There comes a time in most people's lives when they discover that their parents aren't gods. This intellectual knowledge does not always sit well with the emotional need to have a tangible sense of complete safety – a desire to feel unconditional love.
One might say that this realization is portrayed in today's Gospel. Jesus had assumed that his parents would know where he was when he was lost in conversation with the temple scribes. The young Jesus assumed that everyone was as interested as he was in knowing the Heavenly Father.
The measure of his own wisdom was such that he accepted the limitations of his earthly parents, was sorry for troubling their peace of mind, and went home with them. The text tells us that he was obedient to them. He knew that they were doing the best they could to raise him up to be a faithful person.
I find myself contemplating Mary as she might have conveyed her wonder to him. Did she tell him stories of his birth; of curious circumstances, and miraculous appearances? Could this not have led him to believe that they, too, would know the very real presence of God in their lives?
Like Samuel before him, Jesus knew in a profound way that he belonged to God; like Samuel, Jesus the young man, grew in stature and favor with God and others. Luke tells us he grew in wisdom as well.
Now wisdom is distinct from knowledge. The understanding heart in conversation with its mind knows something more than the mind alone. Knowledge belongs to the intellect; wisdom is the union of knowledge and compassion.
There is so little in our Scriptures that tell us of Jesus' youth. We know that his birth was unique; that his young life was threatened. We hear briefly that he spent some of his earliest years in Egypt... From these hints of experience, they are too fleeting to be named even as “slices of life,” we can surmise that in a parallel experience with the people of Israel, he would know what it would mean to be an outsider...
that he would have learned from his parents the joy of home-coming whenever he travelled up to Judea for the festivals. We've heard how his understanding is remarked upon by those who hear him in the temple. We've seen his respect for his parents. And, we know, “he grew in wisdom...”
As he grew, was Jesus amazed by others' lack of interest in God? Did he long for a day when he could stir them from their complacency and awaken their hearts to a passion for God? It seems so, for we hear his amazement in his exhortations to the crowds; we feel his passion and faith in God throughout his various acts which culminated in his death and resurrection.
The circumstances around our birth, our early years do much to shape our lives. The people who care for us, by their love- or their withholding of love - leave a mark on our souls. I am convinced that most parents struggle to give their children more than they felt that they had received. Sometimes there is a wounding that tears the fabric of a life in such a way as to disrupt understanding. With our experiences we create particular 'filters' through which we interpret the words and actions of others. If these filters are in part damaged because of painful experiences, it becomes difficult to trust, to understand even simple messages. It becomes easy to assign inaccurate meanings to words and deeds.
I have come to see that we use our experiences to interpret our encounters with one another, and that who we have become influences our encounters with the Scriptures.
When I hear this Gospel lesson I can not help but remember that queasy feeling of fear I felt over a decade ago when my son, as very young child, disappeared among the clothes racks in a store. I can still see the frantic searching, the men in the surveillance room shaking their heads, saying, no one's taken him out through any of the doors. I can feel again the sensation of relief when we discovered him half asleep beneath a rack of jackets.
I imagine Mary and Joseph horrified by the fact that they had not stopped to make sure he was within eye-sight when they left the city.
Jesus shows us that in the face of new information, for example, in his case, the fact that his parents are not omniscient, it is best to proceed with curiosity and respect.
Didn't you know? Jesus asks his parents, and finding they did not, he apologized for his part in causing them distress. He discovered that they saw things differently from himself, and he respected the differences.
--And it would seem, even then he had begun shaping a theological approach to life that would become his adult ministry.
I invite you to look at your own life. How have the circumstances of your life brought you to this place? Do you see yourself as victim? Or do you believe yourself to be one whose whole life has been held in God's compassionate hands? Do you see mistakes that were redeemed by God's grace? Do you understand how a particular loss taught you the way of compassion?
Often times it is painful to grow – whether it is our bodies that are growing up too fast, or our souls that need to grow beyond our seeming strength to do so. Sometimes the soul seems to strive against the limitations of the body.
The Gospel message assures us that the passion and faith which we see in the person of Jesus Christ reveals God's own passionate love for us as well as God's faithfulness toward us.
So often we make up who others are based on our own feelings and experiences - and are surprised when things are not as we expected. Jesus shows us that open-hearted curiosity helps us understand and honour the differences.
It is in encountering Jesus Christ that we discover the union, the loving safety that we have longed for ever since we left our mother's wombs. In Jesus Christ, there is healing for any loss, any sorrow – because he knows and understands our individual pain.
Jesus grew in wisdom
and, empowered with the gifts that come from his eternal Spirit,
we are invited to grow in wisdom as well.
