Pastor Tom Rietveld tells about a wedding he performed several years ago. There was a very precocious little seven-year-old boy who was the ring bearer. At the wedding rehearsal, the soloist asked Pastor Tom when she should begin singing. He told her, “After the vows.”
She wanted a more specific answer, so she asked: “What are the vows? I’ll need a cue.”
And at that point, the little boy turned to the soloist with an exasperated look, and said: “The vowels are A-E-I-O-U. There is no Q!” (1)
We never know what to expect from a child.
One teacher learned that the hard way. One day there was a big snowstorm. She felt she should warn her pupils against playing too long in the frigid weather. She said: “Now children, you must be careful about colds and overexposure. I had a precious little brother, only seven years old, who went out into the cold and snow with his new sled and stayed too long. He caught a cold, pneumonia set in, and three days later he died.”
For a moment the class sat in awed silence. Then a hand shot up in the back of the room. A youngster asked: “What happened to his sled?” (2)
Children will surprise you. And sometimes they will drive you out of your mind. Has anyone in the room ever had difficulty with one of your children? Of course, I could ask our young people, have any of you ever had trouble with your parents? Don’t hold up your hands.
Generational issues are a part of being a family. Even in the very best of families there is tension. We know that because it happened even in Jesus’ family.
There is only one story from Jesus’ childhood that made it into scripture. There were many other stories that did not. You see, like any other towering figure in human history, there were myths and legends that grew up about Jesus. Some of these were collected in books that were rejected by the early church when they canonized the scripture. For example, in the Gospel of Thomas, there is a story about the boy Jesus molding sparrows out of mud on the Sabbath. When he was scolded for this, the story goes, Jesus breathed life into the birds and they flew away. There was another story that a bully tried to pick a fight with Jesus, but when the bully went to punch Jesus, the bully’s hand just withered up and fell off! Another story tells us about Jesus and a friend playing on the roof of a house. The friend fell off and was killed. Jesus jumped off the roof and brought his friend back to life. All kinds of wild and exaggerated stories were told about the boy Jesus. But the church fathers were suspicious of them. They worked hard to separate fact from fiction. So, many stories were left out.
The story that did make it into scripture is the one that occurred when Jesus was twelve years old. That’s the time when a Jewish boy celebrates his Bar Mitzvah. This sacred event marks the transition from boyhood to adulthood. The celebration of the teenage years is a relatively recent occurrence. In ancient times you moved directly from childhood to being adult. The idea of teenage rebellion was absurd. There was not time. There were too many responsibilities that had to be taken care of.
Every year Jesus’ parents went to Jerusalem for the Feast of the Passover. When Jesus was twelve, however, things did not go as planned. After the Feast was over, his parents started home. Unknown to them, the boy Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. Thinking he was in their company, Mary and Joseph traveled on for a day. Then they began looking for Jesus among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem to look for him.
After three days they found him in the temple courts, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Luke tells us that everyone who heard the twelve-year-old Jesus was amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him there in the temple, they were astonished. His mother said to him, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
“Why were you searching for me?” young Jesus asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” But they did not understand what he was saying to them. Then, Luke tells us, Jesus went down to Nazareth with his parents and was obedient to them. “But his mother treasured all these things in her heart,” Luke continues. “And Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in favor with God and men.”
Every parent has wondered how Mary and Joseph could have gone a full day’s journey from Jerusalem without realizing that Jesus was missing. One reason could be that they didn’t have to worry about the kinds of things happening to their kids that we worry about today. The world has changed. Also, they were a part of a large company of family and friends traveling together. What could go wrong? Still, when they could not find Jesus for three days after they returned to Jerusalem, it must have driven them crazy with worry. Those of you who are parents can relate. No wonder Mary asked sternly, “Son, why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been anxiously searching for you.”
Jesus’ answer seems a little impertinent. “Why were you searching for me?” he asked. “Didn’t you know I had to be in my Father’s house?” A child talking back to his parents can you imagine that? Then Luke adds, “But they did not understand what he was saying to them.” It would not be the last time that Jesus’ family did not understand him. Every healthy family has been there, especially as young people approach their teen years.
So, let’s start here: it is natural for there to be tension between young people and their parents. If it could happen in Jesus’ family, it can happen in any family. And Jesus wasn’t even quite a teenager yet.
Some of you remember that great joke: Why did God have Abraham take his only son Isaac to the mountain supposedly to sacrifice him when Isaac was only 12? And the answer is, of course, if Isaac had been 15, Abraham may have actually gone through with it.
It’s just a joke, of course, but every family has problems, disagreements, conflict. It’s inevitable. Young people should not be carbon copies of their parents. They must find their own identity. Plus society throws them into an adult world while they are still maturing physically, mentally, and emotionally.
Some of you are undoubtedly familiar with the research on the adolescent brain which was reported in Time magazine in 2004.
According to research by neuroscientists, the human brain does not fully develop until the age of twenty-five. It appears that the brain matures from back to front, with the areas that control physical coordination, sight, hearing, and other skills maturing throughout the childhood and teen years. The prefrontal cortex at the front of the brain the part that controls critical thinking, judgment, self-control, and other high-functioning skills is the last to mature. With this in mind, it makes sense that teens seem more impulsive, emotional, or indecisive than adults. The teenager’s brain is still going through the maturation process, and many teenagers do not have the necessary neural pathways in place to delay gratification or prioritize their time. One researcher jokes that Avis, the car-rental agency, must employ some good neuroscientists, because they don’t allow anyone under the age of twenty-five to rent their cars. (3)
That is not a slight at our teens. It is simply a statement of fact. Maturity takes time. Some young people, like some adults, are able to control their impulses and their emotions better than others. But, while that maturing process is going on, there can be almost intolerable tension between young people and their parents. It’s natural.
