What Are You
Getting Me For Christmas?
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 24, 1994
Memory Verse: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us)." (Matthew 1:23)
Tonight's Texts: Matthew 1:18-25 and Matthew 2:1-12
Opening Prayer: O come, O come, Emmanuel. O come, thou Dayspring, come and cheer our spirits by thine advent here. Disperse the gloomy clouds of night, and death dark's shadows put to flight. Rejoice! Rejoice! Emmanuel Shall come to thee, O Israel! Amen.
I'm not sure how old I was when I discovered it, certainly not before the fifth grade, and I discovered it quite by accident, but there was a place, in the back corner of their closet, where my parents used to hide certain Christmas presents. Now these presents, as it turned out, were usually the best presents of all. They didn't want these presents sitting under the tree, wrapped and tagged, for me to shake or feel or size or somehow calculate just what they might contain. These were the presents I'd been asking for, the presents I really wanted, the presents I wouldn't (or shouldn't) get unless I had been especially good that year or they were feeling especially generous.
But one day, as I've said, I went in to the closet to fetch and, lo and behold, on the top shelf in the corner, I spied the apple of my eye. I mean it was just sitting there, exactly what I wanted, the very thing that would inevitably prompt a "We'll see" response any time I asked about it. I was getting it for Christmas! What more could a kid ask for? It was like a dream come true. I was so excited. And I couldn't tell a soul.
I knew what I was getting for Christmas. I wasn't supposed to know, but I knew. And Christmas was still two weeks away. For two weeks I had to pretend as though I didn't know a thing. I had to ask and beg just as often and just as earnestly as though I had never seen anything at all. Otherwise they might suspect I'd been snooping around in their closet. And that could lead to something worse than getting no presents at all.
Needless to say my next two weeks were pretty well shot. I spent so much time calculating my every move, and sneaking a look every so often just to be sure the present was still there, that I lost the joy of expectation and spontaneity which make Christmas such a special time of year. I also felt like a criminal, practicing pre-pubescent voyeurism. By the time Christmas finally rolled around, the present that I had pined for didn't seem so special after all. I had, quite unwittingly, spoiled my own Christmas. Even though I got what I wanted, it just wasn't the same.
"What are you getting me for Christmas?" That's a question I've learned not to ask. Knowing the answer kind of spoils the whole thing. It can even make you miss the joy of Christmas altogether.
Knowing the answer to that question was King Herod's problem. When the Magi from the east came to Jerusalem, they asked, "Where is the child who has been born king of the Jews?" As soon as Herod heard the word "king" he went scurrying to his parent's closet. He called together the chief priests and the scribes and inquired of them where the Messiah was to be born. They searched the sacred writings until they found, on the top shelf in the corner, the stories about an anointed one of God who would set his people free. Born in Bethlehem, was all Herod needed to hear. He knew exactly what he was getting for Christmas.
Unfortunately, Herod's expectations spoiled the whole affair. And he certainly took no joy. A child born king of the Jews? The anointed one of God? That could mean one thing, and one thing only: a political and economic rival. And Herod was obsessed with the elimination of his rivals; he had already murdered several members of his own family, including his three sons, for the same reason. He knew what he was getting for Christmas. And he didn't like it. So he told the Magi to find the boy and bring word back as to where he could be found. Herod was hell-bent on destruction.
What are you getting me for Christmas? Our expectations can really get in the way. I used to have a problem with expectations on my birthdays. If I wanted something I would start dropping hints, obscure, subtle hints, expecting Megan to figure it out along the way. When my birthday finally came, if I didn't get what I wanted, just the way I wanted it, I would pout and be disappointed. No matter how hard Megan had worked, it wasn't good enough -- because it didn't meet my expectations. As you can tell, I've had to learn some things the hard way.
In stark contrast to the story of King Herod, whose expectations about the Messiah caused him to miss the blessed event altogether, the story of Joseph reveals a man whose openness was no less miraculous than the blessed event itself. Joseph had done everything decently and in order. The marriage had been arranged and he was engaged to a woman he thought to be a virgin. Until one day she shows up pregnant, with somebody else's baby. 2,000 years ago that went down even harder than it does today. So he decided to dismiss her quietly until an angel of the Lord appeared to him in a dream, saying, "Joseph, do not be afraid, for the child conceived in her is from the Holy Spirit."
That must have been some dream. Joseph's expectations were shattered. Everything he knew about life and took for granted was turned on its head, stood upside down, pulled inside out. He could have been stubborn, like Herod, and gone on to dismiss her anyway. He could have chosen to ignore the dream. But instead he opened himself up to the movement of God's Spirit. "The Word became flesh and dwelt among us, full of grace and truth." (John 1:14).
