First Sunday after Christmas B, December 28, 2014; The Rev. Pamela L. Werntz
Galatians 4:4-7 So that we might receive adoption as children.
Luke 2:22:40 The child grew and became strong, filled with wisdom; and the favor of God was upon him.
O God with us, Emmanuel, grant us the strength, the wisdom and the courage to seek always and everywhere after truth, come when it may, and cost what it will.
This Gospel portion that I just read is only told in the Gospel of Luke. It follows immediately after the verse which says, “After eight days had passed, it was time to circumcise the child, and he was called Jesus, the name given by the angel before he was conceived in the womb. If it had been a little less chaotic at Emmanuel Church in the weeks leading up to Christmas, I might have remembered to expand our Gospel reading in your bulletins to include this verse, because of the reference to Jesus’ naming ceremony. Only Luke tells anything about Jesus before he reached later adulthood. So I wonder, what is it that Luke wanted to demonstrate with these stories of Jesus’ infancy and boyhood?
I think 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 — earthling (who Luke calls the Son of God). The Good News of Jesus Christ in Luke is that God anointed a human being to fully embody God’s intention of freedom and right-relationship for God’s people. Jesus increased in wisdom as he increased in years. According to Luke, Jesus didn’t land on earth knowing it all. Jesus learned as he went. According to Luke, Jesus was fully, really human.
The second thing 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 tells of the ceremony of Jesus’ circumcision, his dedication in the temple, the purification ceremony, the devout and righteous blessing of Simeon, the praise of God for Jesus from the prophet Anna – everything required by the law of the Lord was done before returning to the Galilee, to their own town of Nazareth. The image presented of the temple in Jerusalem by Luke is very positive and Jesus’ parents, very devout.
Luke’s story is a reminder that God’s salvation is for all people. This particular story in Luke is inclusive of religion, race, class, gender and age: a light for revelation to the Gentiles and for glory to God’s people Israel, rich and poor, women and men, of all ages from infants to elders, all in these short verses. This wide-angle definition of belonging 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, or religion, or gender or wealth, but on adoption by grace of those who listen deeply and behave lovingly.
I highlight these things because we are about to do something radically inclusive and expansive. We welcome back Rabbi Mark Newton who is with us to preside over the Jewish naming ceremony for Lucian Gabriel Mandrila-Viazmensky, and then I will preside over his Christian naming ceremony. (A rabbi friend recently told me that what we are doing wouldn’t be considered “mainstream” in either Judaism or Christianity. “I know,” I said, “not yet.”) Like we did for his big sister, Sofia Chaya, we are asserting – re-asserting actually — a very ancient and scandalous idea that a child of God can be not half Jewish and half Christian, but fully Jewish and fully Christian: a son of Israel and a member of the body of Christ. By our ritual actions and by the promises we are making, we are going way out on a limb to actively engage in the repair of the world (tikkun ha’olam). Our safety harness, of course, is the grace of God. We are declaring that Lucian (from the Greek word for light) Gabriel (from the Hebrew word meaning God is my strength) has dual and full citizenship as a Jew and as a Christian. We are declaring Lucian Gabriel to be a member of a people chosen to be a light to the nations and a member of a people called to be the light of the world, both of whom declare God is my strength.
We are calling on Lucian Gabriel to be faithful to the particular teachings of the Torah which has a universalistic vision for the well-being of all humanity. And we are calling on Lucian Gabriel to be faithful to the Gospel, the particular teachings of Jesus whose universalistic vision was for the well-being of all humanity. And most important for each one of us, we are promising to support him because we know what he does not yet know – that he will need a synagogue and a church to help him grow into his faith.
Perhaps you saw Reza Aslan’s column in the New York Times Magazine last week (December 21, 2014).[1] Aslan tells of navigating a multi-cultural, multi-faith family Christmas dinner where members of his family “for a good 10 minutes…stood around the dinner table arguing about how to thank God for the meal [they] were about to eat.” He writes about the realization that although they speak different spiritual or religious languages about the ineffable, their dreams and aspirations, fears and anxieties, and their gratitude for the many gifts they receive are very similar – they just use different words and symbols in our religious practices. Aslan tells “a Sufi parable about four hungry travelers from different countries who are trying to decide what to buy with the single coin they hold in common. The Persian wants to spend the coin on angur; the Turk, on uzum; the Arab, on inab; and the Greek, on stafil. Confusion turns to anger as the four travelers argue among themselves. It takes a passing linguist to explain to them that they are all, in fact, asking for the same thing: grapes.” That’s it, isn’t it?
I’ve invited Rabbi Newton to say a few words to you before we proceed to the naming ceremonies.
P.S. When Rabbi Newton got into the pulpit he began by thanking me and accidentally calling me Rabbi Werntz. Hooray!