In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.

     One of the challenges of writing the annual Sunday School Christmas program, is never knowing quite how particular lines will come out, when the children or youth speak them. You may remember in the Christmas program this year, the culmination of the pageant, was that the family and the angels were all excited-yes, excited to be going to worship the Prince of Peace, in church, on Christmas Eve. I intended for the big line to be a resounding, "Let's go to church!", but our youth turned it into something of a droning, dismal-"let's go to church." Which got a laugh-but a laugh that the author never intended. And why did we laugh? Because in our culture, in our society, and yes, even in our congregation, going to church is something of a joke. Because in our culture, and in our congregation, and in our families, there is this feeling that surely, children and youth are never excited about going to church. That even our children and youth never rise happily on Sunday morning, jump in the shower, and come out all brushed and clean, declaring joyfully at the breakfast table, "Let's go to Church!" We have resigned ourselves to thinking that's just the way it is, and there's nothing we can do about it, so we laugh when someone actually suggests children and youth might, somehow, someday-- WANT to go to church. And I'm wondering if that's the way it has to be. I'm wondering if we should just give up, and accept the status quo!?

     Today, we are celebrating the second Sunday of Christmas, and our lectionary readings are the same as those of our Roman Catholic brothers and sisters. But they claim this day as the Festival of the Holy Family. It began to be kept in the seventeenth century, when Pope Leo XIII instituted the feast in response to changes in family life, increasing secularization, and the difficulties caused by the growing divorce rate. The goal of the feast is to lift up the example of Jesus, and his parents Mary and Joseph, pointing to their obedience, and to their respect and love for one another, thereby strengthening all human families, and uplifting us, in our sometimes challenging roles as fathers and mothers, sons and daughters, brothers and sisters. And it seems a bit tragic, to me, that the rest of the western Christian Church hasn't adopted this festival day-because the family, today, needs encouragement-the family in our culture and world, needs a goal to look to, and an example to follow-I mean, besides the example being set by such parents as Tom Cruise and Katie Holmes, and Brad Pitt and Angelina Jolie. And observing a festival such as the Holy Family, doesn't mean we need to criticize and pick apart families that do not fit traditional shapes and forms-it doesn't mean we need to question the validity of step-families, or one-parent families, or families where grandma and grandpa, have again become, in effect, mom and dad. A festival of the Holy Family can lift up and encourage all families-whatever their shape and form, because God knows, whether we are a family struggling with divorce, or a family made up of step-children, or a family with mom and dad and two darling offspring, families do struggle today. Whether we are adult children trying to care for aging parents, or adult siblings trying to sort out how best to relate to difficult brothers and sisters, it isn't always easy being family-and we need, continually, to aspire to obedience, respect and love for one another. For that matter, even THE Holy Family had stresses and strains, as we see in our gospel lesson where the adolescent Jesus stayed behind in the Temple, giving his parents quite a fright as they realized they had left Jerusalem after the Passover, without their twelve year old son! After three days of looking high and low-fretting and worrying and searching, they found him in the Temple, sitting among the teachers, listening to them and asking them questions. And in spite of the fact that they should've known He must be in His Father's house, they asked him, as would any anxious parent, "Son, why have you treated us like this?" St. Luke tells us our Lord's own parents didn't understand what Jesus said to them, but then, get this, still, "Jesus went down with them and came to Nazareth and was obedient to them." And Jesus increased in wisdom and in years, and in divine and human favor.

     You see, being a "holy" family, doesn't imply being perfect, or being without challenges or anxiety or struggle. It doesn't mean being a family that is always smiling, always covered in a positive, sickeningly sweet façade. It doesn't mean you won't have to go looking for your errant children, at times. But what, then, does it mean to be a "holy family"? In our first reading, we hear that it means dedicating your children to the Lord.

