Jesus, Growing up as a Jewish child

Deuteronomy 6:4-9;Luke 2:41-52

A sermon by Kathy Toivanen at EMUC, 1/14/2007

Today we begin a six-week series with a focus on Jesus. This Season of Epiphany is all about celebrating the growing light of Christ in the world. As a people who seek to shine with the light of Christ, it is indeed important for us to grow in our understanding the One whose light we seek to reflect.

I thought that we would start by reflecting on Jesus’ childhood and the events, the culture and the faith that would have shaped him and nurtured him into adulthood.

If we look to the Bible to provide us with a detailed account of Jesus’ growing years, we will be disappointed. In fact, Luke is the only gospel writer to include a single story about Jesus’ childhood; Matthew, Mark and John are all silent on the subject.

While we may be disappointed, we need to remember that the intention of the gospel writers was not to provide a biography of Jesus life. The gospels are a unique form of writing with the sole intention of evangelism; another name for a gospel writer is evangelist. And the work of an evangelist is to draw people into faith - the gospels were written in order to draw the listeners and the readers into a faith relationship with Jesus Christ. Yes it is true that the writers include things that Jesus said and did but they make no attempt to plot out a clear linear sequence of biographical events when it comes to the life of Jesus. You only need to read the four gospels and compare them to one another to see that they often vary in the events they write about and the ordering and sequence of these events - and this isn’t because they are mixed up; they do this deliberately to make a particular theological point or to highlight a key quality in Jesus.

So, if we can’t look to the Gospel writers to offer us a complete biographical account of Jesus, where can we look to have a better understanding of the world that shaped Jesus in his childhood?

Let’s start with geography. We know that Jesus’ childhood home was in the village of Nazareth. If you look on your handout, you will see on your map that Nazareth is in the Region of Galilee in the north. Nazareth is never mentioned in historical writings of Jesus’ time, simply because it was hardly a community. It was a rural area of at the most 400 people. Situated on the hills, it was ideal for growing small vineyards of grapes, as well as olive groves and some grains like wheat, barley or millet. A perennial water source near by meant that some livestock could be raised and the soil in the area was also suitable for small plots to farm legumes and some vegetables.

In archeological digs that have penetrated the layers of soil in the area, very little has been found in terms of remnants of buildings. This has led researchers to believe that homes in Nazareth were very primitive. A typical home would have been built of unhewn fieldstones held together by smeared mud or animal dung and insolated with straw. The floors would have been hard-packed earth, and roofs would have been thatched. A small sleeping platform inside the home would separate the human family from any of their animals who would use the rest of the space as their barn.

Some pottery and household utensils have been found in caves in the area indicating that some dwellings were built around caves. In fact, there is a site in Nazareth called ‘Grotto of the Annunciation’ which is a cave, where some believe was the home of Mary and the place where the angel announced to her that she would be the mother of Jesus.

Because Nazareth was so small, it is unlikely that there were any civic buildings. There would be no permanent marketplace but rather a market day once or twice a week. Archeological digs have found evidence of a synagogue building dated during the period of the late first century, but nothing from the time of Jesus’ day. However; even without a building, the functions of a synagogue would have carried on, even in a place as small as Nazareth - a wise village elder would take on the role of a rabbi, teaching the young and the old alike about sacred scriptures and guiding the community in worship and prayer.

Although Nazareth was no more than a few simple homes dotting a rural landscape, it was located no more than an hour’s walk to a larger metropolis called Sepphoris (Sippori, Zippori). Sepphoris was the largest city and the capital of Galilee. It was the home to Herod Antipas, who ruled Galilee and who during Jesus’ life-time, rebuilt much of Sepphoris. It is very likely that Jesus traveled there. A son usually followed in his father’s trade, and with the rebuilding of the city, it is very possible that Joseph got work in the city and brought Jesus along to work with him. In such a city, Jesus would have seen and heard much to widen his perspective on his homeland. He would have seen the impressive imperial residence of Herod, the large markets, the city walls and of course the very real presence of the Romans.

We cannot minimize the impact of the Roman rule on Jesus’ life and that of his contemporaries.

After a brief period of self-rule, Palestine was occupied by the Romans in 63 BCE and Twenty-three years after this, Herod the Great (the Herod named in the nativity stories of Jesus) was appointed by Rome to govern Palestine. He had a brutal reign which certainly would have impacted Jesus’ life. He lived opulently and spent extravagantly, building palaces in Jerusalem and Jericho as well as palatial fortresses in Masada, Herodium and Machaerus. He did try to win over his Jewish subjects by rebuilding their temple in Jerusalem, but that hardly made up for his cruelty and his greed.

Many of the Jewish elite were executed by him and in order to finance his lifestyle, he expropriated the land of peasants or taxed them so severely that they were unable to pay their debts, thus losing their land in the process.

