Jesus at Twelve: A Mandate for Youth Ministry

By John Edward Rawlinson

The story of Jesus in the temple, at age twelve, is essentially a story of "teenage rebellion"--leaving parents, doing self-planned activities. The end of the story is that he "grew in stature and wisdom." This demonstrates an element in the process of developing from a child into an adult. This inevitable process of development from child to adult is a physical, emotional, intellectual, and spiritual process that should result in self-identity. This is not an information-related intellectual process. It is inevitable and a divinely designed developmental human process. This book explains how such a developmental process can, and should, be the fundamental basis for a youth ministry program.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Wipf and Stock
• Release date: Dec 20, 2023
• ISBN: 9798385202201

John Edward Rawlinson

John Edward Rawlinson is retired from thirty-eight years in a inner city multi-ethnic congregation in which he engaged youth ministries on diocesan, parochial, and community-based levels. He earned a PhD in church history from the Graduate Theological Union in Berkeley, California.

Book preview

chapter 1

Jesus: A Model for Youth Ministry

Now his parents used to go to Jerusalem every year for the Passover festival. Something happened when he was twelve years old. They’d gone up to Jerusalem for the festival as usual. When they returned at the end of the festival, Jesus stayed behind in Jerusalem. And his parents didn’t realize it; they thought he was with the group of travelers. When they’d gone a day’s journey, they started searching for him among their relatives and friends. When they did not find him, they went back to Jerusalem looking for him. And it turned out that they found him three days later—he was in the Temple. He was sitting there with the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. Everyone who heard him was totally amazed at his understanding and his answers. When his parents saw him, they were astounded. His mother said to him, Child why did you treat us this way? Look—your father and I have been in agony looking for you. He said to them, So why were you looking for me? Didn’t you know that my Father’s house was the only place I could be? And they didn’t understand what he’d said to them. He went back with them and came home to Nazareth, and was always obedient to them. And his mother kept all these things safe in her heart. And Jesus grew in wisdom, in maturity, and in favor with God and with people.¹

The common interpretations of this passage are spiritual and theological in nature. They include the idea that Joseph was not his father, and that Jesus was aware of his unique relationship with the fatherhood of God. Some commentators mention that this was an event in which Jesus became aware of, and demonstrated, the trajectory of his future life. So in one way or another they indicate that he became aware of his unique responsibilities under the guidance of the fatherhood of God. As a result of these ideas, some commentators say that Jesus had a unique fascination with the theological matters under public discussion by the leadership of the temple.

While presenting such a theological perspective, one Austrian Roman Catholic scholar, Bishop Alois Stöger, mentioned a different perspective. He noted that Jesus evaded the attention of his family. So, Stöger understood that this story illustrates a conscious and intentional choice on Jesus’ part to take a path divergent from what his parents would have wanted. He then added, Why Jesus decided to behave as he did is a mystery.²

In answer to Stoger’s puzzle it should be said that this story should be an essential base for youth ministries in the church. However centuries of preaching have focused on the topics of Jesus’ divine knowledge, wisdom, and inspiration and as a result the human dimension has been obscured. For the purposes of pastoral ministry, we should pay attention to the practical aspects of this story.

The first element of the story to note is Jesus’ age. A very old tradition is that Jewish manhood began began at age thirteen, and that has become a common age for one’s bar mitzvah. So in religious terms this was the age when one accepted the responsibilities of manhood. So, at age twelve, Jesus was in a time of transition from childhood to manhood. For that reason, his age is an important element of the story—not a mere curiosity.

The second element of the story is that Jesus made the choice to stay behind. Whereas a child generally follows parents, adults usually make their own decisions for their own reasons. The effect of his choice is to signal that he was feeling a sense of adulthood—making personal choices independent of parents.

The third element of this story is that adults interact with other adults on a relatively equal basis, not as a dependent person. Here Jesus is depicted as one exercising equality with the learned men of the temple environs. It is also indicated that they treated him as an adult with whom they perceived it was reasonable to exchange ideas in a knowledgeable and wise way. So, they accepted him as an adult—young though he was.

The fifth element of the story is that Mary was puzzled by Jesus’ behavior. His show of independence seemed to be unwarranted. Her perspective was that in exercising a degree of independence, he had treated his parents improperly. So, she was not pleased with his new-found adult capacities, she was troubled by his somewhat subtle assertion of adulthood.

The sixth element of the story is that Jesus’ response was that he had to be about, as some translations say it, an agenda which was not that of his parents. It seems to me that the gentility of the perspective and language of Luke’s version of this event has the effect of clouding what was really happening. Put into more forceful modern language, what Jesus was really saying was, I had to do my own thing. The declaration of a young person having an agenda at variance from his parents’ agenda is an archetypical example of what some modern people call teenage rebellion.³ That concept of rebellion is that a teenager decides that his/her personal agenda and sense of identity are different from that held by parents, and that young person takes active steps to embody that personal agenda. In short, the act of rebellion is the quintessential act of independence. Mary—like most parents—did not understand the importance of Jesus’ taking independent action in accord with his sense of his identity and proper role in the world. To emphasize this dichotomy, Luke adds, they (i.e., both parents) didn’t understand what he’d said to them. That, too, is typical of frequent parent-child conflicts as a child takes steps to establish a distinct and separate identity as an adult.

Finally, the story says that Jesus grew in wisdom, in maturity. This points to the obvious realty that though we are born as totally dependent, vulnerable creatures, the logical, universal, and divine pattern is that from birth human beings are engaged in a process which is meant to lead to independence, capacity, and capable adulthood. As a result it is obvious that the inevitable physical processes resulted in Jesus growing in stature—which involved a wide array of physical, emotional, and knowledge changes which are the essential nature of the divine process of growth and development.

Incarnational theology teaches that Jesus came into the human realm as a vulnerable and dependent baby. In one translation of the Lucan phrase, he grew in stature and wisdom. Arrival at adulthood was not an instantaneous experience, it was a developmental one. While the details are omitted from the Gospel stories, there were years of developmental experiences. The God who has the capacity to enter the earthly world in any form could have come as an adult—fully and finally formed. Instead he entered as a baby, and developed into manhood. It was a divine choice to be subject to the same developmental processes through which every other human passes. That means that the developmental processes of transforming a baby into an adult is the intended divine process for the growth and development of every human being. Put another way, none of us is any different from Jesus in the respect that we all must go through the same general physical, mental, and spiritual developmental processes as did he.

In summary, Luke has provided us the story of Jesus’ involvement in the divine process of growth and development. Inevitably that process includes what many call teenage rebellion. It may make many people uncomfortable to think of Jesus as having passed through that stage about which many parents anguish and complain, but that is the essence of Luke’s story. Since Luke affirmed that Jesus grew in wisdom, in maturity and in favor with God and with people we can expect the same of all young people. Luke’s story includes the fact that Jesus returned to Nazareth with Mary and Joseph, so it was with them that his developmental growth continued. If the ministry of the church is to be based on the Holy Family—especially on Jesus, the church should seriously focus on this story as an essential base for the design and conduct of a youth ministry based on growth and development in wisdom and maturity. Those qualities are more than simple catechetical and credal knowledge.

1

. Luke

2

:

41–52

, The Spoken English New Testament: A Translation from the Greek, by J. Webb Mealy [Ph.D.], ©

2008

.

2

. Alois Stöger, The Gospel According to St. Luke, Volume

1

, trans. Benen Fahy (New York: Herder and Herder,

1969

)

60

. For nineteen years Stöger taught New Testament studies in a Roman Catholic seminary in St. Polten, Austria, then he became the Rector of a Germanic seminary in Rome.

3

. Many words and phrases are used to describe teenage rebellion such as: going against the norm, passive and active resistance, being oneself, defiance, non-conformist, and breaking the system. The essence of this behavior is rejecting pre-set adult-defined expectations, and making personal choices contrary to adult expectations. Rather than being defined by outside forces, one chooses to be self-defined.

chapter 2

Understanding Teenagers

Many adults experience a high level of fear when they consider a leadership role in youth ministries. Those fears range from a mere gentle and unfocused discomfort to total panic. This is even the perspective of many parents regarding the youth in their own family.

Perhaps the most common adult desire regarding youth is to understand them. That is, adults have the impression that their own teenage days are so far in the past, and were so different in nature, that they do not understand current teenagers. That comment is often followed by a brief litany of those elements the adult cannot understand—their music, their dances, the words they use, their clothing, their technology, their attitudes, their volatility, and other aspects of teenage life. As a result of the perceived gulf, many adults pull away from teenagers and express bewilderment. In the church, these thoughts and feelings result in the difficulty of finding adults who will work with teenagers in a common and shared ministry. Commonly, the result is a yearning for an expert to help them understand contemporary teenagers. While such a yearning is understandable, it demonstrates the common and serious self-doubt and a lack of self-understanding. Those feelings are serious problems because they lead to a hesitance in having relaxed and open interactions with youth. Self-assurance and comfort are essential and not that difficult to obtain.

