 Greetings, I'm David Bushhardt, President of Anabaptist Mennonite Biblical Seminary. We're in spite of the upheaval caused by the COVID-19 pandemic, we are carrying on our mission to educate followers of Jesus Christ to be leaders for God's reconciling mission in the world. Thank you for the opportunity to be with you this morning, though I wish I could be with you in person. Our scripture text comes from the end of Luke chapter two. The only story recorded in our Bibles between Jesus' infancy and his public ministry. It's been said that by the time children reach the age of 12, they know everything that their parents believe. And they spend the next 12 years testing everything their parents believe. That is a wonderful and confounding process to watch in our families. We see that tension in the story about Jesus as he reaches that 12-year-old tipping point. Luke wants us to understand that this isn't the first time that Jesus has been to Jerusalem, nor will it be his last. Mary and Joseph went to Jerusalem for the festival of Passover every year. When it was time for the festival of Passover, they went up to Jerusalem as usual. When Jesus was 12 years old, Jesus knew that he had been raised in a devout household. He was raised in one of those families we might think of today as a family that's at church every time the doors are open, their delegates to their regional meeting, and they attend the National Assembly. This was a family steeped in the traditions of their faith. This year, something about the usual trip to Jerusalem was different. Jesus is different. At 12, he knew what the ritual of Passover was about. He knew how the rituals would be enacted. He could have recited the story of the night when the spirit of death passed over the households of the Israelites and spared their firstborn, but struck the firstborn of the Egyptians leading to the liberation of his ancestors. But this year, Jesus is pondering the religious commitments of his obedient parents and their faith community in a new way. For a whole day as Mary and Joseph walked back toward Nazareth with their friends, they didn't notice that Jesus wasn't with his siblings or the other children. This is hard for parents in modern days to consider. We think about ourselves as responsible, always taking care of watching over the safety of our children. Parents are vigilant concerning the whereabouts of their children. Psychologist Jonathan Height says that one contributing factor to a growing anxiety and depression among adolescents today is the lack of unsupervised free play for children. Unsupervised free play, he says, is how children learn to negotiate their conflicts and hone their creative problem-solving skills and where they become aware of their own resourcefulness. Unsupervised play was abundant in Jesus's day. Joseph and Mary did not need to keep an eye on every move that Jesus made. Even as crowded Jerusalem emptied out its Passover pilgrims, there were no cars screaming down the highway at 70 miles an hour. Traveling in large groups was a natural deterrent against bandits. Parents could assume that all the kids were together growing each other up. At the end of the day, they realized that Jesus wasn't with them. Having traveled thus far in the safety of their large group of friends, Mary and Joseph are now the ones at risk, walking back to Jerusalem in the dark by themselves. Now that was dangerous, but all nature tells us that even for non-compliant children, the child's well-being always comes first. When they returned to Jerusalem, they looked for three days and didn't find him. When his parents finally saw him in the temple, his mother ran to him with great anxiety. Where were you and why would you do this to us? Unconcerned, Jesus says, why were you searching for me? Did you not know that I would be in my father's house? We can almost feel the sting of Jesus differentiating himself from Joseph. His father's house is God's house, not Joseph's house. Jesus is crossing the threshold from blind identification with his parents' faith to owning his own faith. How is he doing that? Well, Luke says, first of all, by listening. He was listening to the teachers in the temple, trying to grasp more of the story, learning to how other adults outside of his family put words to their faith. But he wasn't only listening, he was also questioning those who were explaining the faith in conventional terms. Jesus is asking why this faith? His wise stumped the parochial thinking of the teachers and they were amazed at his thinking. The passage ends by saying that Jesus didn't press on in rebellion. He returned in obedience. Commentator Ronald Allen summarizes what he believes is happening in this story. The reference to his increasing in wisdom and in years in divine and human favor refers to his growing capacity to discern God's purposes. 12-year-old Jesus is making a stand and beginning to align his life and vocation with what God is doing to redeem the world and reconcile all things. We wonder from within this story about how faith is formed even today. The trip back to Jerusalem for Passover next year was not going to be as usual. Jesus would be 13, old enough to observe the festival of Passover under his own volition. It's delightful to read this story that the teachers took this 12-year-old seriously, inviting him to listen, inviting his questions, expressing their affirmation for his spiritual acumen, welcoming his why questions, allowing themselves to be stumped and say, I don't really know the answer to that question. It begs the question for us and certainly we think about this every day at AMBS. How are we working at faith formation today? Who is asking the big questions about God's call and purpose for the lives of young people in our church? We recall John Westerhoff's classic title, Will Our Children Have Faith? In a time of increasing secularization, we can ask, will even our adults have faith? With the growing ambivalence toward the Christian faith for many people in Canada and the U.S., that question is both urgent and important. On the one hand, this question, will our children have faith causes anxiety in our faith communities? We can wring our hands in these stressful and uncertain times, offering moral platitudes and simplistic answers to our children and youth that they can easily recite back to us, hoping that they'll be satisfied. As we hover and worry over the moral development of our youth, we can inadvertently relieve them of wrestling with hard questions, even if that leads to lives that are empty of purpose. The questions of a 12-year-old's faith lurk in the backs of the minds of youth and adults alike. Is this story of God's redeeming work in the world believable? Does it really hold together? Does this story lead to something that sounds like good news in this world? The exchange between Jesus and the temple leaders was about claiming his faith, his call, and God's mission, his ultimate purpose. Jesus was trying to understand that following God's call would somehow be worth the cost. To be sure, there is attention to manage here. Faith formation cannot only be about challenging every claim and knocking out all the props, that too ends in anxiety. But notice that Luke shows us Jesus listening and questioning. He was in a secure space, his father's house, a space that warmly received him. According to the research of vibrant faith, there are four keys to forming faith in children and youth, caring conversations about faith in the home, rituals, traditions, and celebrations, family worship in the home, and family serving together. These keys create a secure foundation where the big and hard questions can be asked without one's whole faith identity imploding. It's an essential ministry for every home and congregation. To create spaces for asking big questions about life's ultimate purpose and meaning. These big questions are not for the faint of heart. Big questions don't always lead to moralistic, parent-approved answers. Big questions don't always make you popular with folks who are holding on to the status quo. Though his questions amazed the temple teachers at age 12, Jesus spent his years in public ministry in near-constant conflict with those same teachers to the point that they killed him. At age 12, we see Jesus doing the important and essential work of every maturing child of God. To what and to whom am I going to give my life? What is God's purpose for me? Our youth are listening to us. They are watching us and they have big questions for us. Do you know that your 12-year-olds think about these big questions about the purpose of life? Do you know that adults in your congregation are still thinking about these questions as they mature through life? Who in your congregation is intentionally regularly creating the space where youth and adults can all ask important questions about the purpose and meaning of their lives? Where in your congregation is the group that regularly asks the question, who is God calling to prepare for leadership in God's reconciling mission in the world? Where are the young and the restless among us being challenged to ask bigger questions? Then what job will give them the money that will give them the house in the right neighborhood, the nicest vacations, the best education for their children, and the largest 401k? Where in your congregation are 12-year-olds and everyone else invited to a secure place where they can listen, reflect, ask questions, wrestle with God's call while aligning their lives and vocations with God's purposes? Never underestimate the big questions a 12-year-old will pose. Creating caring spaces that welcome these questions is an essential ministry for every congregation because wrestling with these questions is how we can all increase in wisdom and in years and in divine and human favor. May it be so.