First Sunday of 2025

By the Rev. Dr. Calvon Jones
Assistant Minister/Director
Memorial Church of Harvard University

(The following is a transcript of the service audio, Jan. 5, 2025)

Happy New Year. I hope that you all had a beautiful holiday with family and friends and with those who are a part of your heart. I'm so thankful for each of you and the love that you have shown this community through all that we experience in the world, in our city, and in our community here at Harvard. It is so good to see so many familiar faces. I know that we will continue to love and support each other as we embark upon this new year. Will you pray with me?

Be the words of my mouth, the meditation of my heart, be acceptable in thy sight. God, you are my strength and my Redeemer. Amen.

For the short time that I have with you this morning, I would like to place a tag upon the gospel text that you heard this morning entitled “Losing Jesus.”

When I arrived at Morehouse College at the age of 18, I was so done with church. I was. I had been so broken and hurt and abused by the church and by fundamentalism. I really did not want to have anything to do with church or organized religion anymore. I knew I had a calling. My grandmother was a preacher, my great-grandmother was a preacher. My uncle, my aunt is a preacher. My mom and dad, they're preachers. But I was done with the church. I could no longer deal with self-piety and self-righteousness masquerading as the religion of Jesus. I could no longer deal with the exclusive nature of the church or in the words of one writer, the country club type of church. The who's in and who's not in. You know what I'm talking about? I could no longer deal with the church's non-activity, with the socio-political concerns of the day. I was tired.

Some people would say I was losing Jesus. I remember Matt and Alana when I got Morehouse, I declared my major as pre-med. Now to all the doctors out there and those who have majored in the field of medicine, I respect you highly. This is no shot toward you. But I knew that pre-med was not my major. However, I was so broken and over the institution of the church and religion, I said, "If I cannot heal people in the church, I'll do it in the hospital." And I remember calling my mom who was a prayer warrior. Some of you all met her on Christmas Eve, and she would ask me, "Calvon, did you go to church this week?" I did not lie, y'all, because there was a church that I would pass by on my way to class every day. So I said, "I walked by the church. Yes, I did. I went by the church this week, mom."

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So technically I wasn't lying, but some people would say that I was losing Jesus. I remember that the freshmen at Morehouse College, we all had to take the Introduction to Religion course. It was mandatory. And I remember taking a class with a professor by the name of Reverend John Brown. He changed my life y'all. I would ask questions. I was so curious. I wanted to know more about theology and ethics, and I wanted to know about the canon and the history and the Nicene Creed. I wanted to know as much about religion as the religion majors. So one day after class, Reverend John Brown said, "Calvon, I need to talk to you. What's your major?" I said, "Pre-med." He said, "You got to be kidding me, right?" He said, "I think you've missed your calling." I said, "No, I can't deal with the church." But he responded to me and said, "You haven't lost Jesus. For Jesus is never lost. He is always there. The liberating God is always present, waiting to welcome you."

And I responded, I said, "You can say all of that, professor, but I'm over that phase of my life. I've been hurt by so many people, so many people who've claimed to love God, and I can't take any pain anymore." And my professor responded saying, "Calvon, you have every right to feel that way, and I'm so sorry that you experienced that. You've been hurt by many people who claim to know God. But remember, Jesus never left you. Maybe you are the change that you wish to see in the church. Maybe you can be the hands and feet of Christ. Maybe you can share the power of the liberating gospel. Maybe you can show the world that Jesus is a loving, inclusive and compassionate God."

My professor reminded me that I really did not lose Jesus for he is never lost, he is always there. But sometimes, we see the wrong image of who Christ really is. The liberating God is always present. He is always there. And the words of my professor continues to ring in my heart as I read the gospel lesson today. He said I didn't lose Jesus, but I believe that Mary and Joseph did lose him, right? Jesus is in fact lost physically in the eyes of his earthly parents. His mother, Mary, and his father, Joseph, lost him. Just a few days ago, we celebrated the birth of Jesus. We celebrated the splendor of the winter and starry night. We celebrated the announcement and the song of heavenly angels. We celebrated the sojourn of the shepherds to meet the baby Christ as Alana so beautifully prayed this morning, but today we have a dark contrast. We have Mary and Joseph losing him.

In today's gospel, we are looking for Jesus and not knowing where he is. How did we lose him so quickly? How did we miss this? Right before the story, we are told of the divine pronouncement and presentation of Christ. Anna and Simeon, the prophets remind Mary and Joseph through prophecy in the temple, that their son will bring justice to the world. That his life would shatter the powers that be and bring about love and justice. The prophets, Anna and Simeon remind the parents that Jesus is not an ordinary child. Yet today, we find that Jesus is lost and missing.

This is the only story that we have in the canon about Jesus's childhood. In Luke, there are other stories in the Apocrypha, or if you have heard the gospel of Thomas, that highlights Jesus's childhood, but not in a good way. It is Jesus from the age of five to 12. It entails stories of Jesus having magic tricks, turning clay birds to life and other mischievous happenings. It records Jesus using his powers for good and bad. Instead of a trickster or jester, maybe the lesson we have in Luke today is more fitting. The text says that Jesus, Mary, and Joseph traveled to Jerusalem from Nazareth for the Passover. Luke grounds the holy family in this Jewish heritage. Jesus is raised in a faithful Jewish family. And it is important to note that Luke is letting the readers know that Jesus and his family are indeed Jewish. They bring their Jewish nature to participate Passover. Thousands come to the city of Jerusalem for the festival of Passover. Mary and Joseph travel from Nazareth in a caravan. Their sisters, brothers, neighbors, cousins, aunties, uncles, kids, nieces, nephews, all come together for this week-long festival.

