The readings for 30 January, the Fourth Sunday after the Epiphany, are as follows (to read them, go HERE):
Jeremiah 1:4-10
Psalm 48
1 Corinthians 13:1-13
Luke 2:22-40
“When I was a child,” the Apostle Paul says, “I spoke like a child, I thought like a child, I reasoned like a child; when I became an adult, I put an end to childish ways.”
And I wonder, at what age do we become an adult? When is it that we grow up, really and truly? I’ve heard it said that we don’t really grow up until we quit trying to change our parents. (Maybe that’s just in the States.) Some say that nowadays kids grow up too fast — they see things on TV and they have to be aware of things, such as on social media, that they likely would not have had a clue about, say, 50 years ago. But at the same time, some say that kids — more like teens and young adults — take lots longer to grow up these days. They depend on their parents for longer; they aren’t carrying the life responsibility that their grandparents would have been shouldering at the same age.
Do we ever truly want to grow up? When we’re kids, we might long to be older. I remember the symptoms of that: If I were older, I’d be able to reach the top shelf in the kitchen. Or my parents wouldn’t have to get a babysitter when they went out. Or I wouldn’t have to be reporting to my parents about things. Or I would be a grown-up and could make my own decisions. To be a “grown-up” was a big goal.
But then we might reach adulthood and discover that it’s tough to make those decisions, and wouldn’t it be nice to have someone make them for us?
In our readings today, we have the very young and the very old, but what it means to be “grown up” is different entirely from the way we generally think of it.
The Gospel is the story of what is called the Presentation of Jesus in the Temple. The baby Jesus is forty days old. According to Jewish custom, his parents, Mary and Joseph, are to take him to the Temple and present him to God and make an offering. While they are there, two elderly people see them and the baby Jesus, the wise and devout old man Simeon and the prophetess Anna. Both of them proclaim that Jesus is the awaited Saviour. The destiny of this baby, just 40 days old, is to be a light to the nations, and someone who would turn the world as people knew it topsy-turvy, and who would reveal the inner thoughts of many. And Simeon declares that he can now die in peace because he has seen God’s salvation in this child.
And the reading ends with telling us that Jesus “grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.” He may have been a child in many respects, but he has already been touched by and filled with God, for he is God incarnate.
The first reading, about the prophet Jeremiah, is about a lad who has been chosen by God and commissioned for a duty, you might say, while he is still young. We do not know just how old Jeremiah is in this reading, but we hear God calling him to be a prophet — in other words, to speak the word of God to people, to the nation. “Before I formed you in the womb I knew you, and before you were born I consecrated you,” God says to him. And Jeremiah protests, “I don’t know how to speak. I’m only a boy.” And God tells him not to say that, for God will give him the words to speak and tell him where he is to go.
Again, Jeremiah is young but has been given an adult task, and God is with him. One might say he is being forced to grow up quickly. One might also say that there is something in him that is already grown up, something not tied to age. Again, what it means to be grown up is different from how we generally think of it. And I have met some children who have more spiritual awareness, of God and of spiritual realities, than many adults.
I’m reminded of a Peanuts cartoon. (Before I decided to include this, I checked with someone to make sure that Peanuts and Charlie Brown had reached Ireland.) In this cartoon, Charlie Brown is sitting under a tree with his friend Peppermint Patty. She says, “What do you think security is, Chuck?” And Charlie Brown says, “Security? Security is sleeping in the back seat of the car. When you’re a little kid, and you’ve been somewhere with your mom and dad, and it’s night, and you’re riding home in the car, you can sleep in the back seat. You don’t have to worry about anything. Your mom and dad are in the front seat, and they do all the worrying. They take care of everything.”
Peppermint Patty has a broad smile and says, “That’s real neat.”
But Charlie Brown says, “But it doesn’t last! Suddenly you’re grown up and it can never be that way again! Suddenly it’s over, and you’ll never get to sleep in the back seat again! Never!”
Peppermint Patty says, “Never?” and Charlie Brown answers, “Absolutely never!” And she grabs his hand and says, “Hold my hand, Chuck!”
Well, Peppermint Patty and Charlie Brown are right about one thing and wrong about one thing. What they are right about is the need we have for one another as we go through this life. Peppermint Patty says, “Hold my hand, Chuck!” — recognising that in the midst of the difficulties of grown-up life, we need the help of one another. One thing I kept telling our confirmation class this year, over and over again, was, “We’re all in this together.” God calls us to be a people, united in worship of God, rejoicing with one another and being a resource and strength in times of sorrow. The reading from the Apostle Paul was the great hymn about love. Love is patient; love is kind; love is not envious or boastful or arrogant or rude.” Yes, this is how we are called to love one another in the church.
But it’s tough going, and that brings us to where Charlie Brown was wrong. He says that suddenly we are grown up and we can never sleep in the back seat again, because we’re in charge.
Except we’re not. God is in charge. As God tells Jeremiah, don’t worry about what to say or where you are to go, because I’m in charge of that. The destiny of Jesus was set before he was born; in fact his very reason for being born was to bring God to the people, to be the salvation of the people, to show the full extent of God’s love and also to reveal the inner thoughts of many, as Simeon said.
Think about that. To reveal the inner thoughts of many. To be grown up, spiritually speaking, is essentially to have one’s inner thoughts revealed, to oneself, so that one can be remade according to what God desires of us. To be grown up spiritually is to be able to recognise our place in relation to God, the Almighty, and to know what it is that God expects of us, and to fulfil that calling and those expectations with joy. The love that Paul speaks of is essentially the love we receive from God and the love that we show to God, so that we fulfil what God expects of us without insisting on our own way, and without being irritable or resentful. How we love others is an extension of our faithfulness to God and our love of God.
I said that to be grown up is to be remade according to what God desires of us. But the better word would be “reborn.” We are reborn when we grow up in the way that God desires, for it is in the direction of greater life, greater love, greater joy, greater knowledge of God, and being held and loved by God.