Growing Up
“Jesus grew both in body and in wisdom, gaining favor with God and man.”
May 3, 1981
Did you know there is a difference between growing up and growing older? With a good diet, enough exercise, and a lot of luck, each of us grow older and in varying degrees bigger. But that is not the same as growing up, becoming mature in the ways we think, deal with problems, respond to others, and relate to God. There are a lot of 30, 40, and 50 year old children running around: throwing temper tantrums, sulking, unable or at least unwilling to take criticism, say "I'm sorry.", or change when necessary. Perhaps, one of those folks who have grown older in age but who has not necessarily grown up in maturity lives at your house, maybe even on occasion lives in your body, and, my wife will testify, lives in my body.
Luke tells us that Jesus grew in body and in wisdom, wisdom which is another word for maturity. It is noteworthy that there is really very little information given about Jesus before his adult years: birth, infancy, a quick visit to the temple at 12, and that's it. So, what is said is all the more important. Two times, Luke says Jesus grew not only in body but in wisdom, maturity. Conclusion, Luke wanted to say that Jesus, even Jesus in all of his specialness, had to grow up and gain maturity like the rest of us. Growing into maturity is what life is all about. John Wesley used a big strange sounding word sanctification to talk about it. But sanctification simply boils down to the fact that the Christian life like all life is a continual growth process, always on the way, never arrived, on this side of death.
So, for you who are confirmed today and for us who joined the church years ago but who need growth in maturity and faith just as much as the youngest child here, here are some growth reminders for you – and me.
As a child and youth, I spent a lot of time with my grandparents. My grandmother, a real family matriarch, often said to me when I was going somewhere school, church, to a birthday party, later on dates: "You just remember who you are and act like it." What she meant was for me to behave myself because I belonged to a family who loved me and who had taught me to act and treat others. The maturation process, growing up, is a matter of learning who we are, a matter of IDENTITY DISCOVERY.
Who are you? Yes, you are the name you give. You are a person who lives at your address. You are a person who goes to this school, works that job, or is related to such and such children and parents. You are a person who has this amount of money and who is a member of that important or not so important group. You are so many holes in certain computer cards and the bearer of a social security number. You are that stunning or not so stunning creature you see in the mirror. You are the bearer of a chunk of life that will be around this world a while but who will not be here forever. You and I have an identity made up of these things. But unless we realize that we are more than this, then we will never really know who we are and will never grow strong in maturity and faith.
For all the reasons we come to church, perhaps the most important is to come to discover who we really are. It is very simple to say but so awfully, awfully difficult to live. When all is said and done, more important than all the rest, you and I are children of God. God made you and me. God loves you and me. Jesus Christ spent his life and death trying to convince people just like you and me who we are: God's beloved children.
So, before you put anything harmful in your body. Before you speak a lie, or do a lie. Before you cut corners on a business deal or in the giving of your professional service. Before you cheat on your spouse, break a promise, or betray a trust. Before you give up on yourself. You just remember who you are. You will never grow up, just older, until you know who you really are and live like it.
The second step coming from the maturity of knowing who you are as a child of God is discovering what to do with your life. From identity we move to VOCATION DISCOVERY. Voca- tion or profession or career choices are important. Some of you have not made that decision while most of us have that decision behind us and are trying to live with its consequences. Yet deeper and more abiding than what we do for a living" is a basic decision of what we will do with our living".
I offer you the example of a hammer. My dad was and my son is good with a hammer. My dad's son and my son's dad, me, bends a lot of metal nails and bruises fingernails. Yet think about a hammer. With it you can tear things up. Break out windows, knock holes in walls, scar furniture, even crack someone's skull. With a hammer, the same hammer, you can build things: chairs to sit on, houses to live in, bridges to walk across. People, such as you and I, are a lot like hammers. With our lives we can do a lot of damage, hurt a lot of people, wreck anyone who says no to us or gets in our way. That's one choice some make about what they will do with their lives. Yet with the help of God, the church, and others, we can grow up and mature in becoming a person who uses the hammer of our life to build things: loving relationships, we can be a person who builds up instead of tears down others, we can even build a better world. An ongoing question for God's children who stand at his altar and who sit in his pews is: what are you doing with the hammer of your life destroying or building?
Finally, growing up in life and Christian faith is a matter of DISCOVERING HOW TO COPE, how to deal with problems, how to face the unfaceable, and how to take the untakeable. If not yet, then sooner or later, it will happen. One of life's unexpecteds will hit you: (you probably know the list by heart) you get sick, someone lets you down, disappointment, the death of someone you love, even the death of you will finally come. These events can and will tear you apart. The question is whether you and I will have the strength and resources to get put back together. And the answer is that you and I alone do not have the strength to put ourselves back together or together in the first place for that matter. Part of maturity is learning not only what we can do for ourselves but also, and maybe more important, what we alone can't do for ourselves.
We will be able to cope with life's big problems maturely only as we learn that the strength to keep going ultimately comes from God. He gets it to us through others, from within ourselves. He gets it to us in regular worship at church, disciplined prayer life, and honest study of the Bible and life. Being able to cope with life's troubles maturely depends very much on staying in contact with the power source of life. And that happens most and best through his church. You who will stand at the altar today need to know that. You who sit in the pews need to remember. To paraphrase John Claypool, if you and I do not work hard to learn about God in the "light" times of life, it will be ever so much harder to find him when the "dark" times come. God help us to grow up as we grow older.
PASTORAL PRAYER
You, who breathed life into us and into the universe,
who gives us strength to go on when our strength is gone,
who compels us to care when, we do not want to be bothered,
You, who we cannot grasp completely in our hands or minds but who grasps us,
who disturbs our neat self-rationalizations and interrupts our easy write offs of others,
who pursues us even in our doubts, questions, and despair,
You, who gave us life in the first place, sustains us in it at this moment, and receives us back unto yourself,
who calls us to love, feed, heal, and care in your name,
who showed your love and face in Jesus Christ,
who risks showing your love and face even in our faces,
in Jesus' name we thank you and ask you to help us. Amen.