It was scandalous, really. No less so than the cross. A baby? Born in a manger? To an unsuspecting teenager? Surely God could do better than that. Why not ride in, fully formed, like a knight in shining armor? Why not burst on the scene, lightning bolts flashing, to show the Herod's of this world a thing or two? Why not fulfill all those ancient lies about God as a vengeful, angry, tyrannical, cosmic killjoy?
But Joseph didn't let his expectations get in the way. And when he awoke from sleep, he did as the angel of the Lord commanded him; he took her as his wife.
In whose image will you be made this Christmas Eve? King Herod's -- fussing and fuming on the basis of your expectations. Holding them tight, refusing to let go, lashing out in whatever direction you feel threatened. Or Joseph's, the son Jacob -- allowing God to shake things up without bitterness or complaint. Accepting the things we cannot change, even if God chooses to shatter our neat and tidy boxes with ignominious births and ignominious deaths.
"Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us)." (Matthew 1:23) How could God do that? How could the Author of the Universe, the unspeakable and the unknowable, the transcendent and the totally other, sink so low as to dwell in a particular space and time? For some, the mere thought of it diminishes God. For others, who do not believe in God, it is the ultimate absurdity. But for those of us gathered here tonight, it holds out the hope that a dream as old as time might yet be true.
Emmanuel. God with us. Not off there, all alone, in some infinite untouchability. But right here. Childlike. Vulnerable. Accessible. Born in a manger, and wrapped in swaddling cloths. Defying expectation and sensibility. Stirring up the haunting dream that the child who was born that day for the salvation of the world may yet be born again, even in us.
That, in the end, is what keeps the hope of Christmas alive, year after year, in a world notorious for dashing all hope. We bemoan the commercialism and "hurry, hurry" of the season, but deep down there's something wonderful going on. As the canned carols blast out over shopping center blacktops, as the corp of Salvation Army workers ring their bells and the street-corner Santas shout "Ho, ho, ho!", there is at the heart of all the hullabaloo a silence that holds out the hope of eternity.
"For unto us, this day, a child is born, a son is given, and he shall be called Wonderful Counselor, Mighty God, Everlasting Father, Prince of Peace." (Isaiah 9) Amen.
A Miraculous Birth
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
December 25, 1994
Memory Verse: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us)." (Matthew 1:23)
Tonight's Texts: Isaiah 62:6-12 and Luke 2:1-20
Opening Prayer: Lord, we come to you this Christmas Day filled with the sights and sounds of Bethlehem. This is no greeting card, but the gathering of your people. Come to us today even as you came so long ago, that we too might live anew. Amen.
I don't know exactly what presents you unwrapped this morning, or what presents some of you will leave this place with later today, but chances are they reflect the growing technological revolution that is sweeping the globe. The burgeoning number of electronic warehouses is but the tip of the iceberg. Everywhere we look the promise of "technotopia" flashes before our eyes.
"There is no denying," writes Carlson and Goldman, "that the 1990s are seeing the fastest technological change in history, and that these changes are having profound effects on our world. Telecommunications are expanding our reach, knitting together cultures, and shrinking our planet. New materials will mean lighter, stronger products, ever-greater energy efficiencies, and expanded habitats. Biotechnology will give us undreamed-of power over our environment, our bodies, and even our heredity."
The microprocessor is driving the pace of change. "Consider the contrast between the key technology of the nineteenth century, the steam engine, and the key technology of the late twentieth century, the small computer. It took about fifty years to make the steam engine, invented in the mid-1700s, workable and efficient. It took even more time -- until early in this century -- before this technology saw worldwide use.
The microprocessor, on the other hand, was developed in the early 1970s. By the early 1980s, microprocessors were residing in small, easy-to-use personal computers. By the early 1990s, the small computer had become an internationally available commodity, like soybeans or sulfur." (Richard Carlson & Bruce Goldman, Fast Forward: Where Technology, Demographics, and History Will Take America and the World in the Next Thirty Years, HarperBusiness, 1994).
Excuse me, but my electronic organizer seems to be going off. Let me see. 11:24 Sermon Illustration. In the palm of my hand, for less than $100, I now hold more computer power than the larger personal computers that sat on people's desktops just 12 years ago. 128 kilobytes of memory. Calendar. Schedule. Phone Book. Calculator. Expense Journal. Memo Pad. It will even remind me of my wife's birthday, one week before the event. Now that's what I call a handy little item.