Many years ago, I attended a conference based on the concept that every adult can understand teenagers because all adults have been teenagers. I have often shared the perspective of that conference with others, who generally have the same reactions—snickering, laughter, and disbelief. At that conference I had many of the same reactions and the fear that my discomfort would be discovered. However, underlaying the point that one can understand teenagers because one has been a teenager is the fact that the general nature and factors of the teenage years are trans-national, trans-cultural, and common through the ages. At that long-ago conference I, and many other attendees snickered, laughed, and inwardly rejected that concept. Indeed, I rejected that notion because of the deep seated understanding that my teenage years were unique and different than others my age. So, my experiences were atypical and not useful. I held those feelings in spite of the outward appearance of positive and beneficial interactions in parochial and diocesan youth ministry activities—including the growing attendance at regional youth ministry gatherings which I helped design and coordinate. Later the lessons from that conference changed my feelings.

Many years ago, I was talking with a ninety-two-year-old woman about the idea that all adults are experts on adolescence and the teenage years, because they have lived through that period in life. She laughed and said, I don’t think that is true. I am so old that I cannot even remember what happened to me in my teenage years. I acknowledged that the critical factor is the ability to remember one’s experiences and feelings. We talked about the fact that young teenagers find their bodies growing at an uneven rate, and perhaps one arm grows more rapidly than the other, or one breast is larger than the other. At that point she laughed again and remembered, There was a time when I was going to be very funny looking. Of course I didn’t know what to say to anybody else. Her memories continued in a flood which was filled with emotions. She expressed deep concern for the fact that "Today’s youth cannot talk with their parents, because the parents do not pay attention." She understood their plight, she said, because she had the same problem with her own parents those many years ago. Of course, she said, others in her teenage years did not face the problems she endured with her own parents. When I reminded her that about five minutes earlier she told me she could not even remember her own teenage years, she was greatly surprised by the variety, depth and power of her own memories. It was also a revelation to her that the sense of distance between parent and teenager was not peculiar to her experiences, but was more general. Her powerful and emotional memories made the case for adult expertise better than my feeble arguments did.

There is a simple group exercise which helps adults understand teenagers. It takes no great preparation and all adults can participate. This also works well with teenagers. This exercise is best done in a group setting.⁴ The game involves using a large blank sheet of newsprint, with three roughly equal size columns. The left hand column is marked children. The middle column is not labeled. The right hand column is marked adult. The group is asked to identify quickly, and in rapid fire, the qualities and characteristics of children. Only words and phrases are placed in the left hand column—words and phrases only, no stories! There should be no evaluation or comment about the word and phrases. Every comment which any participant offers is recorded without any reaction by others. When the group seems to have no more to add, the group then identifies the qualities and characteristics of adults in a similar manner. Those comments are placed in the right hand column. Of course, the blank middle column is the adolescent period during which all the changes from child to adult take place. However, the process leader should make no comment about the blank column in the middle. Typical responses which often appear in the children column include:

•needy

•spontaneous

•pain in the butt

•want their own way

•cry to get their way

•always play

•dependent

•weak

•like to be active

•small

•tend to horse around

•focus life on fun

•vulnerable

•smart-mouthed, and talk back

•fight

•want other people’s things

•lack good manners

•on TV, like to watch cartoons, when others want to watch other things

•laugh senselessly—at nothing

•are given free things by others (candy, toys, etc.)

•play with dolls, cars, toys, etc.

•messy when they eat

•don’t know how to talk well

•don’t think about consequences

•lack self-control

•get dirty

•need help for may simple things

•need protection

•disturb others

•short attention span

•follow other, older people

•afraid of many things

•pretend a lot

•don’t know a lot

•can be easy to boss around

•like to have attention

•mostly think about today

•always asking questions

These responses were gathered from several events in which this exercise was done. Many of the responses were duplicated in each of those events, but these are typical. Some responses were uniquely offered in one event or another. Depending on the size of the group and the ages of the participants, the ideas offered may vary in the specific words used, but many of the concepts above will appear. Even if an idea seems to be merely a different wording for an already-recorded, do not reject it, write it down.

