Finding ourselves – our ultimate vocation
Luke 2:41-52
When I was an adolescent I began the long search for what I was going to do in life -what was to be my vocation. I suppose the search started long before adolescence in the dreams and growing expectations that I had as a young child but it was as I entered adolescence that it became more crucial. I would say as I look back on my life the discovery was in stages and is still going on in my older years. I have learned also that my vocation was not in any particular work that I was to do. It was in realizing all the height, width, length and depth, all the dimensions of servanthood, that is, how in the world I was to serve God and humanity. I have been involved in many kinds of work throughout my life, parish priest, addictions counselor, radio announcer, national consultant in stewardship, diocesan program coordinator responsible for Membership Development, Funding, Christian Nurture and Youth Ministry. It all has given me a heightened sense of meaning to see all these things from the perspective of servant-hood. Even now I can see in my art and writing and I able to connect with others and express myself creatively in serving the needs of humanity even though it may be in some small way. It really has been a journey of discovering who I am or as some would put it “finding oneself” which is basically vocation of all of us.
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This is why I find the story of Jesus listening and asking questions in the Temple in Jerusalem when he was 12 years old told by Luke (Luke 41 -52) so interesting. We see him in the decisive process of discovering his vocation, in finding out who he really was, in finding himself. It is the same journey that all of us are involved in at various stages of our lives.
The story is quite symbolic. He goes to Jerusalem with his parents to celebrate the Passover which was the celebration of the journey of liberation and freedom. When the people came to celebrate the Passover it was not just an act of remembering the story of their ancestors being set free from slavery in Egypt. They became the people who came out of slavery. They became people who were being liberated and set free. This is who they are as a people. From the beginning we see this is a story of Jesus being set free and discovering who he is as a person.
In the story the see the important use of “three days”. It is after his parents realized he wasn’t with them as they left Jerusalem that they found him after three days. “Three” has been an important number in scripture and especially when we think of the most important part of Jesus’ life was that after three days he rose from the dead. So, three days can be seen as the time of renewal, a time of new life. I think that Jesus was at that stage from the death of childhood and the entrance to new life of adulthood. It was also a spiritual rebirth to a significant and meaningful future.
Jesus is twelve years old. This is the age that a boy became a man. It was the time of Bar Mitzvah, when the young man is no longer considered the son of the family but the son of the Torah (God’s Law). No wonder he could say to his parents, “Did you not know that I must be in my father’s house?” It is true of all of us that we move from being sons or daughters of our parents and begin to take on a life of our own. There are lots of problems that develop when people can’t make that transition for it is necessary in the process of finding ourselves. There are adult children who cannot break free from parental control. There are parents who can not let go of parental control. There is an interesting piece in Kahlil Gibran’s book The Prophet :
Your children are not your children.
They are the sons and daughters of life’s longing for itself: They come through you but not from you.
You may give them your love, but not your thoughts.
You may house their bodies but not their souls,
For there souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you cannot visit, not even in your dreams.
You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like you,
For life goes not backwards not tarries with yesterday
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So there is lots of food for thought in this story of the twelve year old Jesus in the Temple. He is discovering what life is all about and his place in it. We see him, not teaching in the Temple as some artists have portrayed him, but learning, listening and asking questions. We don’t see him again in Luke’s Gospel until his baptism when he is about thirty years old. So, we don’t see what the rest of his journey of discovery is like and what form it takes. All we have is a sentence at the end of this particular story, “And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor”
Jesus search for himself mirrors our lives in a lot of ways for we are on the same kind of journey. It is about liberation. It is about renewal and new life. It is about new directions and responsibilities. Jesus’ journey of discovery is the journey of all of us. This story faces us with the question, “Where are we in this search for the real self? No matter where we are on this journey or how old we are, it is time to reflect on our lives and take stock of where we’ve been and where we are going. What were our dreams when we were younger? For many of us, some of those dreams have been realized. Others have been partially fulfilled. Still others have probably turned into nightmares. It may be a time to revise our dreams and even dream new ones.
There are some of the roles and relationships that are dying or have become obsolete and so it may be a time to move on to new roles and new kind of relationships. We need to come to the realization that we no longer have forever and some of our values and beliefs have proven false or transitory, so it may be a time to review our values and what is really important in our lives. For example, I don’t think that many people on their death beds say, “I should have spent more time at the office.” There is always more important things in our relationship with others that we could have done that would have more lasting implications. What are the things that we can do now that are most lasting and life giving to our selves and the other people that we share our lives with?
It is time to reflect on our lives in solitude and to see that we may have suffered many things in life but we have not been defeated. What is that spirit that has sustained us throughout the ups and downs? It is in that spirit that we can always begin again, letting go of yesterday’s fears and embracing today’s hopes. While we still have life we can still grow in that spirit proclaiming through our words and actions the new age of love and compassion.-what the world needs most.
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This story in the Gospel today may seem like quite of simple story of the twelve year old Jesus spending time listening and asking questions in the Temple unconcerned or unaware of his parent’s anguish at not finding him with them as they left Jerusalem. But it is more than that. It is about the inevitable search for self. For Jesus it is the beginning of that search. For us it may be a beginning or one of many of the stages of growth that is a part of who we are. May you be inspired by this story, look at your life and move forward in the long quest to find yourself.
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