A recent PBS series entitled "The Shrinking World" focused on these very trends. At one point they showed a grass hut with a mud floor in Africa. The camera followed a line of grass skirted men, barefooted, entering the hut, laying long spears against the roof as they entered. Inside was a computer with a FAX machine. Tribal elders were keeping tabs on their stock investments in Switzerland. The series presented one story like this after another. When the Communist block was falling apart, it was computers and FAX machines that kept open the lines of communication.
First Church has had its own close encounters of the electronic kind. In the past year we became networked with the world. Our electronic mail box has started to get so much use from church members that we've gone to checking it daily. Technology marches on, and the church has little choice but to use it or die.
The challenge, of course, is to keep technology in its proper place. To use it, as a tool, rather than to allow it to use you, as an idol. The citizens of Babel had to learn that the hard way. They built a great Tower, the tallest building in the world, and they became so impressed with themselves that they started singing songs proclaiming glory to humanity in the highest. The cognitive elite were tempted to think that they were building a brave new world of their own devising. In the Old Testament, this idolatry led to babbling confusion and the destruction of human community. In the New Testament, it led to the birth of Jesus Christ, when Augustus ruled over the Roman Empire.
Caius Julius Caesar Octavianus Augustus was quite a guy. Born September 23, 63 B.C. to aristocratic parents and later adopted as son and heir by none other than Julius Caesar, Augustus was probably the most popular of all the Roman emperors. Around the time Jesus was born, Augustus' friends threw a big birthday party for him at which they unveiled a statue containing the inscription, "The birthday of the god was the beginning of the good news to the world on his account." The god they were talking about was Augustus himself. Nearly everyone, rich and poor alike, thought well of him. He did so much to unify the empire and bring peace and prosperity that some people even called him savior.
Augustus had it all. Popularity. Prestige. Power. Perks. Position. There was no one in the ancient world with more wealth, more technology, and more influence. He ruled over the acme of the empire. The opinion polls were running at all time highs.
It would have come as no surprise, then, for Augustus and his wife to be visited by an angel with news about the birth of a son, who would be called the Great One, Son of the Most High. They could have provided for him properly. They could have built a mansion, on the sprawling edge of suburban Rome, with every convenience known to the ancient world. The baby would have had a 24-karat gold layette set and silk sleepers, the best education money could buy, and an inside track on the seat of power, from which he could really influence the world for good.
But the angel, we are told, didn't buy the idolatry of Caesar Augustus. He was, shall we say, unimpressed. Instead, the angel Gabriel went to Mary, an unknown girl, in an unknown village, of unknown descent. An unwed teenager, engaged to a man whose name was Joseph, of the house of David. The angel appeared with greetings and promises of God's favor. "Do not be afraid. You will conceive in your womb and bear a son, and you will name him Jesus. He will be great, and will be called Son of the Most High." Mary was understandably perplexed. "How can this be, since I am a virgin?" Mary asked. The angel replied, "The Holy Spirit will come upon you; therefore, the child to be born will be holy."
When Augustus, in all his royal splendor, issued a degree that all the world should be registered, Joseph went from Nazareth to Bethlehem with Mary, who was great with child. While they were there, the time came for her to deliver her child and she gave birth to her firstborn son and wrapped him in bands of cloth, and laid him in a manger, because there was no place for them in the inn.
Now in that region there were shepherds living in the fields, low-life, unwashed, sleeping on the ground, cooking over a campfire forever. Wood smoke, sweat, and the smell of sheep all mixed together. Uneducated, illiterate, suspicious characters that made decent people uncomfortable. Shepherd were societal outcasts. Pious Jews were forbidden to buy meat or milk from a shepherd. They were hirelings, migrant workers, who couldn't be trusted as far as you could throw them. They were known for killing and selling the sheep, pocketing the money, and telling the owners the sheep had been killed by a wild beast or falling into a ravine. They were scoundrels, riffraff, scum.
But it was to them whose fortune it was to first hear about the birth of our Lord. As they watched over the flocks by night, an angel of the Lord stood before them, and the glory of the Lord shone around them, not to clean them up, not to set them straight, but to announce that in Bethlehem, lying in a manger, there was a child wrapped in bands of cloth who was Christ the Lord. So the shepherds went to see this thing that had taken place, and they found Mary and Joseph and the child just as the angel had told them.