But when this week-long festival is over, the family head home. And after a day probably thinking that Jesus was with all the other kids, they realized that he is missing. Can you imagine what may have been going on in Mary and Joseph's mind? They already had experienced the pain of Roman rulers and their threat to destroy all male children. They already had faced the pain of running away from the threat and violence of the Roman Empire. There is so much that could have been running through their head, their child was missing in a broken world. Can you imagine lost, missing? In our world today, mothers, fathers and families feel the pain of loss. And in the last 12 months, 50,000 people have been killed by guns in this country. Loss. There are over 45,000 dead in Gaza. Loss.

1500 children who were separated from their families in 2018 in this country, still have not been reunited with their families. Loss. Over 60,000 dead in Sudan where genocide, rampage, enrages. There are still hundreds of girls missing in Nigeria and South Africa. Loss. Missing. According to the Children Defense Fund, gun violence ends the lives of children in this nation at alarming rates. The CDF also records that one in six children under five, three million children were poor. The highest rate of any age group. Among the 74 million children living in the United States, 11 million live in poverty. Loss. Missing. And in 2023, the FBI National Crime Information Center reported 375,304 missing children in this country.

On average, a child is abused and neglected every 54 seconds in America, 1,599 each day. Can you imagine what was going through the mind of Mary and Joseph? Having your child lost in a world where so much pain and agony and violence and war and discrimination and poverty is afflicted upon the lives of children. Yet this was the son of God. For three days, Mary and Joseph frantically searched Jerusalem. They looked everywhere but the temple. Returning to the houses where they stayed, the restaurants, the public squares, the places where children played, the marketplaces, the stores, the exchange places, the farms, but the temple was the last place that they looked.

If I were Mary and Joseph, I would not have wanted Jesus to be at the temple because his presence there may just mark that he is no ordinary child. Mary may have known this, but maybe it was not at the fore of her heart. Maybe the words of Simeon may have echoed in her head, that one day a sword would pierce her own soul. Maybe she did not want to believe that her child would be called to transforming the state of Rome. It was too much for a mother to thank at that time. And while every mother wants their child to be special, no one wants their child to be responsible for reversing empire. Who wants their child to be responsible for challenging Pharaonic powers? Perhaps Mary did not want to find Jesus in the temple enacting his destiny; she might have known that she was in danger of losing him.

And I can hear her saying, God, please let it not be today. We will never know what Mary thought. We only know that they found him amongst the teachers, where he was listening and, more astonishingly, teaching—losing Jesus. Maybe Jesus wasn't truly lost. Go with me for a minute. Maybe Jesus was right where he belonged. Finally, when Mary and Joseph arrived at the temple, they are astonished to discover amazed teachers and rabbis with their 12-year-old son. And the text says that Mary and Joseph asked child, "Why have you treated us like this? Your father and I have been searching for you with great anxiety." Now, I'm not a New Testament scholar, but I can look up Greek, so I can't give you the Greek as Matt does so eloquently on Sundays. But I will say this, the translation into English misses the heaviness of the words in the Greek. Mary's anxiety in the Greek is more like teeth grinding pain.

Also noted in the gospel when Lazarus was troubled and the rich man was asking for help, she was in anguish. And Jesus responds, "Why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I must be about my father's business?" But the problem is that the Greek is ambiguous here about father's business. So the phrase can mean to be in the house of my Father, to be among the people of my father, or to be about the things of my father.

One commentator, Meta Stamper, says that this ambiguity, I'm sorry, this ambiguous nature is perfect for what Luke will continue to do in the gospel. The boy Jesus is in fact not lost. He's already aware of the overarching call of God. And maybe this quote that talks about the affairs of my father's house is about the somethings of my father. The places, people doings of my father. What if Luke wants to show us that Jesus is not lost, that soon he will carry out the mission of God. For the lost and found will be a theme in the book of Luke, the one who goes after one sheep amongst the 99 and the woman who loses a coin in her home, the prodigal son who will go astray and is found. But remember in the Book of Luke, Jesus is not the one who's lost. It's us.

Like my professor who reminded me in the beginning of my ministerial journey that I did not lose Jesus. That he is always there, even when life fails us, even when the church fails us, even when others hurt us. Maybe it's not Jesus who is lost. Maybe Jesus is waiting to find us, to remind us that his love is unfailing. The world is in need of Christ. We are the ones who are lost. And God never stops looking for us until we are found. He is not lost. And you do not have to look very far to find him. Jesus is as near as our next heartbeat. He is everywhere where God's will is being done. He is everywhere where truth, righteousness, and justice is being proclaimed. He is with you. He is with me. When life weighs you down and you feel as if you have lost Jesus, may you remember the words of my professor, Jesus is with you, Emmanuel. God with us. And like Mary, may we treasure these things in our heart. Amen.

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