Sunday 30 December 2018

The Growth of Christ (Luke 2:41-52)


(Homily for Gayton Road Christian Church's Worship on December 30, 2018, First Sunday after Christmas)



The Growth of Resolutions

In two days, millions of people across the world will make resolutions.  Lose weight, save money, see more of the world.  Each one is a resolution to grow.  To do more or be more or have more.

Loosely held, resolutions can be helpful guides to a better life.  But I’m guessing we’ve also seen resolutions get out of hand.  Sometimes in the quest for more control over our lives, we ourselves become controlled by our quests. So the person who loses a little bit of weight becomes even more obsessed with the scale and follows an increasingly rigid regimen of exercise and diet.  So the person who is successful saving money becomes consumed by the need to make more.  From a distance, we might admire these self-made people.  But if we get close enough to see the collateral damage—the relationships that are sacrificed, the lack of grace and understanding for others who do not follow suit or measure up—we begin to see that this “growth” is a sham.  The only thing that has really grown is the ego.[1]

A Different Kind of Growth

But there is another kind of growth, I think, one that makes life larger rather than smaller, one that draws us more deeply into the world around us.   It isn’t the growth of a personal program or willful determination, which collapses our world into selfish single-mindedness.  It’s a more natural growth. It’s a growth in wisdom and awareness and love, a growth of God’s Spirit within us.  We see it today in the child Jesus, who according to scripture grew in years and wisdom.  And I think we see it in children all around us.

Growing up, my favorite teachers were the ones who would dress up to recreate moments in history, who would bring textbook problems to life by dressing them up in dramatic, real-life scenarios, who would take us outside to actually see or do what we were learning about.  My favorite teachers were the ones who kept us on the edge of our seats with wonder and suspense and curiosity.  And they all knew the secret to doing that.  Contrary perhaps to current opinion, the secret was not laptops and smart boards and the latest technological advancement.  It was much simpler than that.  The secret was a good question.  A good question made you wonder and think and explore.  It made you grow in wisdom and awareness and love.

The most boring teachers were the opposite.  They were the ones who had it all figured out, who had all the answers, who simply collected your class work and checked it against the back of the book.  There was no wonder or fascination in the questions they asked.  You knew that in the end they simply wanted you to say the same thing as them.  In these classes, perhaps the only thing that grew was my ego, for the only real objective was getting a good grade.

Questions Are How Christ Grew

When Mary and Joseph found Jesus in the temple, he was sitting down.  But by all accounts, he had the rabbis on the edge of their seats. 

He was asking questions.  I imagine they were big questions, the kind for which there isn’t a simple answer in the back of the book.  I imagine they were the questions that would shape Jesus for years to come.  Sitting among the grey and wispy-haired rabbis, I imagine Jesus popping off one question after another: “Who is my neighbor?  What does God think about our enemies?  And how should we treat them?  And what about forgiveness?  If we only ever forgive the people who are sorry, will that really change the world?  And if even the smallest things of life are out of our control, why do we worry so much about them?” 

Just like any child, the Jesus who was born in a manger was full of questions.  And our scripture today suggests that questions are how Christ grew.  These questions, which he never really stopped asking, made him who he was.

I read recently that in the gospel of Mark there are 114 questions.  Seventy-seven of them—over two-thirds—remain unanswered.  They linger for the reader to ponder.   For questions are not only how Christ grows but how we grow as his followers.

A Different Kind of Exam

Christian spiritually has long recognized the value of questions.  In sixteenth century Spain, Ignatius of Loyola introduced what would become a popular practice in contemplative Christian discipline, called the examen prayer, which derives from the Latin word for “examination.”  But it’s not the kind of exam with right answers and wrong answers, the kind of exam you pass or fail and feel good or bad about.  It’s not an exam that assesses growth but one that invites growth through the use of big questions.  It’s an exam of open questions that ask us to reflect on our experiences, to ponder them in light of God’s will, and to commit ourselves anew to God’s call in our lives.  It invites not the growth of willpower or determination but rather growth in wisdom and awareness and love.

Today, in the lull between Christmas and New Year’s, I thought it might be especially fitting for us to spend a few minutes practicing the examen prayer, savoring a moment of silence and sitting still before a few simple questions and perhaps even growing.  Some Christ-followers practice the examen weekly or daily, whenever they can find a handful of free minutes.  If you appreciate it today, perhaps you’ll want to incorporate it into your own practice of prayer on occasion.

An Examen Prayer

To begin, let me invite you to close your eyes, if it feels comfortable.  Breathe deeply.  In the Bible, the word for spirit is “breath.”  Acknowledge the Spirit of God within you in each breath you take.  Greet God in your inner heart.

Share your gratitude with God.  You might ask yourself what gifts you have received this past week, unearned, unrequested.  When did you smile unexpectedly?  Were there any moments when you felt fulfilled?  Thank God for this grace.

Now review the events of the past week.  Pay special attention to feelings.  Feelings are signals of where the action was in your life.  What three feelings did you feel most strongly this week?  Why did you feel this way?

Reflect without judgment on your response in the moments when you felt this way.  Were you drawing closer to God, or further away?  Were others brought closer to God, or further away?

Now look ahead into the new year.  Where do you anticipate feeling a similar way again?  Where is God in these moments?  What is God calling you or inviting you to do in these moments?  How is the love of God seeking to flow through you in these moments?

Allow your reflections to become a prayer to God.  Humbly ask God to help you in the year ahead.

Now as we conclude our examen prayer, hear this blessing and remember that growth is ultimately not our doing but the mysterious and wonderful doing and undoing of love:

Be silent.
Be still.
Let your God look upon you.
That is all.
God knows.
God understands.
God loves you with an enormous love
and only wants to look upon you
with that generous love.
Quiet.
Be still.
Let your God love you.[2]
Amen.



[1] Or what Paul calls the “flesh,” or what Thomas Merton and others in the contemplative tradition have called “the false self.”
[2] Edwina Gately, “Let Your God Love You,” http://jesuitinstitute.org/Pages/Prayers.htm, accessed December 27, 2018.


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