What a contrast between the courts of Caesar Augustus and the manger of Bethlehem! The locus of power and the focus of contempt. The Christmas story endures as a Galilean tableau, coming down through the corridors of time, to caution and counsel against pinning our hopes on anything other than God.
The fact is, neither technology nor technocrats will be able to save us. The tools, and those who use them, to build our world will build nothing but an abomination if we overlook the message of Christmas. God does not come to us in electronic organizers and microprocessors. God does not come to us in the pretentious promulgations of Caesar Augustus or Capital Hill. God comes to us in the least of these our sisters and brothers, and whatsoever we do unto them we do unto us.
That message is no less jarring, no less relevant, and no less poignant today than it was 2,000 years ago. It was a miracle then, and it is a miracle now. The One who could choose to come to anyone, at any time, in any place has chosen Bethlehem on Broad Street.
"Christmas comes," writes Ann Weems, "every time we see God in other persons.
The human and the holy meet in Bethlehem, or in Times Square,
for Christmas comes like a golden storm on its way to Jerusalem -- determinedly, inevitably....
Even now it comes in the face of hatred and warring -- no atrocity too terrible to stop it,
no Herod strong enough, no hurt deep enough, no curse shocking enough, no disaster shattering enough.
For someone on earth will see the star, someone will hear the angel voices,
someone will run to Bethlehem, someone will know peace and goodwill: the Christ will be born!" Amen.
(Kneeling in Bethlehem, Westminster, 1993)
A Miraculous Wisdom
The First Congregational Church
United Church of Christ
Columbus, Ohio
January 1, 1995
Memory Verse: "Behold, a virgin shall conceive and bear a son, and his name shall be called Emmanuel (which means God with us)." (Matthew 1:23)
Tonight's Texts: 1 Samuel 2:18-20, 26 and Luke 2:41-52
Opening Prayer: O Lord, Wisdom of the Ages and Spirit of the Peoples, make this a New Year's Day worth remembering. Speak to us, on this day, your word. Draw to us, on this day, your love. Call to us, on this day, your peace. Amen.
I'm sure it will come as a surprise to some of you, but the outer limits of the Christian Bible are not as fixed or as settled as one might suspect. When you walk in to a book store to purchase a Bible, you better know what you want, because different Bibles include different books in different orders.
The major books of the Old Testament canon were more or less set already by the time of Jesus. During the 200 years immediately prior to Jesus' time, there had been a Greek translation made, known as the Septuagint, which introduced some new books that were eventually thrown out by the rabbinic Synod of Jamnia in 90 A.D. These books, commonly called the Apocrypha, are not in Protestant Bibles today, but they are in the Bibles at St. Joseph Cathedral down the street. There is a difference between Protestant and Catholic Bibles.
The New Testament had a similar, albeit shorter, evolution. It was written in Greek during the first hundred years after Jesus' death and resurrection. Many more books were written about Jesus than those that actually ended up being included in the New Testament canon. By the middle of the second century A.D. people had already started to argue about which books were, or were not, authentic. By the end of the fourth century the dust had pretty well settled, leaving a 27 book New Testament, although some branches of the Syriac church have never recognized more than 22 books. There is a difference between Western and Eastern Bibles.
As you can see, to quote Brevard Childs, "the exact nature of the Christian Bible both in respect to its scope and text remains undecided up to this day." (Biblical Theology of the Old and New Testaments, Fortress Press, 1992). Every so often a new Gospel or a new Acts or a new Epistle or a new Apocalypse will come to light from the ancient world, and controversy will swirl once again. Is it authentic? Does it tell us new things about Jesus that we did not know before? Should it, in some sense, have made its way into the Bible?
Inevitably, the discovery of a new text will lead to the founding of a new order devoted to the promulgation of this new wisdom. For Christmas, for example, my sister-in-law gave me The Essene Gospel of Peace being a three-volume set published by the International Biogenic Society as the true (and heretofore lost) teachings of Jesus. These books represent only the tip of the iceberg of books about Jesus that did not make it into the Bible. With Jesus fever sweeping through the early centuries of the first millennium, there was a tremendous demand for new and ever more fantastic stories about this crucified God.
One area that particularly lent itself to the exercise of creative imagination was the infancy and childhood of Jesus. Early on, stories began to circulate that sound not unlike our 20th century stories about the infancy and childhood of Superman. In these stories Jesus, who was Lord even at his birth, performs one supernatural feat after another.