     Now, granted, in biblical times, customs were a bit different, as it was required that all families dedicate their first-born son to the Lord. Often, they could be offered ritually, and then "purchased back" by making an appropriate sacrifice to the Lord. But if you read the story of Samuel, his mother, Hannah, who had heretofore been barren, literally gave her son, Samuel to God, to live in the Temple and serve there forever. She waited until she had weaned him, but then, she took Samuel, with offerings of a three year old bull, an ephah of flour and a skin of wine, and she brought them to the house of the Lord at Shiloh, and from that point on, "lent (her son, Samuel) to the Lord", Hannah said. She said, "For as long as he lives, he is lent to the Lord." And isn't that how we are to view all our children? Yes, we may have given birth to them, we may have chosen them through adoption, but the fact that God gives them to us in the first place means they belong to Him, not to us. And so, after their birth, they are to be "lent to the Lord", for His plan and purpose. But, what does that mean-today? Does that mean, as soon as your children are weaned, drop them off at the church for Pastor Dave to take care of? In times past, it wasn't uncommon for children to be dropped off at a monastery or convent to be raised to serve the Lord. We're not really set up for that, here at Saint Luke's, even though I'm sure there've been times when all parents would've liked to drop the kids off-somewhere, to be raised by someone else. But that's not what it means today, to dedicate your children to the Lord. What it does mean-is that we entrust them to the Lord's care and keeping; what it does mean is that we teach them what it means to be in their Father's house; what it does mean is that we bring them to "the Temple", to be able to listen, and ask questions, and seek understanding. It means that parents are to be faithful in coming to the Temple, and bringing their children to the Temple, to church, so that they will be, truly, at home in their Father's house! Certainly, the point of our gospel lesson today is first, to unfold for us, who this child, Jesus is, and why He came. But in the child Jesus, and in His parents Mary and Joseph, we also see revealed, what it means to be a holy family-that each and every family is to have worship, and the Church, and being in the Father's House, as their central goal! Yes, the reason God has created us as families, is to support each other as a holy family-which means, above everything else in life, being in the Father's House, worshiping regularly and faithfully. And yet, would most families today describe their central purpose and goal in life, as being a holy family?

     I heard a sermon by a pastor recently who said, "in America, families have sold their souls to youth sports." And isn't there some truth in that? If you ask many families how they would describe themselves, many would say, "we're a soccer family", "I'm a hockey mom", "our lives revolve around our kids' sports practices". Rarely do you hear families respond, "our lives revolve around being in our Father's House-the Church!" But let's not just indict families involved in youth sports. Because it's just as common to hear families say things like, "we're a skiing family-when ski season comes, you won't see us in church on Sunday". Similarly, there are "golf households", and "corporate America households", and yes, even "Sunday yardwork households"! Martin Luther in the Large Catechism goes so far as to say, "whatever your heart clings to, confides in, entrusts itself to, that is really your God." The truth is, whatever you give your heart, your life, your time, your energy to, that is really your God. Ask yourself, in which house do you spend most of your time? The clubhouse, or God's house? What does your life revolve around? The church worship schedule, or the practice schedule? To whom do you turn for answers and guidance and direction in life? Your coach; your school guidance counselor; your boss; your company; your stock broker-or God and His Word? It's not really so hard figuring out which god you're serving in life-it's usually pretty obvious. It's much harder bucking the trend, turning things around, reorienting your life, and your household, on Christ! Soon after being ordained a bishop, Joseph Ratzinger, now Pope Benedict XVI, exhorted his flock in Munich, saying, "As far as the Church today is concerned, "one of the most urgent tasks for Christians is to recover the ability to be non-conformist, that is, the ability to oppose a whole number of developments in our contemporary culture."

     But where does one begin, to recover the ability to be nonconformist-to oppose the many developments in our contemporary culture that lead us away from God and the Father's house? Where does one begin to live as a Christian who doesn't buy into our culture's secularism, and worldliness and lack of holiness? How does one seek to return to the narrow path, to seek to live life as a holy man or woman or teenager? St. Paul lays it out for us in our second lesson from his letter to the Church in Colossae, and he begins by reminding us, we are, already, God's chosen ones-and our response is simply, to live like the chosen ones we are! The good news is Jesus was born for us, to be our incarnate, present Lord-leading us, in death, but also in life! So, Paul writes, "whatever you do, in word or deed, do it in the name of the Lord Jesus"! In other words, the Christian life, the holy life, is a life of simply following the Lord Jesus. Which means, Paul goes on to say, "clothing yourself with compassion, kindness, humility, meekness and patience. Bearing with one another, forgiving each other, as the Lord has forgiven you. And above all, clothe yourself in love, which binds everything else together in perfect harmony. And let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts; and be thankful. Let the word of Christ dwell in you richly; teach and admonish one another in all wisdom; and with gratitude in your hearts, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs to God."

     This is what it means to, as God's beloved chosen ones, to be holy and this is what it means, as plainly as it can be put, to live life as the holy family of God, and so, as holy households in the Lord. Bear with one another, forgive one another, clothe yourselves with love, let the peace of Christ rule in your hearts, be thankful, let the word of Christ dwell in you richly, teach and admonish one another in wisdom, sing psalms and hymns and spiritual songs...and whatever you do, do everything in the name of the Lord Jesus! Let this guide your life, let this shape your household, let this be your response to the good news of God, present for us in Christ Jesus-and you will be holy-your family will be holy-because you will be, in Christ Jesus!

     In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen.