I clearly wasn’t as bright as Jesus since a cab hadn’t come down our street in all the years we’d lived there, and even if one had come by that day I didn’t have money for a fare, or a place in mind to go.

I can’t remember why I was running away. It could have had something to do with going to church. A sore subject in my house at the time. Although neither of my parents went to church, they made me go to church, which did not go over so well.

At twelve years old the last place you would’ve seen me lingering at was Sunday School. And I suspect the only questions I would have been asking teachers at church were things like: “Can I use the restroom?” or “Oh, were we supposed to memorize that verse for today?”

When I hear today’s story from Luke –– the only one in the bible about Jesus’s youth–– I am as astonished as Mary and Joseph and the temple teachers must have been. This story of the young Jesus is amazing, not just because a child wants to be in a place of worship, and not just because that child is listening intently and asking questions, but because adults, the pillars in the religious community, are listening to him.

Jesus is not being talked at, but, seems to have found a place to be heard. Jesus shows respect to the faith leaders, and they in turn show respect to Jesus. Not only that, but, Jesus’s parents show him respect. Even when Mary pulls him aside and says “How could you do this? We were worried sick about you?” Mary listens to Jesus’s answer.

She patiently hears him out. And Jesus respectfully responds by leaving the temple and going home to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph –and we are told he “was obedient to them.” And as a result of the way she and Jesus handled the whole thing Mary “treasured all these things in her heart.”

But in this story –– today’s story about the child Jesus– he is honored and respected and what happens? The religious leaders exchange ideas with him and as a result are amazed, presumably learning something themselves.

And Jesus, what about Jesus? He shares ideas, listening and talking; gaining understanding. And remarkably the last verse tells us “Jesus grew in wisdom and stature, and in the favor of God and men.” (NIV). Kids. They learn the darndest things from the darndest places, even Jesus. In his youth, Jesus was loved and respected by God and a religious community and it made a difference in even his wisdom and stature!

We learn in Mark, the oldest gospel, that the adult Jesus, certainly does have a different kind of wisdom. In the verse Alicia just read Jesus takes a child and places her in the midst of the disciples vying for position as the greatest. He puts his arm around her and says “Whoever welcomes one such child in my name welcomes me, and whoever welcomes me welcomes not me but the one who sent me.”

Jesus’ act of holding that child out, of embracing her, was a huge and amazing act of grace in his culture, but he does not just embrace a lowly child, he declares her and all other children as envoys of himself and God.

I picked out today’s scripture readings not just because they illustrate the wisdom of Jesus as a child and as man, but because they show what a difference community can make in providing a place for children to be loved and to feel safe to explore their religious thoughts; as well as what a difference one person can make with one embrace of a child.

Clearly when Jesus was growing up some in Jesus’s religious community did not follow the way of his day and age, they did not treat him as a non-person, but, embraced him with respect and love as a child and it made a difference in Jesus’s own wisdom and stature. That’s pretty powerful stuff!

We can imagine that such an embrace of Jesus led him to reject seeing children as non-persons and to embrace children as he had been embraced. Jesus’s embrace of that one child in Mark arguably changed over time how Western culture sees children.

Jesus’s example has led us to see children as those we must embrace, honor, respect and love as his and God’s representatives.

Jesus is not the only child to be cared for by God’s people in the bible. The bible remembers many instances of communities bucking the norm by caring for children and youth.

In Exodus the midwives, Shiphrah and Puah risk their lives to save Hebrew infants from Pharaoh’s sword.

And Moses himself is saved by the daring of his mother and sister and one of Pharaoh’s daughters.

We heard a few weeks ago how God through Elijah saved the Zaraphath widow’s son.

Jacob’s son Joseph is loved, honored and respected by his father, and although he is abused by his brothers God respects, honors and loves him. And Joseph goes on to save not only his father and all of Egypt, but, his brothers as well.

David, a lowly shepherd boy, is loved and honored by God, and trusted by Saul and the army of Israel to do what no one else could do: defeat Goliath and stop the Philistines.

Esther, a girl, a beauty contestant is loved and respected by her uncle Mordecai, and the King of Persia. And Esther has the courage to risk her life to save Jews throughout the Persian Empire.

Mary an oppressed teenaged girl is honored and respected by God. And she is treated with great respect by Elizabeth and Zachariah, and by Joseph. Mary is asked to conceive God and give birth to a new Way to God in her son Jesus, and she does just that!

And many of Jesus’s healing stories involve his tending to children.

These are powerful stories about children. Powerful witness to how we are called to respect and honor children; to hold them safely and kindly in our collective community arms; to provide the opportunity for them to grow as Jesus did in wisdom and stature!

Did you hear all the famous names from the bible that were respected and honored as children? Joseph, Moses, David, Esther, Mary and Jesus had a community that cared for them as children and youth.

It is no small matter that each of these biblical heros experienced love and respect from adults when they were young.

And it is no accident that the bible remembers those experiences in the telling. They are instructive. These cared for and beloved children and youth of the Bible go on to do great, great things. Scared and Holy things. Even Jesus as an infant needed a community to care for him. Even Jesus at twelve in a religious institution, when listened to and allowed to talk and amaze temple teachers, it is reported to have “[grown] in wisdom and stature, and in the favor of God and men.”

How much more do our own children need such care? And sadly, often, it is not a given. Have you watched how our culture treats twelve year olds and other adolescents ?

In most places I doubt an adolescent Jesus would get much respect today. And I don’t just mean he’d get sent to the principal for wearing a robe and sandals to school. I mean like most adolescents he’d probably be ignored by clerks in stores, or worse be followed around suspiciously or even asked to leave.

A youthful Jesus would probably be seen today as among the generation that has long been falsely thought to be riddled with problems like “drug abuse, alcohol abuse, pregnancy, suicide . . . robbery and assault.” I say falsely because, as Mike Males a sociologist at the University of California at Santa Cruz, puts it

My experiences and observations here at Riviera United Church of Christ allow me to say that this church –this place that honors Christ– understands that youth have much to offer and we would not treat a twelve year old Jesus, or any other youth like an adolescent cast away.

We get that our youth and children are important and good and have much to offer. In this church I’m happy to say that we reject the culture’s norm of seeing youth in a bad light, of disregarding them as valuable members of our community.

Here we strive to respect and love our youth and children by valuing them, listening to them, loving them and by providing programs from them like Summer Sunday Fun that just ended and our very successful green vacation bible school which this church dared to prayerfully create and call Sacred Earth Adventures, and the youth were a very important part of the leadership and success of that program.

In this church I’m happy to say that we continue to strive to respect our children with programs like our new Sunday School that begins in September; and our new weekly after school program we have modeled after both our successful LOGOS program and our recent vacation bible school. In fact, as you heard, it is so closely related to the green VBS that we are also calling it Sacred Earth Adventures. How cool is it that our after school program will merge with a weekly church community meal where old and young a like can mix and mingle and teach and listen to one another?

The good news is that this place ––Riviera United Church of Christ–– is a place where a young Jesus would be respected and is a place that he would be listened to.

The good news is that this place –Riviera United Church of Christ– is a place where we strive to follow Jesus’s example and hold our children out and put our arms around them and welcome them in Jesus’s name. This is what our Children’s Christian Education programs is all about.

The good news is that the culture’s often jaded view of adolescents is not how we see youth. Here we strive to carry on the biblical tradition of embracing children, of honoring youth, teaching them and letting them teach us. We know they have much to offer.

They are programs created by this church with care and filled with our love – filled with God’s love.