Teaching
Luke 2:41-52

December 31, 2006


I love movies, in particular intelligent films that portray realistic events in our struggle to be fully human. Perhaps it is because I am a teacher that I remember best the timeless movies about teaching where we see both student and teacher transformed. Can anyone forget the incredible 1962 film The Miracle Worker where little Patty Duke tears up the dining room in an emotional outburst? Her teacher, played by the late Anne Bancroft, refused to give up on her and waged war with the little tyrant Helen Keller until Helen learned the same social graces that are expected of all children. And what about the incredible teacher Sidney Poitier portrayed in To Sir With Love? In this classic script, we are duped into thinking that the students were doing all the learning until the final scene where “Sir” tears up his ticket to a better-paying engineering job in exchange for many more years teaching poverty-stricken youth in London’s East Side. Frank McCourt, author of Angela’s Ashes, recently published a book called Teacher Man about his thirty-year teaching career in New York’s public high schools. This book was, for me, a work of pure joy because he imparted the truth that teaching is very much a two-way street where a teacher ends each day being tremendously enriched because of the life lessons taught by the students. I can’t wait until the movie comes out!

I’ve had some rocky years in teaching; this is not one of them. My current assignment is teaching in a brand new program aimed at keeping “at risk” youth in school. We’re having incredible success. The program has doubled in number in four months and now almost every day new students are being brought into it. Some are experiencing success for the first time in years. These students bring into the classroom a full set of baggage: they bring their family issues, their substance abuse issues, and their troubles with the law; but they also bring innocence, hope, intelligence, and wit. In my classroom, I witness unselfish acts of compassion and countless moments of good judgment each and every day, and, because of both mine and their own vulnerabilities, I see sublime moments of caring and doing what is right. Seeing my students doing the right thing is, for me, teaching at its best.

Both our Old Testament and our Gospel lessons show us youths doing the right thing: both the young Samuel and the boy Jesus were ministering before the Lord. What can we visualize? The Jewish historian Josephus wrote that Samuel was about twelve years of age in this scripture, the same age we’re told Jesus was in the Gospel account. It is the Jewish custom of the to this day to consider a 12-year-old boy as entering the age of responsibility.

Samuel’s mother, Hannah, raised Samuel with repeated messages that he belonged to the Lord. At the Temple, Eli (the priest) questioned young Samuel and found him to be knowledgeable beyond his years. Eli assumed the role of father to the boy, and Samuel’s responsibilities would be that of a dutiful young son to an aging parent, who was also a High Priest of God. Thus Samuel would be serving God to the delight of his mother Hannah who returned home without him. Each year Samuel’s parents went to see him with a new robe made by his mother because Samuel was growing physically as well as spiritually. In addition, Eli had fitted Samuel with an ephod, translated apron, to indicate that the child’s service in the Tabernacle had official sanction.

Now let’s jump ahead a few years to the boy Jesus. Most congregations within the United Church of Canada follow the lectionary, a system of Scriptures for preaching and studying the Bible. Today, all over the world, a potential of nine hundred million Christians in about eight separate denominations will read and hear the story of the boy Jesus in the temple. The lectionary is on a three-year cycle, with Year C starting a few weeks ago at the beginning of Advent which is the start of the Christian year. In Year C the gospel scriptures mostly come from the Gospel of Luke. Common belief is that the author of the Gospel of Luke is Luke the physician who traveled with the Apostle Paul on his missionary journeys. There are accounts of Jesus’ infancy and childhood that are found in Luke and not in the other Gospels. These stories culminate with the story of Jesus in the temple at age twelve. Jesus went to Jerusalem with his family every year for the Passover. He was twelve years old and no longer a child.

Very likely there was a caravan of people who had traveled to Jerusalem for Passover. As it turned towards Nazareth, likely it took on its traditional form with men traveling at the front, animals and possessions in the centre and women together in the rear. Likely children would have been assigned a beast to manage. Mary and Joseph assumed Jesus to be somewhere in the middle of the caravan in the safe care of family and friends. It is like our times today where extended family and friends help to raise children. It was not until night that they noticed he was not with them. Immediately Joseph and Mary raced back to Jerusalem. We’re told they searched for three days. “Three days” is important in the story: Christ was in the tomb for three days, the temple was supposed to be destroyed and rebuilt in three days, and Jonah was in the belly of the whale for three days.

His parents found him in the temple. When Jesus comes back to this temple as an adult, he will cleanse it of the merchants and teach in the temple. But this time the boy Jesus is sitting among the religious leaders, listening and asking questions of them. Just as Eli had been astonished with the boy Samuel many years earlier, the teachers were amazed and astonished with Jesus’ words.

But his parents had suffered anxiety over his disappearance. I’m sure every parent in this sanctuary can relate to this feeling of worry. I remember in my own life that every night I came home late as a young adult, my mother would be up waiting for me in the living room. Even if I was out babysitting until long after midnight, she stayed up until I was safely at home. I think that all of you likely have been this kind of parent to your own children. With parenting comes tremendous joy, as in Hannah’s heart, and tremendous anxiety, as talked about by Mary.

But Jesus’ response here demonstrates his first words in the gospel. The moment is vital because it represents the first theme from his own voice. Jesus said, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father's house?" The term “must” is perhaps most important here: in chapter four Jesus will say “I must preach the gospel.” Then later we will hear that he must heal the sick. He must minister to others. At the end of the gospel, we hear four times that he must suffer and die on the cross. Jesus also emphasizes that God his father when he says, “I must be in my Father's house.” But then we’re told his parents did not understand what he was saying to them at the time even though it shines with clarity for us today. I can think of other times in history where the same holds true: for example, my husband, originally from Brooklyn, New York, was on the March on Washington in August of 1963 when he was seventeen years old. While his step-father took a day without pay at the Post Office to take his stepson on the bus to Washington, neither knew how the day, nor Dr. King’s improvised “I Have a Dream” speech, would strengthen throughout the next decades. Now over four decades later, most of us can recite at least one line from that famous speech. It’s at the time that we sometimes cannot fathom the events around us.

We’re told Mary treasured these things in her heart, and later served as eyewitness for the truths in Luke’s Gospel. The last line in our scripture about the boy Samuel today is, “Now the boy Samuel continued to grow both in stature and in favor with the LORD and with the people.” The last line in our Gospel scripture about the boy Jesus is, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.” Is there any parent or grandparent here who does not wish the same for their own offspring?

I worry about some of the youth at risk in my class: I worry that they have not tasted enough success, I worry that they might relapse into destructive habits, and I worry that there are other factors in their lives that may keep them away from school. Because I worry, I am vulnerable to them, and because I am vulnerable I am open to them.

And at the end of each day I treasure all the things they have taught me in my heart. Amen.

Preached by Sharlene McGowan
Knox-Metropolitan United Church
Regina, Saskatchewan