Having a family is a challenge. One poor mom described the challenge she has keeping a clean house like this, “Cleaning house with kids around,” she said, “is like brushing your teeth with Oreos.” Yucky! Sounds kind of gross to me. Those of you with small children, however, will have to tell me if she got it right.
Humorist Robert Orben asks, “Who can ever forget Winston Churchill’s immortal words: ‘We shall fight on the beaches, we shall fight on the landing grounds, we shall fight in the fields and in the streets, we shall fight in the hills.’ It sounds exactly,” says Orben, “like our family vacation.” Am I hitting a nerve with anyone?
A man with four sons was asked, “If you had it to do all over again, would you still have kids?”
“Yes,” he responded immediately. “Just not these four.”
It’s tough having children nowadays. Maybe that is why this classified ad appeared in a local paper recently: “Wanted to buy: playpen, cradle, high chair; also two single beds.” (1) That’s one solution, I guess.
Family problems are so universal that corporate America is trying to find ways to help. Have you ever been driving in a car and uttered this parental threat, “I’ll pull this car over right now if you kids don’t stop misbehaving”?
Anyone? Of course, your kids may not even have heard what you said anyway since they were listening to loud music on their ear-buds.
Well, good news. The 2015 Toyota Sienna minivan has an optional microphone system that lets a parent relay announcements via speakers in the back. The idea is that you won’t have to raise your voice to be heard in the back seat, nor will you have to turn around to face them. You can also opt for a pull-down conversation mirror, which allows you to glance at your children in the back without turning around or readjusting your rearview mirror. (2)
It’s nice that big corporations are trying to find ways to help families. Unfortunately, the high-tech toys they’re creating are usually part of the problem, not the solution.
Futurist Daniel Burrus tells about a friend of his who was looking forward to a vacation in the car with his wife and kids. His children were getting older, and he knew that driving vacations with them would soon be a thing of the past. So he got them all together to drive across the country.
After they returned Burrus asked him how his trip went. His friend said, “It was a good trip. We didn’t talk much though.”
Burrus asked how that was possible since they were all in the car together for days on end.
His friend explained, “We all had our various music devices with us, primarily our smart phones and iPods, so we were all listening to our own personalized music list the whole time.”
“How interesting,” writes Dan Burrus. “They had an opportunity to have a family conversation, to reconnect on a personal level, and even to play some driving games, but they didn’t. It’s almost like they took separate vacations; they just happened to do it together.”
Can anybody relate to that? Is technology making it difficult for your family to connect? Another phenomenon that some experts are talking about nowadays--that we’ve talked about before--is overly protective parents, so-called “helicopter parents,” constantly hovering over their children, trying to solve every difficulty. This trend has reached its zenith, we are told, in China.
How bad is this phenomenon over there? It is so bad that one Chinese university has set up a dormitory for overly protective parents. I’m not making this up. The University in Wuhan, according to this report, now has so many anxious parents hanging around the university that authorities have been forced to convert the sports hall to allow them to sleep on the floor. A university spokesman said, “They often can’t accept that their children have now left home and come to university. Sometimes they move to the local area for months offering to cook and clean for their children--and keep an eye on them.
“The university decided to act after finding some of the parents had arranged to sleep in their children’s dormitory with them, which the university decided is unacceptable. They now give them a blanket and a place to wash and eat free of charge.” (3)
So, you thought your parents were bad.
In today’s lesson from Luke’s Gospel, we realize very quickly that Mary and Joseph were not helicopter parents. Today’s lesson takes place when Jesus was twelve years old. He had traveled to Jerusalem with his parents for the Passover. Mary and Joseph were devout people. They made this pilgrimage every year. The Passover festival lasted for eight days.
On their return home, Mary and Joseph didn’t realize that Jesus was not with them until they had traveled for about a day. Luke does not say how Joseph and Mary might have left the boy behind, but the tradition was to travel in large caravans. It would be easy to think that the boy was with friends. Each of them might have also thought that he was with the other parent, since the women and small children went ahead and the men followed behind. It was not that Mary and Joseph were careless or neglectful of their responsibilities as parents. But it does prove that they weren’t the kind of parents who hovered over their son.
But here’s something you may not have thought of. It appears that Jesus’ remaining behind was deliberate. Luke says that “Jesus stayed behind”--not that he was left behind or forgotten. As traumatic as this experience might have been for Mary and Joseph, Jesus undoubtedly had a purpose for staying in Jerusalem.
Mary was worried, perhaps a little frantic. For a while she thought that she had lost her son or that perhaps he had been abducted. If you have ever had a child wander off while in a large shopping mall, you may understand. Of course Jesus was twelve years old, which in that culture meant he was nearly an adult, ready to take on adult responsibilities. In today’s world 12-year-olds do not face the challenges that children did then, so we can allow them a prolonged adolescence.
Mary and Joseph, when they did not find Jesus among the caravan, went back to Jerusalem. After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. The temple courts were commonly used for teaching. Everyone who heard Jesus was amazed at his understanding and his answers.
When Mary and Joseph saw him they were astonished. The word “astonished” literally translates as they were “struck out of their senses”--and not entirely in a positive sense. Mary asked, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.” There is reproach in her voice.
“Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But, says Luke, they did not understand what he was saying to them.
Then, Luke continues, “Jesus went down to Nazareth with them and was obedient to them. But his mother treasured all these things in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and man.”
Already at twelve, Jesus was conscious of his special relationship with God. Bible scholar William Barclay says, “See how very gently but very definitely Jesus takes the name father from Joseph and gives it to God.” (4) “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?”
His statement to Mary confirmed that he knew his mission and thought that his parents should have also known his mission. But they did not understand.