According to the Gospel of Thomas, a fourth-century Egyptian Gospel based on a second-century Greek text, Jesus was two years old by the time the Holy Family reached Egypt (fleeing the terror of King Herod). When he was three he came upon some boys playing with a basin of water. Jesus took a dried salt fish and placed it in the basin with the words, "Cast out thy salt that is in thee and go to the water." The salt fish came to life and the other children ran home to tell their parents. Unfortunately, the notoriety which this incident attracted to the Holy Family prompted their landlady, an Egyptian widow, to put them out.
An Arabic Gospel tells another story of Jesus trying to join in some children's games. The children all run away from Jesus into the cellar of a house. The woman of the house tries to protect the children from the little divine sorcerer as he pursues them. When Jesus asks her whether any children have run into her house, she says, "No." Jesus then inquires what beings they are, whom he can distinctly hear moving about in the cellar. She replies that they are goats. Jesus then answers, "Let the goats come out." When they open the door of the cellar, the woman discovers, to her horror, that he has turned all the children into goats.
The human mothers of these goats (formerly children) come to Mary and Joseph and implore them to use their influence with Jesus. He is very compliant, and transforms the goats back into children again. "Come my playfellows," he calls out, "let us play together." When they are fully human again, their mothers tell the children, "see that you do everything that Jesus the Son of Mary commandeth you to do." (cf. A..N. Wilson, Jesus: A Life, Fawcett Columbine, 1992).
I would guess so. I'm not sure I would want my children playing with this Jesus. Talk to him the wrong way, take a toy away from him, or look at him cross-eyed, and you just might get turned into a pillar of salt or something. If Mary and Joseph don't happen to be around, you just might stay that way forever.
Fortunately, these stories never made it into the Bible. They were judged to be mere fabrications, designed to aggrandize and authenticate this rising star of the ancient world. After all, if he's the nouveau God then his stories have to be at least as good as the stories of the gods he's replacing. It wasn't hard to find a ready and willing market for just about any fantastic story to come down the pike.
I, for one, thank God for the discretion exercised by those who put together our Bibles. The authority and inspiration of scripture is based as much upon what was left out as upon what got in. Take this morning's lesson from the gospel of Luke. The incident of Jesus at the Jerusalem temple, on the occasion of what could have been his bar mitzvah at the age of twelve, stands out as the only story of Jesus' childhood that actually made it into the Bible. Between his birth in Bethlehem (recorded only by Matthew and Luke) and his baptism at the hands of John the Baptist some thirty years later, we have only this one brief vignette.
The boy Jesus, having gone up to Jerusalem with his parents for the festival of Passover, fails to accompany the caravan going back home. After a day's journey, in a first-century version of Home Alone, his parents discover him missing. (His father probably thought he was with his mother, in the back of the caravan, while his mother was thinking he was with his father, in the front of the caravan.) When everyone stopped and settled in for the night, and Jesus was nowhere to be found among their relatives and friends, Mary and Joseph immediately retrace their steps and trek back to Jerusalem.
After three anxious days of searching they find him in the temple, listening to the teachers of the law, asking questions and providing answers that amazed all who heard him. Mary chastises Jesus for giving them such a scare, but Jesus dismisses her concern with curious talk of how they should have known that he would be engaged with the things of God. Nevertheless, Jesus dutifully returns with his parents to Nazareth, where, we are told, he "increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor." (Luke 2:52).
That's it. No clay pigeons turned into live turtle doves. No pickled herrings turned into live goldfish. No children turned into goats. Just Jesus sitting in the temple, listening to the rabbis, engaging in the customary banter of questions and answers between teachers and students. That's the only story the Bible gives us for the first thirty years of our Lord's life, a story with no supernatural effects other than Jesus' remarkable fascination with the things of God.
Unlike the story of Samuel in the Old Testament, who was left in the temple by his parents to be raised by Eli, the priest, Jesus takes it upon himself to delve deeply into the business of God. Although he scares his parents half to death, his engagement with what the King James version calls "his Father's business" speaks to us yet today as we set our sites on a new year, with new hopes and new dreams, both for our own lives and for the life of this church.
Who doesn't get up on New Year's Day without some thought of turning over a new leaf about something? It's fun to play with all the brand new possibilities open to us on January 1st. Go jogging this morning, and you've exercised every day this year. Get through lunch without eating potato chips or a candy bar, and you're on your way to a whole new healthy and perfectly-kept diet regime. So far this year, perhaps you have never yelled at someone, never forgotten to floss, never thrown your dirty clothes on the bathroom floor, and never overlooked your morning prayers!
On January 1st, for one brief moment in time, your whole life can start over. For one day, all your good intentions can be jump-started, and all your bad habits can be unplugged. For a few hours (or a few minutes?), the year can be a perfect reflection of your best self.