Just because there is tension, however, does not mean that young people do not need their parents . . . And vice versa. We need one another.
Pastor John Claypool tells one of the saddest stories any of us can imagine. He says that many years ago when he was serving a church in Kentucky, he got a packet through the mail. It enclosed a little paperback book with the title, Understanding Woman. It also contained a heartbreaking letter.
“It seems that an older couple in Northern Kentucky had always wanted a child, but didn’t think they were going to have a family. Then late in their forties, a little girl was born into their home. By this time, they were very affluent and so they were able to give this child, for whom they had waited so long, every conceivable advantage. She was sent to the best private school, dressed in lovely clothes, sent to summer camp, given all kinds of lessons, everything they knew to do to make her existence a rich one. Therefore, imagine their dismay on the night of her thirteenth birthday. After the party was over, she went down to her father’s gun cabinet, got out one of his rifles, went back up to her room, put the barrel in her mouth and took her own life.
“In the days that followed her funeral, the family began to go through her personal effects, and in a diary they found a clue to this mystery. What they discovered was that for all the things she had been provided, no one had told her about the changes that take place in [a young woman’s] body as [she] moves out of childhood into adolescence. Many things were happening to her that she could not understand. In her fright, she bolted out the exit called suicide. The letter said that her parents had decided to take the money that they set aside for her college education and use it to send the enclosed book to every clergyperson in Kentucky. The letter ended by saying, ‘The little book that we are enclosing is one that we hope you will read and dispense widely.’ Then the letter said, ‘If we had known what was in that little book and had conveyed it to our daughter, chances are today she would still be alive.’” (4)
Now, it is true that teens today are better informed than previous generations. But there is still a mountain of misinformation out there about vital issues of importance to young people. Even more importantly, there are more temptations for today’s youth than any generation before has had to confront. And even if a young person is equipped with all the knowledge in the world, there is that maturity gap. Sometimes they need someone who is older, who has been there before, and now has the perspective to offer guidance. Admittedly, not every parent is a good guide to follow. Parents can be flawed. But it is vital to keep the lines of communication open.
It is natural for there to be tension between the generations, but we need one another more than we can ever imagine. This brings us to the last thing that needs to be said: all of us need to know that someone is there for us. We need that at any age.
A few years ago Tom Beaudoin wrote a book titled Virtual Faith. He was writing about his own generation, which has been dubbed Generation X. He said that the most fundamental question young people today ask is: “Will you be there for me?” He said, “We ask . . . parents, friends, partners, society, religions, leaders, nation, and even God: ‘Will you be there for me?’” (5) All of us at any age ask this question of one another as well as of God. When we are young, we ask it of our parents. When we are aged, we ask it of our children. Will you be there for me?
The writer Adair Lara says that children, when they are young, behave like dogs. Stay with me now. Again, this is not a slight at young people. What she means is that when children are young, they’re affectionate and love being around you. But when they hit the teen years they start acting like cats distant and finicky. They make you feel unneeded. Still, your teenager needs you and your affection, she says. Just change your approach. Be available and let them come to you. When they do, don’t smother them or cling too tightly. Let them have their moods and offer them understanding. The teen animal, says Ms. Lara, can be tamed with your unconditional love. (6) Good advice, though I hope our teens don’t mind being referred to as animals.
Barbara Lohrbach says that her son David’s favorite color was black. His clothes were mainly black and he wore the big wide leg pants with lots of metal studs and all. He had the big chains and collars that looked like dog collars. And he’d dye his hair sometimes blood red, sometimes very black, sometimes teal. One of the grandmothers at her church pulled Barbara aside one day and said, “Now Barbara remember that this is how David needs to express himself. He’s searching for his identity, and it cannot look like you. And remember that it’s only hair and clothes and that he’s still coming to church. So pick your battles carefully.” And then this grandmother told Barbara about her grown son, whose father had a fit when the son’s hair was shoulder length in high school. She said, “I told my husband . . . it’s just hair. Let him have it while he still can.” And then they laughed her husband’s head was as bald as a bowling ball.
Unknown to Barbara until later on was the kindness of one of the men in the church to David during those teenage years of finding oneself. When this man, named Jerry, died of cancer, David was greatly saddened. Barbara didn’t know the connection and asked why he was so upset. David told her that Jerry was the one grown-up who would come and talk to him during coffee hour. Didn’t matter how weird David looked, Jerry would come over and ask him how school was going and talk about lots of things, but never . . . never how David looked. He was one of the reasons David kept coming to church. (7)
Every young person needs to run into a Jerry, someone who will accept them unconditionally, just as God accepts each of us unconditionally. We are proud of our young people, and thank God for them. Sometimes there can be tension, though, in families. That’s natural, as we can see in Jesus’ family. Still, we need one another. We need to answer the question affirmatively, “Will you be there for me?” We need to be there for one another as God is there for each of us.
1. http://www.pastortom.org/knowjesus19.htm.
2. Rev. Gregory Turner, http://www.acparis.org/sermons/2003_09_21_Turner.htm.
3. “What Makes Teens Tick” by Claudia Wallis, Time, May 10, 2004, p. 65.
4. Dr. John Claypool, Chicago Sunday Evening Club, 1994. http://www.csec.org/csec/sermon/claypool_3716.htm.
5. (Jossey-Bass, 2000), pg. 140.
6. http://www.allprodad.com/pod/playoftheday.php.
7. http://www.stjohnucc-kan-il.org/sermons/2007/2007_03_04.pdf.