child, I watched Home Alone because I was fascinated by the idea of a complete lack of parental supervision and felt a certain camaraderie with Kevin.
As he moved from room to room being largely ignored by his family, when he wasn’t getting in trouble for something, I thought, “Yup, being a kid is the worst.” When he complains, “nobody’ll let me do anything!” my head would bob in acknowledgement, “Ain’t that the truth,” I’d say to the tv.
Now, as I see my own children reacting with wide eyes and wild laughter to Kevin’s predicament, I find myself far more attuned to Kevin’s mother. She left her son at home, alone. He’s only eight. And, according to his sister anyway, he’s what the French call, “Les Incompetent,” unable even to pack his own suitcase. His mother’s panic is palpable –creating dis-ease within my own body as she takes desperate, and sometimes irrational, measures to get home to Kevin as quickly as possible.
When she pleads with the airline agent to just let her on the plane already, I get it, and every desperate word that follows: “I don’t care if I have to get on your runway and hitchhike. If it costs me everything I own. If I have to sell my soul to the devil himself, I am going to get home to my son.”
Sounds about right.
“Child, why have you treated us like this?” Why have you done this to us? What has happened to that little boy of just a few Sundays ago?
How must Mary and Joseph have felt upon finding Jesus, sitting in the Temple amongst the teachers, completely unbothered and seemingly oblivious to their concerns. Did Mary do a double take, trying to reconcile the young man in front of her with the baby, “wrapped in bands of cloth and lying in a manger.” Did she fight off visions of where it all might end up, hearing echoes of Simeon’s prophecy about her child’s destiny? Did she wonder about the day when she would lose Jesus, when she would let him go for the last time, and not by accident?
Today’s Gospel is a story of growth, but it’s not just about Jesus’ maturation from infant, to youth, to man. It’s just as much about Mary and Joseph, their growth. Me and you, and our growth. One commentator suggests that:
“Growing up is not about how old we are ultimately. It is really about moving into deeper and more authentic relationships with God, our world, each other, and ourselves. It is Jesus, here in this story certainly, but also in our lives who grows us up. He is the one who will grow up Mary and Joseph. Children have a way of doing that to the adults in their life. They challenge us to look at our world, our lives, and ourselves, in new, different, and sometimes painful ways.” [1]
“Why have you treated us like this?”
Mary’s question, entirely relatable, is ultimately about her; as if Jesus’ actions were about her, rather than about him. And isn’t this a pretty honest depiction of parenthood, of personhood. Our tendency to take it personally; to define ourselves by our relationships with others; to believe that the actions of someone else have everything to do with us? That our children, yes, but also our spouses, family, friends, all orbit us; belong to us; act as extensions of us. That even Jesus himself has righted or wronged us, depending on the circumstances.
The Holy Family, as it turns out, faced the truth that we all must face: Our children are not our children; our children belong to Someone else. And so do we.
“Why were you searching for me?” Jesus asks. “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” Jesus, it seems, was never lost, but only home. With this question, he reminds Mary of who he is, who she was told he would be.
In moving from Mary and Joseph’s home to his Father’s home, Jesus doesn’t reject his earthly parents (and by extension he doesn’t reject us; his earthly family). He doesn’t close the door; instead, he holds it open, beckoning Mary and Joseph, beckoning all of us. “Follow me,” he invites. Follow me to my Father’s house, where you will find your true identity. Make your life about him, and everything will fall into its proper place. Come home.
On Christmas morning, Kevin’s mother enters her house. All is calm; all is bright. A little tree stands decorated in the corner. The families’ stockings are hung by the fire. All is right. The son who could not even pack his suitcase has survived, has grown up a bit, or maybe was always more capable than she gave him credit for.
On Christmas morning, Kevin rushes down the stairs to find no immediate signs of life other than his own. And, just as his face begins to fall, behind him there is a gasp, his mother’s, and Kevin’s eyes go wide with hopeful anticipation. He turns and looks and there is a moment where you wonder how this is going to go down. Will he forgive her for leaving him? Will she forgive him for being such a pain? Kevin is not the same child she left; but neither is she the same parent.
There’s a moment, and an apology, and then Kevin, the Son who wished fervently to be alone, rushes into the arms of his mother: home, at last.
[1] Michael K. Marsh, “Growing Up and Moving Home: A Sermon on Luke 2:21-52, on Interrupting the Silence, January 3, 2011, https://interruptingthesilence.com/2011/01/03/growing-up-and-moving-home-a-sermon-on-luke-241-52. Marsh has several reflections on this passage, which were thought-provoking and helpful in the writing of this sermon.
