Christmas 2 - 205
Sermon for the Second Sunday After Christmas - 2025
St. Paul's Episcopal Church
The Rev. Andrew McLarty
When I was very young, I often would go outside and to play, as you do. Sometimes, I would expand my play by walking over to my neighbor Mrs. Ludlum’s house, ringing the doorbell, and inviting myself in...
She was an older woman who lived by herself. She would let me in, give me some pretzels, and turn on Bob Ross on PBS. I’d sit there in her living room, eating snacks, watching happy little trees come to life.
She would call my mother and say, “Andrew is over here. He’s watching television as quiet as a mouse. He can come back after this show is over.”
The first few times, it completely freaked my mom out. She had no idea I had walked out the door. This was before home alarms, before the familiar beep-beep-beep when a door opens. I just went outside—and kept going.
Eventually, though, my mom got used to it. She realized that I wasn’t running away. I wasn’t being reckless. I had wandered off innocently—maybe starting out on my tricycle or playing in the yard—and then curiosity got the better of me. I wanted to see what Ms. Ludlum was up to. And what my mom came to see, over time, was that I was making a new friend, learning confidence, discovering the world in my own small way.
And while I may have been learning at the feet of saints like Bob Ross or Fred Rogers, I’m no Jesus.
In today’s Gospel, Jesus is a growing child, old enough to ask questions, old enough to wander, old enough to surprise and frighten his parents.
When Mary and Joseph lose him for three days, they are rightfully freaked out. And when they finally find Jesus, he isn’t lost at all. He is exactly where he wants to be: in the Temple, sitting with teachers, listening, learning, asking questions.
When Mary and Joseph confront Jesus: “Child, why have you treated us like this?” And Jesus responds, not with disrespect, but with genuine surprise: “Did you not know that I must be in my Father’s house?”
Jesus has done something wrong, at least from his parents’ perspective. He has wandered off. He has not told them. And yet, he hasn’t done it out of rebellion or carelessness. He has been drawn toward something good.
This isn’t defiance. It’s discovery.
Jesus is beginning to understand who he is and where his deepest belonging lies. He is drawn toward God because something holy is awakening within him.
And as Luke tells us, Jesus goes home with Mary and Joseph. He grows up in obedience, in wisdom, and in stature. In other words, his divinity doesn’t pull him out of ordinary life—it shapes him within it.
There are moments in every life of faith when curiosity leads us somewhere unexpected. When God tugs at us. When love, or compassion, or truth calls us beyond what feels safe or familiar.
Sometimes that looks like asking hard questions.
Sometimes it looks like forming unlikely friendships.
Sometimes it looks like stepping out in small but meaningful ways—ways that may worry others before they make sense.
Like Mary, we don’t always understand what God is doing in those moments. Luke tells us she “treasured all these things in her heart.” She didn’t solve the puzzle. She held it. She trusted that God was at work even when the path felt unsettling.
Faith (and trust in God) is not just born in miraculous moments. God’s work often begins long before we can name it. It grows slowly: in questions asked, in lessons learned, in ;itt;e demonstrations of courage. It grows when we allow room for curiosity, room for growth, room for God to surprise us.
May we be a people who listen for God’s call, even when it disrupts us.
May we trust that wandering, when guided by love, can become revelation.
And may we grow, like Jesus, in wisdom and grace, as we follow God through the mundane and towards the divine.
Won't you come in, and have some pretzels?
Amen.