When Herod died, many Jews saw this as an opportunity to revolt. Legions of troops were sent by Rome to quell these uprisings, and so as a toddler and child, Jesus would have been used to regularly seeing troops of Roman soldiers. At Herod the Great’s death, three new rulers took over the rule of Palestine. In the region of Galilee where Jesus lived, Herod Antipas, son of Herod the Great ruled. In Judea to the south, including Jerusalem, Pontius Pilate was appointed as a governor, and he ruled the area along with the high priesthood. And finally in the area east of Galilee in the north, Philip, another son of Herod the Great was ruler. All of them were collaborators with the Roman empire.

So what did this mean for Jesus’ childhood? Well, first of all, it is important to understand that Jesus and his family were members of the peasant class. In Jesus’ day and really up until the time of the industrial revolution, there were only 2 classes of people, the peasant class and the upper class. Peasants made up almost 90% of the population, and were called peasants because most of them lived in rural areas - some were farmers, some were fisherfolk, some

were craftspeople and artisans. People like Jesus’ father Joseph who had a craft like carpentry were considered to be at the lower end of the peasant class because they did not own their own land - in fact they often turned to this livelihood after they had been dispossessed of their land.

And beneath them were the people who were really considered to be ‘no’ people, what are often called the ‘outcasts’ in the Bible - the beggars, outlaws, slaves and day labourers. Many of these people had been forced into living as outcasts because of the harsh and oppressive rule of their day. So harsh was life for those in the peasant class that the average age span was 30 years, where as someone in the upper class could hope to live to 70 years.

You see, the upper class which included the rulers and the wealthy, about 1% of the population, maintained their position at the expense of the peasants. One half to two-thirds of the annual production of the peasants went to support the upper classes. This was acquired through taxation.

As if that wasn’t bad enough, when the Romans came into power in Palestine, a further tax was placed on the peasant class by the ruling class.

In order to maintain their privilege and power, the upper class had to pay a tribute to the Roman Empire and they acquired this money through more taxation of the peasants. It is no surprise then that the stories of Jesus in the New Testament often talk about the tax collectors as a despised and hated bunch. The very fact that Jesus called a tax collector by the name of Matthew to be one of his disciples was a shocking and radical act.

The Roman rule even affected the religious life of the Jews.

In order to keep their position and their influence in the temple in Jerusalem, the high priests had to collaborate with the Romans, and gradually over time, they became so absorbed in maintaining their own job security that they were not available to offer the religious leadership that was needed by the people. When Jesus and others in the gospels make negative comments about the high priesthood, it is certainly understandable in light of the way they exploited their own people.

But temple worship was only a small part of the faith life of the average Jew. A 65 mile trip from Nazareth to Jerusalem, over very rough terrain with the added threat of bandits who hid in the hills, meant that pilgrimages to the temple were few and far between.

The faith life of the Jewish people in Jesus’ day was nurtured and centred in the home and in daily life, much the same as it does today among Jews today. As a Jew, Jesus would have learned about and grown in his faith, not through hours of scholarly study with a rabbi but through the regularly daily life of his people.

Upon rising in the morning and upon going to bed at night, he would have recited the words from Deuteronomy - the very same words that to this day are written on a scroll and placed in a box (called a Mezzuzah) on the doorposts of every Jewish home and synagogue - a daily reminder of the great commandment to love God with heart and soul and might.

Any schooling that Jesus may have had would have been based on the sacred scriptures - the Torah or the first five books of the Bible, the writings of the prophets and the poetry of the Psalms. And the teachings of these sacred writings would be woven into daily life, everything from food preparation, to caring for the body in sickness and health, to special festivals throughout the year.

And of course every week, Jesus along with all Jews would celebrate the Sabbath. In our day and time, we often think that to take a complete day apart as day of rest, a day to refrain from work or commerce, shopping or traveling is something of an inconvenience. But in Jesus’ day the Sabbath was indeed a blessing. In a life of endless labour and harsh living conditions, the Sabbath was a gift. It may have been the only day of rest, the only day to come together as a family and to enjoy each other’s company; a day to pause and pray and praise the Creator.

Later on in Jesus’ ministry, even when he is busy traveling, teaching, healing and helping others, Jesus regularly takes time away from the crowds, going to a lonely place to pray. It would seem that his need for sabbath time did not diminish and that he was not prepared to sacrifice it to an unrelenting schedule of work.

In the weeks ahead, as we continue with this series on the life and ministry of Jesus, we will consider how these experiences of growing up as a peasant in rural Galilee and under Roman occupation may have had an impact on Jesus’ interpretation of the sacred scriptures and the direction of his teachings and ministry.

As he experienced for himself the suffering and oppression of his own people, I wonder what action he felt God was calling him to take?

As he walked in Galilean hills, watching the wheat growing in the fields and the grapes ripening on the vine, I wonder what stories started to take shape in his mind?

As he watched the tax collectors set up shop or saw the beggars on the roadsides, I wonder what words of God’s prophets may have resonated in his ears?

On the journey home from the pilgrimage to Jerusalem, I wonder if he remembered the scriptures that spoke of the city as a place of peace and justice for all God’s people.

As he listened to the local rabbi telling the stories of Moses and David, I wonder if he thought about becoming a leader himself?

And as he daily recited the scripture passage we read today from Deuteronomy, I wonder if he began to think of ways that he could make God’s love become more real for people. I wonder…