Ideas offered to describe adults will also vary, but have a common core of words and phrases. Typical responses which are offered for the Adult column include:

•give orders/bossy/dictate

•have rules

•argue

•always organizing

•stressed

•boring

•some are good

•moody

•do the cooking

•can drink alcohol

•work

•control the money

•do what they want

•often frustrated

•able to drive

•smoke

•have to pay the bills

•life is no fun

•interrupt what children are doing to do what they (as adults) want to do

•mean

•independent

•punish others

•unhappy with their work

•try to control children and teenagers

•drive cars

•serious

•can be lazy

•like to make kids happy

•want children to do things for them

•mothers do most of the work

•think of consequences/results

•blame children for things

•do things they will not allow children and teenagers to do

•have money

•worry about kids’ education

•big

•strong

•fast

•sometimes get drunk

•plan and think of the future

Usually a participant will ask a question, or make a comment, to identify the nature of the blank column. Either because a participant identifies the nature of that column, or because the leader identifies it, after the two lists are complete, the group needs to be aware that the blank column is adolescence—or, the teenage years.

The emphasis in this activity is on the follow-up to completing the left hand and right hand columns. So when both columns have been filled with descriptive words and phrases, the group compares them. The point is to bring the two columns into relationship with one another, and describe the process of making the changes from childhood to adulthood. This discussion should include:

1.drawing lines between those items in the children column which connect with similar, but changed items in the adult column. For example, a line would connect play with work and another line would connect small to big and yet another line would be between dependent and independent. The precise connections depend on what words and phrases the group provided, and the comments of members of the group. So, in each experience of this exercise there will be different specific words and phrases to connect. There will be occasions in which the linkage will be between one concept (or, phrase) in one column and two (or more) in the other column. That is merely a demonstration of the complexity of the changes involved.

2.recognizing the large number of changes which take place during the adolescent period, and that all are happening at the same time, but at different speeds and with different results.

3.understanding the difficulty of making those changes. It is good if some participants begin to mention their own experiences of going through the changes, and comment about the relative difficulty, and perhaps what it was like to be frightened by the many unknowns which were involved.

4.commenting about the ways in which some changes have a relationship to other changes, and go together. For example the change from dependent to independent also relates to having increased responsibility. The change from small to big also includes having greater physical strength and may include the need to learn to control one’s emotional reactions. The change from having no money to having independent money brings on the need to manage (budget) money, and exercise judgment as to personal priorities.

5.recognizing that the process of maturity is not directly and necessarily connected with teenage years, and that delayed adolescence describes the fact that some people are delayed in making some of the changes.

6.connecting the abstract elements of these processes of change with some personal experiences—that is, some personal storytelling.

This same exercise can be conducted with teenagers as a means for helping them understand the reality of the many challenges and changes in which they are inevitably involved. When this is used with teenagers, it is important to have an open conversation about their feelings in the midst of change. This will often involve some storytelling about stresses in their families. This is not a time for giving attention to solving any family issues, merely to listen sympathetically and to help them understand that they are not alone or unique, and that all adults have been through those changes and challenges—in their own times and ways. Sometimes such a discussion will result in one of the youth repeating a story they have heard about their parents’ teenage years. Sometimes such memories will provoke wondering why those parents do not understand, other times they will help the teenagers realize that their current experiences are not so unique and that there is life beyond the many challenges of their adolescent years.

Many of the changes which take place during the teenage, or adolescent, years are biological. They involve the easily visible aspects of changes in the human body—stature, bones, muscles, hair growth, skin (e.g., acne), and sexual changes. There are other less visible bodily changes—those in the brain, and those in hormones. Those less visible changes are related to other changes such as the ability to make judgments, emotions, personality, and attractions in social and sexual relationships. These latter are all internal and invisible changes, but they are quite real!

These years also involve changes related to the teenager’s context—the social, cultural, economic, political, and legal contexts within which they live. Currently in the United States there is a legal line dividing childhood and adulthood—attaining the age of eighteen years. Not only does that relate to voting, but police take a child to a juvenile facility from which they are commonly released to the custody of an adult, whereas an adult goes to jail and and has the personal responsibility to arrange for release. In practical terms, families establish their own criteria for adulthood. Many families charge their children rent once they are legal adults. Sometimes dating is restricted while one is a child and allowed when one becomes an adult. Often children are excluded from family decisions, whereas in adult status they gain a presence and voice in decisions. While finances are a critical aspect of such decisions, nonetheless when a young person becomes an adult they commonly have a greater ability