Sermon, Christmas I
SERMON
at
Christ Church, Watertown, Connecticut
Christmas I
December 27, 2009
by
The Rev. Stanley C. Kemmerer, AHC
Do your kids ever have you tearing your hair? Do you wonder if they’ll ever “turn out all right?” Do you ever wonder how you measure up as a parent?
Do your parents not understand you? Do you wonder if they’ll ever “get it”? Do you wonder if you’ll ever be able to please them?
Then this Sunday’s for you! Some call it Holy Family Sunday because of the subject matter. Whatever you want to call it, the lessons don’t fit neatly the “family values” theme:
The hero of the Lesson from the Hebrew Scriptures, Samuel, is, arguably, not in what your neighborhood social worker would regard as an ideal situation. He’s in the Temple, yes, and with a holy man, yes. But the holy man is old and, judging by how his kids, Hophni and Phineas turned out, anything but a great success as a parent himself.
These kids are so bad that Yahweh God feels He has to break His promise to their tribe (They were Levites.) that they would be Israel’s priesthood, and install Samuel instead. Talk about corruption: It was customary for worshippers to bring meat sacrifices to the Temple. Eli’s sons made it a practice to help themselves to these sacrifices, intended for Yahweh God alone. As if that weren’t enough, they abused their positions to sleep with the women serving in the Temple, both practices being major abominations.
Some would criticize Hannah and Elkanah, Samuel’s parents. They visit him once a year, when they’re in Jerusalem for the annual pilgrimage anyway, and they bring him a robe. “Thanks, Folks!”
Then there’s the situation described in the Gospel: Mary and Joseph leave Jersualem to go back home. It’s a full day later when they miss the kid. They assumed he was somewhere in the caravan, with the relatives, but it’s not as if they stayed close! So they panic, head back to Jerusalem, find him, and they who, in our society, would be before DCF, accused with child abandonment and neglect, chew him out for not telling them! Does he apologize? No-o-o! He smarts off: “You shoulda known I’d be in my Father’s house…”
On the other hand we can note:
What these lessons tell us is that these families are like ours; they had no fewer challenges than we face. They show us a Jesus who, though Very God, was, equally, Very Man.
They show us important biblical figures growing up, as our children do, under multiple influences. Samuel has the influence of his family, of Eli, his mentor, and the somewhat less desireable behaviors of Hophni and Phineas, Eli’s sons. Jesus has the influence of Mary and Joseph but also that of the Temple.
We may regret these other influences if we feel they will lead our children astray. We may fear them. Or we may welcome them. Other influences may bring change we’d prayed for but seemed unable to effect These Scriptures may remove a burden from our shoulders. Or lessen its weight.
They remind us our children are God’s gift to us and not ours alone. They are given us for a purpose. It was in the Temple that Samuel became aware of his special mission. Jesus refers to the Temple, not his home, as his “Father’s” house, suggesting he regards his primary relationship as being with his heavenly
Father, not Joseph, his earthly stepfather.
Interestingly, in our own way, we acknowledge a similar reality in the baptismal liturgy. Parents hand over their child to the priest, just as Hannah and Elkanah handed Samuel over to Eli and as Jesus handed himself over to the priests in the Temple.
After the baptism with water, the priest, using oil blessed by the bishop specifically for baptism, signs the cross with that oil on the forehead of the newly baptized person, saying he is “sealed” and is now, “Christ’s own forever.” We speak those words. Do we realize their import? It’s worth pondering.
Because, as Samuel’s and Jesus’s did, vocations evolve, often over lifetimes. And, as they do, they often cause stresses in family relationships, probably codified in the comment “You’ve changed,” said with just that inflection, much as Jesus’ episode in the Temple caused his family stress.
We might ask ourselves in the light of these readings how ready we are for these evolutions and the stresses they cause. Our children’s evolutions. Our parents’. Our own.
Jesus’ response to his parents suggests we might step outside the usual parental role of teacher once in awhile and consider whether our children have that role to play for us as well. Can we accept them in it? Especially if we have become older, even elderly, and now it is their concern for our increasing frailty and perhaps even childishenss? that places them in the teacher role.
Can we listen to and honor the voice of our own inner child, reminding us of our “musts,” just as Jesus asks his parents, “Did you not know I ‘must’ be in my Father’s house and about my Father’s business?” It is these “musts,” these drives in ourselves, that often suggest our callings, our identities.
These scriptures offer us a location for growth, personal and religious, the Temple. Like Jesus and Samuel, it is often here that we learn our identity, our mission. It is here that our fellow Christians keep us honest and that we may assist in keeping them honest in the Faith: As we receive instruction, experience community, minister to one another and to the world, developing the programs to do so, in His Name, and, thereby, do our part in bringing in the Kingdom. It was in the Temple that others saw in Jesus things his parents did not. It may be here that others see in us things our families have not, and we see in others things their families have not.
These scriptures give hope to us in our families today. The Savior of the world did not grow up in a picture perfect family situation. He had his moments as a “piece of work.” His parents didn’t always know what to do with him. And he didn’t necessarily know what to do with them either! Might one of our difficult children be either the Second Coming or one of its angelic messengers???