These are some curious readings for this third day of Christmas aren’t they? A story about Samuel’s youth, some behavioral instructions from Colossians, and a story about Jesus’ youth. I have to confess to you that the verses in 1 Samual about Eli’s badly behaving sons are not called for the by lectionary – the appointed lesson for today is Chapter 2, verses 18-20 and verse 26. But in the pre-Christmas office chaos, that detail got missed in my proofreading. It’s somewhat annoying to me that the lectionary would take care to remove verses 21-25 from 1 Samuel but keep in the bit in Colossians directing wives to be subject to their husbands. As if we are not already dealing with enough emotional freight at Christmastide!

All I can say is to remind you that if the instructions are there, it’s because wives weren’t taking direction from their husbands so much – even back then. It’s a piece of anthropological evidence for the argument that early Christianity was a religion of women and slaves who had apparently gotten successful enough -- uppity enough -- that the patriarchy was feeling the need to assert itself in writing in the name of Paul. (Colossians was probably not written by Paul at all.)

This story of Jesus at age 12 is told only in Luke. Only Matthew and Luke care to tell of Jesus’ birth. And only Luke tells anything else about Jesus before he reached later adulthood. What is it that Luke needed to demonstrate with this story?
We know that ancient biographies generally featured stories of the youth of the biographic subject to demonstrate that the noteworthy character of the adult was in evidence at an early age. So Luke is using a literary convention that matters to him and to his cosmopolitan audience. But in this little passage, this pericope (a pericope is a set of verses that forms one coherent unit in ancient Greek writing – one little vignette), Luke works in three important ideas that he wants the hearer to understand about Jesus. Here are three things to think about from this pericope in the Gospel of Luke.

The first is that Jesus was a real human, according to Luke. He was born to human parents, with a genealogy that went back to Adam (who was the Son of God in Luke’s account) and his genealogy included named women and even Samaritans. Yes, his birth was inspired and attended by angels, but in Luke, the miraculous is all mixed in with the mundane – the militarily occupied and overcrowded city, childbirth far from home attended by livestock rather than the benefit of Mary’s family or the village midwife. The Good News of Jesus Christ in Luke is that God anointed a human being to fully embody God’s intention of liberation and salvation for God’s people. Or to use other words, God appointed a person to demonstrate true freedom and right-relation. This person was so human that he was not where he was expected, he worried his parents, and he learned. He increased in wisdom as he increased in years. According to Luke, Jesus didn’t land on earth knowing it all. Jesus was wise as a child and he got wiser with age. According to Luke, Jesus was really human.

The second thing to think about is that this story builds Luke’s case that Jesus was a real Jew. Jesus’ Jewishness is not assumed in Luke like it is in the Gospels of Mark or Matthew. Luke goes to great lengths to describe the preparation for the ceremony of Jesus’ circumcision, his dedication in the temple, the devout and righteous blessing of Simeon, the praise of God for Jesus from the prophet Anna. That passage – that pericope – ends with “When they had finished everything required by the law of the Lord, they returned to Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth.” Then we learn that every year Jesus’ family went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. Jews living within about fifteen miles of Jerusalem were expected to go to the temple three times a year: for Passover, the Feast of Unleavened Bread; for Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks – or Pentecost; and for Succoth, the Feast of Booths. Nazareth was more than four times that distance away. The image presented of the temple in Jerusalem by Luke is very positive and Jesus’ parents, very devout.

Jesus’ parents search and find him sitting among the rabbis, learning from them and asking questions, and demonstrating his own understanding of scripture. Here is a thoroughly Jewish Jesus, well-educated and grounded in his religious tradition. When Jesus asks his mother why she was searching for him, the question, literally translated, reads, “did you not know that I must be in that belonging to my father?” This is the dramatic center of the story and these are the first words that Jesus speaks in the Gospel of Luke. The Greek words do not include the word “house” as in “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?” (NRSV) nor do they include the word “business” as in “Did you know that I must be about my Father’s business?” Nor does the Greek include any indication of a proper noun (capitalizing father). Much is made about the tension between Joseph as father and God as father, and that can be, but it’s not necessarily there. The word father is the same – and there’s no reason to believe that what Jesus is doing doesn’t belong to Joseph. That Jesus must be “in that belonging” to his father can mean in that Jewish tradition, in that sacred Jewish place, in that educational Jewish dialogue. The point is, according to Luke, Jesus was really Jewish.

The third thing to think about in this passage is here in just a glance, but it is a theme that Luke takes up again and again, and that is the theme of losing and searching and finding with an expansive idea of family. Here is a story of Jesus not being in close enough contact with his parents to know that they were leaving or to let them know that he was staying – we don’t really know which. All we know is that Mary and Joseph assumed that he was with their departing caravan and they didn’t realize that he wasn’t until they were a day’s journey away. If this sounds implausible to you, it’s either because you don’t come from a large extended chaotic family, or your family has a much better grip than most. In my family of origin, I think each one of the four children got lost or left behind at least once. Each adult thought that a particular child was with another adult. It’s a wonder that we all made it out of childhood!

The theme of searching and of finding gets reprised in Luke in the parables of the lost sheep and the lost coin and the prodigal son. The theme of family gets defined and redefined in stories about leaving home, not being welcome at home. It is in Luke that Jesus’ disciples let him know that his mother and brothers are searching for him and he famously replies, “my mother and my brothers are those who hear the word of God and do it.” While this probably wouldn’t pass the family values test, it is a comforting idea to people who have left or been rejected by their families of origin because of their understanding or misunderstanding of who (and Whose) they are.

Jesus’ wider definition of family is Good News to any who need to be welcomed into a more expansive, a more inclusive household of God. In Luke, Jesus employs an ever-larger definition of family, a definition of belonging and beloving that doesn’t depend on biology, or inheritance, but on adoption by grace of those who listen deeply and behave lovingly. Maybe getting a glimpse of that idea that we belong and are beloved in the household of God is gift enough for the third day of Christmas. Maybe it’s more than we could have thought to ask for.