And So It Begins
Luke 2:41-52
December 31, 2006
University Christian Church, Seattle, WA
Rev. Sandy Messick

I. I begin this morning with a reading by Stephanie Crumpton:

The acrid air is bitter

Real enough to sting her eyes

Settling in at the back of her throat

Fear wrings out in her call…

“Jesus?”

A crowd of nieces, nephews, cousins passes

“Where is my child?”

Not just the Light of The World

But

“My first born”

More than the Messiah

“My baby boy”

Jesus!

Turning to one another (Mary & Joseph)

Where is our son!

Determined not to be moved

Not from the moment, nor the matter at hand

He sits cross-legged

Beneath the old wrinkled toes of the “Hims”

The Priests, Sadducees, Big Brothers and Ol’ Men

The Pharisees, Uncles, and Fathers

12 years to their eons

Unaffected by the dissonance and distortions of age

A young voice (new, but full)

Wise (knowing, but seeking)

Moved with compassion, asks the keepers of the Torah…

“Where has the love gone?”

With no answer to offer his suckling young mind

The sound of their own silence is asphyxiating

They have missed it

They have forgotten that law only lives where love abides…

Their greying eyes fill with tears Jesus (12 years old)

Moved by their tenderness

Empowered by their trust

Finds home

In the House of the Elders

At this, they sit astounded

Silenced

And weeping…

The silence is interrupted

Panicky footsteps (Mary & Joseph) trample sacred ground

They scold

There is danger in being young

Wise

Outspoken and

Unaccounted for

Their fear is a light unto his coming pathways

With all his wisdom

The love

The power

Even the Child of God (at 12 years old) knows…

There is still more to learn

At home now

Mary and Joseph are honored

Secretly amazed

Quietly proud

Of their child’s first recorded act of rebellion

©2006 Local Church Ministries, Worship and Education Ministry Team, United Church of Christ, 700 Prospect Ave., Cleveland, OH 44115-1000. Permission granted to reproduce or adapt this material for use in services of worship or church education. All publishing rights reserved.

Spoken Word Piece prepared by Stephanie M. Crumpton, Youth Minister at First Congregational UCC, Atlanta .

II. His first act of rebellion maybe, but certainly not his last. Jesus made a ministry out of challenging authority, questioning traditions, and reinterpreting the truths that everyone knew and accepted. He made a ministry out of going about his Father’s business. And time and time again, his ministry brought him back to that temple, the site of his first act of rebellion.

1. It was in the temple, according to Mark, that Jesus watched a poor widow put a few coins into the treasury. Though others had contributed much more, it was of her that Jesus said, “Truly, I say to you, this poor widow has put in more than all those who are contributing to the treasury. For they all contributed out of their abundance; but she out of her poverty has put in everything she had, her whole living.” And with those words challenged the very idea of what offering means.
2. It was in the temple, according to Matthew, that Jesus welcomed the blind and the lame as they came to him. The outcasts of his time who were not welcomed and not included. But Jesus healed them there. The religious leaders, the good church folk, were outraged at his audacity. And they berated him. And they scolded him. But they didn’t stop him. For leaving the temple he went out and healed others: the paralyzed, the forsaken. He welcomed the sinners and even ate dinner with them. He offered forgiveness and grace, even to those the religious said were unforgivable. He challenged the very nature of who was in and who was out and rebelled against the idea that only some were worthy of grace.
3. It was in the temple, according to all the gospels, that Jesus’ anger came out in full force. Seeing the ways that the temple had become a place of business: a marketplace for the selling of sacrifices, a place to cheat the unwary and take advantage of the less fortunate, Jesus’ anger came out. And making a whip of cords he drove the moneychangers from the temple. And he proclaimed that the house of God should not be a den of robbers. And he challenged the way church was being done. And according to the scriptures, when the chief priests and scribes heard about it, they sought a way to destroy him.
4. And it was in the temple, as Jesus was dying on the cross, that the curtain in the temple was torn in two and the separation between humanity and God was destroyed. Even in death, Jesus was in the temple, going about his Father’s business.

III. Maybe it’s time for us to be about God’s business too. Sitting at God’s feet in here, listening, learning, questioning. Then rising to our feet and challenging the powers that work against God, in here, out there, and wherever we are. Maybe it’s time for our own acts of rebellion. A New Year’s Resolution perhaps.