Nevertheless, Luke is careful to record that Jesus was obedient to Joseph and Mary. Despite his knowledge of his relationship with his heavenly Father, he was a dutiful son to his earthly parents. Perhaps I should say that BECAUSE of his relationship with the Father, he was a dutiful son on earth. After all, one of the Ten Commandments is “Honor your father and your mother.” However, it is important to note that even at age twelve, Jesus was conscious of his special relationship with God.
That should not surprise us. Some children very early in life have a keen insight into what they want to do with their lives.
In his autobiography, Steve Jobs, the genius who guided Apple Computer to its current status as one of the world’s most successful companies, wrote about his early fascination with computers. “I was 13 years old,” he wrote, “and already knew what I wanted to do.”
That’s not all that unusual. Some young people have a real grasp at an early age of their life’s vocation.
Of course, many of us, when we were 12 or 13 years old, were like the second?grader boy who was asked by his teacher what he wanted to be when he grew up.
The boy shrugged. “Gee,” he said, “I don’t even know what I want to be for Halloween yet!”
Some young people don’t know what they want to be when they graduate from college, or turn 30. Heavens, some of us go all through life wondering if we chose the right vocation.
But Jesus knew. Jesus already sensed his connection to God at twelve years of age. That says something about Jesus. But it also says something about young people.
Whenever any young person comes to me and asks about being [baptized/ confirmed or joining a membership class], or simply wants to talk to me about their faith in God, I listen closely. I realize that a young person can be tuned in to God at an early age. In fact there are probably some of us adults who remember our childhood as a time we felt closest to God. Maybe the intervening years have encrusted us with a pseudo-sophistication about spiritual things that makes it more difficult for us to accept the wondrous presence of God in this world as we once did. Maybe that is part of what Jesus meant when he said that in order to receive the kingdom of God, you must become like a little child (Matthew 18:3).
I hope that every one of our boys and girls feels God’s presence in their lives. I hope that every one of our boys and girls knows that, in addition to their earthly Dad or Mom they have a loving heavenly Father who loves them more than they can ever realize. Already at age twelve, Jesus was conscious of his special relationship with the Father.
I believe that says something about Jesus. I also believe it says something about Mary and Joseph. It’s no accident that Mary and Joseph were returning from eight days in Jerusalem where they we celebrating the Passover. They could have spent that time at the beach, I suppose . . . or in the mountains. They didn’t have an equivalent to Disneyland or Six Flags or an amusement park. Life was hard in that day--especially for people on the lower rung of society. There wasn’t much time for leisure pursuits. And yet, here they are devoting a couple of weeks, including travel time, to their religious responsibilities. Do you think that made an impression on Jesus?
I know family time is becoming quite scarce in our society. Author Dr. Richard Swenson writes in his book The Overload Syndrome that “the average American work-week now exceeds just about every other nation on the planet. Most homes are dual income with a combined total workload exceeding 90.5 hours per week,” leaving very little time for family or religious activities. (5)
It’s sad. We Americans gave the world the term “family values,” but the truth is that in many ways we have the least family-friendly society in the world. For example, all European countries give families more leisure time together, and more tax exemptions for things like child-care than we do.
Imagine the sacrifices that Mary and Joseph had to make to fulfill the demands of their religion. But they did so gladly. That’s the kind of people they were. I doubt not at all that had an impact on Jesus.
I’ve always loved that story of the little boy who was asked if he believed in God. He answered, “Well, yes I do.”
When asked why, he said, “Well, I guess it just runs in our family.”
Does it run in your family? What’s the real message you are giving your children about your priorities? Does God come first or perhaps soccer? Are you the kind of parent who would never allow your child to miss a day of school, but is quite casual about allowing that child to miss Sunday school? What is that saying to your children?
I appreciate something that Rose Kennedy, the matriarch of the family that gave us President John Kennedy and his famous siblings once said: “Whenever I held my newborn babe in my arms,” said Rose Kennedy, “I used to think what I did and what I said to him would have an influence, not only on him, but on everyone he meets, not for a day, or a year, but for all time and for eternity. What a challenge,” she added, “what a joy.” (6)
It is a challenge and a joy. Mary and Joseph were not helicopter parents, but evidently they were attentive to their son’s needs. And they set an exemplary example for him. They were devout people. They didn’t always understand their son just like parents today don’t always understand their children . . . or children, their parents. I’m sure that sometimes it was like brushing their teeth with Oreos--like the day they discovered he wasn’t with them on the trip home from Jerusalem.
But Mary and Joseph loved Jesus and he loved them, and they brought him up to love God. It is no wonder, at age 12, that he was aware that he had a special relationship with God. I hope your children, whatever their age, know they have a special relationship with God too.
1. Matthew Cole, Plant City, Florida. Cited by Andy Simmons in Reader’s Digest (Reader’s Digest USA).
2. Gizmag Emerging Technology Magazine, www.gizmag.com.
3. Tom Phillips, “Chinese University Sets Up Dormitory for Overprotective Parents,” Metro, 17 September 2010, http://www.metro.co.uk/weird/841237-chinese-university-sets-up-dormitory-for-overprotective-parents. Cited in Dan Miller, Wisdom Meets Passion: When Generations Collide and Collaborate (Kindle Edition).
4. William Barclay, The Daily Study Bible: The Gospel of Luke (Edinburgh: Saint Andrew Press, 1953), p. 25.
5. M. Bianchi, John P. Robinson, Melissa A. Milkie, Changing Rhythms of American Family Life (New York: Russell Sage Foundation Publishers, September 2007). Cited by Billy Hornsby in The Attractional Church (Kindle edition).
6. Celebrating Mothers: A Book of Appreciation. Glorya Hale, (ed.) Metro Books, 2002.