The Darndest Things
I’ve never watched the television show Kids Say the Darndest Things. But as I read today’s scripture, I wondered whether the sentiment didn’t cross Mary’s own mind. I decided to do a bit of research and see just what kind of “darndest things” kids have said on the show. Here are a couple of my favorites:
In one exchange, a boy is asked, “Do you like school?” “Yes,” he responds, before explaining: “I like it when it’s over!” This begs the question, “What don’t you like about school?” to which the boy responds, “The homework. It’s like getting a job [and] you’re not even paid.”[1]
In a more recent iteration of the show, the host Tiffany Haddish asks a six-year-old boy, “What does love mean?” The boy responds with a very relatable metaphor. “It means giving someone your last piece of candy … even if you really want it.” The host marvels at the response, “Aww, that’s so sweet! So, would you give your candy to someone?” The boys responds, “Only if it’s a lollipop. If it’s a chocolate bar, I’m keeping that.”[2]
“Darndest” may be the word in the show’s title, but I wonder if “honest” or “truest” isn’t a more accurate description of the things children say. Children say the honest truths that we think or feel but have learned to hide. For example, love is a big sacrifice, and there are some things that maybe we’d prefer to hold onto—whether that’s chocolate or our independence!
When Jesus later recites from scripture, “Out of the mouths of infants and nursing babies, you [God] have prepared praise for yourself” (Matt 21:16; cf. Ps 8:2), I wonder if he’s not referring to this childlike honesty. What else is a child’s honest happiness (or hunger for happiness) but the praise of all the goodness of life, all the gifts of God?
Jesus’ Jewish Childhood
Today’s scripture records the only words attributed to Jesus before his ministry begins. He is only twelve years old. And it is only the briefest of snapshots. Yet all who hear him are “amazed” (2:47). It seems that Jesus may have said some of the darndest—or truest—things. I wonder what he said.
Luke sets the scene by explaining that Jesus has gone with his parents to Jerusalem for the Passover. It is a curiosity that in Luke, although Jesus grows up in the hometown of Nazareth, we only ever see him as a child in Jerusalem. The point is clear. Mary, Joseph, and Jesus are a faithful Jewish family. They order their lives according to the stories and symbols and laws of the Jewish faith, first circumcising the baby Jesus (Luke 2:21), then going to the temple to dedicate the infant Jesus as a firstborn child (Luke 2:22-24), and now going to Jerusalem to celebrate the Passover (Luke 2:41), the festival that celebrates how God liberates us from the forces that enslave.
Although the tradition of the bar and bat mitzvah, when a Jewish child becomes responsible for their faith and behavior, does not evolve until centuries later, commentators suggest that Jesus’ age of twelve is about the time when boys would begin studying the law. So it’s no surprise that we find Jesus “sitting” among the teachers in the temple (Luke 2:46), the position that disciples would take before their rabbis (cf. Acts 22:3). And it’s no surprise that we find Jesus “asking them questions,” which is what disciples would commonly do in the presence of their rabbis (Luke 2:46). Thus far, we see Jesus growing up as any faithful Jewish boy would grow up. He goes to Jerusalem for all the required rituals.He celebrates the Passover. He positions himself as a disciple learning from the rabbis. No surprises here.
But then Jesus opens his mouth, and there is a surprise. “All who heard him were amazed,” Luke reports, “at his understanding and his answers” (2:47).
Epiphany: Appearance and a Light-Bulb Moment
Today we are celebrating the beginning of Epiphany, the season that follows on the heels of Christmas. The word “epiphany” literally means appearance. Accordingly, Epiphany is the season when we celebrate the ways that Christ appears to the world. One traditional Epiphany story is the wise men, or magi, who come from afar to see Jesus. Because the magi come from distant lands, their encounter with Jesus symbolically marks Jesus’ appearance to all the world—not just to King Herod and the Judeans, but to distant kings and other peoples too.
But Epiphany is about more than Jesus appearing. Our common usage of “epiphany” as a light-bulb moment—such as, I was just washing the dishes, thinking about nothing in particular, when I had a sudden epiphany—suggests the significance of Epiphany. Not only does Jesus appear. His appearance opens the eyes and the minds of onlookers. His appearance results in a light-bulb moment for others.
But after Luke gives us the tantalizing detail that all who heard Jesus were “amazed” at his understanding and answers, he disappointingly reveals nothing about what Jesus actually said that amazed his teachers and all the onlookers. We’re left to wonder what the light-bulb moment was for his audience.
Son of God:
Exclusive Privilege or Shared Identity?
Just moments later, however, Luke does tell us the words that come out of Jesus’ mouth. In fact, these are the first words in Jesus’ life that are recorded in the gospels. When his mother chastises him, “Child, why have you treated us like this?” he responds with the darndest—or truest?—response, “Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (Luke 2:49). However you hear this response, Luke goes on to assure us that Jesus is not being a smart-alec; he returns with his parents to Nazareth and is obedient to them (Luke 2:51).
As these are the only words that Luke lets slip out of Jesus’ mouth, I wonder if they are not representative of all that Jesus has been saying that has amazed and astonished the people around him. In other words, I wonder if these words do not serve as a summary of Jesus’ stunning insight. And the insight is stunningly simple: I am a child of God.
Of course, we might think this is obvious. After all, we’ve already read the story of Mary’s miraculous conception and Gabriel’s revelation that Jesus is the Son of God. But I wonder if “son of God” is meant to be the exclusive, unique designation that we have traditionally made it out to be, as though Jesus is something we’re never meant to be. The gospel of John explains in his prologue that Christ has given to all who trust in him “power to become children of God” (John 1:12). Athanasius, an Egyptian church leader in the fourth century, explained the purpose of the incarnation in similar terms, saying, “God became what we are, so that we might become what God is.” (He did not mean to imply, of course, that humanity would take the place of God, but rather that in Christ humanity might come to know their place in God—as, for example, children know their place in a family.)
Wondering What the Boy Jesus Said…
So I wonder if in the temple Jesus didn’t say some of the darndest—and truest—things revealing his sense of God’s nearness, God’s intimacy, God’s love. I wonder if he talked about God as his “abba,” his dad. I wonder if he talked about God’s kingdom as a world in which he was already living, a world that was already among the people, available to anyone who would live in God’s love. I wonder if he talked about other people—including the poor, the blind, the Roman centurion, the tax collector—as his brothers and sisters. I wonder if what so amazed the people at the temple was the same thing that so astonished his mother, namely, that he spoke with the precocious assurance that he was a child of God and this was God’s world and we could all enjoy and share God’s goodness if we but believed in it.
Prayer
Tender father and mother of us all,Whose love we come to know most fully
Through our brother Jesus Christ—
Some days our faith is full,
Others it verges on empty.
May the words of Christ,
The darndest things he says,
Dwell richly in us
…
That we, like him, might grow
In wisdom and grace.
In Christ, a child of God: Amen.
[2] https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=DWVWUYxlD7A&ab_channel=27BoysFamily, accessed December 30, 2024.
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