When I was growing up, I didn’t go to public school until the middle of my 5th grade year. Mom had kept my older brother, my younger brother, and I home for school. Because we came along during my oldest brothers’ elementary years, mom was not able to keep them at home as long. At the beginning of my fifth grade school year, I had been hoping that the school would allow me to play in band and sing in choir without coming to school, but the middle school administrator would not allow it, so I decided that I would go to school. I walked into Mrs. Bachman’s 5th grade class in January of 2001. I was terrified and excited at the same time. I felt like I needed to prove that I deserved to be in 5th grade, so I raised my hand a lot and I shouted out answers when I knew them. It was a steep-learning curve, getting used to all of the rules and classroom guidelines that keep a group of students working diligently throughout a school day. Suddenly, I had to raise my hand when I wanted to speak, and I had to wait for others to finish their work before we could move onto another subject. When I was home-schooled, I was done with my daily work in 3 or so hours, but the public-school day was at least 7 hours, not including the bus ride to and from school. In the same way that the yearly experience of the Passover festival celebration was formative for Jesus, those early years of home-schooling and even the first few years of public school were formative for me as well. In my home-schooling, I developed an inner sense of motivation, a desire to do my best that was not dependent on the success or lack of motivation of my peers. I was often criticized in school by my classmates for throwing off the bell curve because I did well on a particular assignment, while my peers did not. In my first years in public school, I learned the importance of mutual respect and submission to the needs of those around me. I no longer was the only important person in the room as I was before. I had to be patient in moments when it felt like things were moving slowly, while I also had to learn better when to keep my mouth shut. Blurting out comments or answers was not helpful to the teacher or to my peers, but it took me a little while to master those important social and communal skills. I wonder too if this experience of asking and answering questions with the teachers in the temple was a formative experience for Jesus. I wonder if these moments from Luke chapter 2 were the beginning of Jesus noticing the gifts and talents that would one day lead to him not being a carpenter like his father Joseph, but being a rabbi, a servant of the Hebrew scriptures, a servant of his father, God Almighty.
What kinds of formative experiences did you have as a child that have stuck with you throughout your lifetime? So much of our growing up years stick with us, sometimes to our detriment and sometimes to our benefit. I wonder if this moment in the temple was the turning point for Joseph when he realized that his son was not going to spend the rest of his life as a carpenter. Maybe this experience of searching for Jesus worked in the same way for Mary, who was starting to realize that her son was not going to always be safe and taken care of. Jesus was going to step out into the political, cultural, and social tumult of the first century, asking difficult questions and offering even more challenging answers but without necessarily the blessing of his family. We find out later in Luke’s gospel that Jesus considers his family only to be those who do the will of God, not necessarily his biological kin.
What is most frustrating and irritating about this story in the gospels is that it is the only one about Jesus’s childhood. We know that so much of our habits and later life-choices are shaped by what happens in childhood, yet we know so little about what happened during the time that Jesus increased in wisdom and years. We also realize as often is the case in our own lives that some of our childhood experiences foreshadow what happens later in our lives. In this story, Jesus is sought out, misunderstood, and honored for his intellectual and scriptural knowledge and prowess just like he will be one day as he walks around Galilee, teaching and healing the people. Instead of being reprimanded by his parents though and admired by the teachers in the temple, the religious and political leaders of his adult years will seek him out and kill him, while his followers will watch in amazement and distress as he is crucified.
When I was growing up, particular people in my life shaped me and formed me in powerful ways. Through my parents’ example, I learned to work hard and do my best even when it was not always required of me. I learned the importance of following Jesus and learning the scriptures also from my mother, who prayed with us, memorized scripture with us, and constantly reminded us of God’s presence in our lives. My youth pastor in middle school and high school helped me grow in my identity as a leader and person of integrity, the foundation of which had been laid by my parents. Late in high school, a Mennonite pastor started me on the road toward becoming an anabaptist or Christian with Mennonite convictions. Throughout my university years, this Mennonite pastor continued to challenge me to think deeply about what it meant to follow Jesus’s teaching about peace and justice in a broken world. A thousand small decisions, some encouraged and some forced, throughout my childhood have made me who I am today. I wonder who those people were in Jesus’s life. Maybe some of the teachers in Jerusalem were ones that Jesus interacted with every year. I’m sure that both Mary and Joseph shaped Jesus as well. Maybe Jesus spent a lot of time with John the Baptist as well, his cousin according to some scholars or at least a relative. Who were the people that shaped you during your childhood?
As we begin another school year, we ask for God’s inspiration and leading as we seek the presence of the Holy Spirit in our lives as well as in the school days of our students, teachers, and school staff. We pray for our kids and all of the adults who will play an important part in their increase in wisdom and stature. We realize that each of us can play an important role in encouraging and supporting the children of Hutterthal, the we could be a formative influence in the lives of the generations after us.
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