But the problem with January 1st is that it is followed inevitably by January 2nd and January 3rd. Someday you may opt for staying in a cozy bed a few more minutes rather than plunging out into the cold on that jog. Pretty soon candy wrappers may start appearing in your desk drawer again. By the 4th or 5th, you may have been aggravated enough at a bad driver or a dropped glass or a stubbed toe to let loose a blue streak of vile words and unsanctified thoughts. By the 7th, your socks may be back on the bathroom floor and your dental floss may be gathering dust. By the 10th you may even forget to pray.
For all but a few of us, most New Year's resolutions get packed away with the last of the Christmas decorations. By Epiphany our behavior and the whole New Year are just as tarnished as they were the year before.
Luke's story of Jesus in the temple presents a similar scene and a powerful antidote. Mary and Joseph, we are told, went to Jerusalem every year for the festival of Passover. Passover was an annual pilgrimage with thousands of people coming from hundred of miles around to hear the story of how God delivered Israel from the bondage of Egyptian slavery. Some scholars have even called Passover a spring New Year festival. People would bring their tithes to fill the temple coffers and resolve once again to live as good Jews.
Once the allotted time for the holiday was over, however, Mary and Joseph, along with everyone else, hit the road -- anxious to get back to all the chores and responsibilities that filled their lives. Joseph, a craftsman working with stone and wood, undoubtedly had projects awaiting his attention. Mary had her share of family responsibilities. Like most of us on New Year's Day, they made their resolutions, took their vows, and then returned (once the first century bowl games were over) to business as usual.
But the boy Jesus was in no hurry to get back to business as usual. Listening to the story of God's care for Israel, tasting the bitter herbs, remembering the angel of death passing by the doors marked with the blood of the lamb, Jesus found himself transfixed. He couldn't look away. Instead of answering his family's call to return to Nazareth, to return to business as usual, Jesus answered God's call to stay in Jerusalem, to tend to "his Father's business."
The contrast is not a coincidence or a homiletic device. It goes to the heart of the gospel itself. Last week, on Christmas Day, with 650 people swelling this sanctuary to capacity, we dealt with the contrast between Caesar Augustus and Jesus of Bethlehem. We read the story and experienced it first hand, in the pews. As one person said, it reached out and slapped us in the face. This morning we deal with the contrast between Mary and Joseph and Jesus of Nazareth. It's really no less striking.
On the one hand we have Mary and Joseph, scurrying back home as fast as they can, scurrying so fast they forget their own child, let alone whatever Passover resolutions they may have made. On the other hand we have Jesus, refusing to let his relationship with God be regulated according to some prearranged, culturally imposed schedule. Tarrying in Jerusalem, hanging on every word, living not according to human expectations and cultural patterns but according to the things of God.
The problem with most of our New Year's resolutions is that they are too safe, too sensible, and too self-centered. We resolve to make tiny cosmetic changes in our lifestyles -- but refuse to restructure our lives and change the paradigms by which we live. The story of Jesus in the temple as a boy, the single official story we have of his childhood, challenges us to avoid any resolution that start out with an introductory price of just $9.95 a month.
What would it mean if we were to transform our lives by making the ultimate resolution, the mother of all New Year's resolutions, the resolution that ends all resolutions -- to declare that from this day forward we will be about the things of God, the business of God, regardless of where that might lead. Jesus discovered at an early age that focusing on the things of God can get you in trouble, even with your own family. In fact, focusing on God's business may put an unexpected crimp in the family business. "Business as usual" may not be the way God does business at all, and the world and the church find that most unnerving.
But living in the light of divine intentions, hanging on God's every word as though we were children hearing them for the very first time, standing under the umbrella of God's grace, is the only way to go beyond our half-hearted attempts at turning over a new leaf. The ultimate New Year's resolution does not challenge us to cut fat grams, or quit smoking, or get to aerobics class twice a week. The ultimate resolution does not require determination but transformation, as we allow God to so capture our attention that nothing else matters.
The miraculous wisdom of Jesus was not his questions and answers, but his attention to and his engagement with the things of God. Totally absorbed. Mindful of nothing else. Giving himself totally to the One he called Father in heaven. For three days his Father spoke to him in the Jerusalem temple, and God will speak to you too as you steep yourselves in the meanings and metaphors of God's word. Do not hurry through this day Do not cheapen it with two-bit resolves. Instead, open your hearts to the things of God and the work of transformation will be done. Amen.