Cybercolumn by Jeanie Miley: Giving honor … where honor is due_22105

Posted: 2/11/05

CYBERCOLUMN:
Giving honor … where honor is due

By Jeanie Miley

Sometimes, a movie expresses things I have been thinking but haven’t had the courage to say. Such was the case for me as I was watching In Good Company on a cold February afternoon.

The movie made me think about the contrast between cultures that respect and value the wisdom gained over a lifetime and those that don’t. And every time I start down this line of thought, my mind takes me back to the story of the boy Jesus astounding the learned in the synagogue when he was only 12.

We who love the stories of Jesus enjoy the story of the precocious young Jesus, discussing Important Things with the rabbis and scholars. And we who are parents take comfort in the anxiety of his earthly parents, who, for a time, didn’t know where he was.

I find it increasingly fascinating that instead of taking the boy Jesus back to Jerusalem and installing him in a position of power, he was, instead, taken home for long years of training and tempering, of preparation and waiting until he was mature enough for his ministry. While I have fretted and longed to know what went on in Jesus’ life in those years between his impressive show of knowledge in Jerusalem and his launching of his ministry, I think that the silence about those years does, perhaps, speak volumes.

The truth is that sometimes, wisdom does, indeed, come out of the mouths of babes, and anyone who has been around at least one block knows that it is a foolish thing to ignore the input and influence of the young. Sometimes, a child can see and say what an adult cannot, and there are times and places that yearn for the fresh winds of the Spirit that only the young can bring. More than once, I’ve been brought to a place of breathless awe by the words of an innocent child.

However, my culture worships youth and youthfulness, and the truth is that while we may give lip service to the dangers of having “too much, too soon,” we keep on giving responsibility to people who have not earned it, expensive toys to children who may or may not have the maturity to handle them and positions of power to those who have not learned the hard and necessary lessons in the trenches of life.

In our culture, untrained and inexperienced adolescents challenge and question leaders and teachers with decades of training and experience behind them. We throw out traditions that have had meaning and purpose for generations, we are so desperate to placate and pacify the young. We are so scared of “losing” the next generation that we are often afraid to speak up and speak out to them about their choices. Parents are often so scared of “losing” a child that they avoid setting boundaries and limits, thereby failing to protect the young from themselves. We work so hard to identify with the young that we often stoop to their level of maturity, rather than insisting that they rise to ours.

Jesus’ heavenly father must have known that he needed the long years of preparation before he was given his gigantic mission, and I like to imagine what his earthly parents must have had to say to him in those years to help him mature into the adult Jesus who turned the world upside down.

“Why are the parents allowing their children to decide where they go to church?” my daughter demanded of me, back when she was 15. “Don’t they know that is too much pressure for a kid?”

Like I said: Out of the mouths of babes.

Jeanie Miley is an author and columnist and a retreat and workshop leader. She is married to Martus Miley, pastor of River Oaks Baptist Church in Houston, and they have three adult daughters. Got feedback? Write her at Writer2530@aol.com.