Who’s the Problem?

Discussion Questions 

1. Read the story of Jesus and his family in Jerusalem (Luke 2:41-52). Then read the devotional below, “What’s the Problem?” 

2. Start your discussion (or personal reflection) with the writer’s final question: “Where do I need to grow next?” 

3. When have you been challenged to expand your understanding of something or someone? 

4. What has been your experience of asking someone to expand their understanding of you? 

Devotional 

When his parents saw [Jesus] they were astonished; and his mother said to him, “Child, why have you treated us like this? Look, your father and I have been anxiously looking for you.” – Luke 2:48 (NRSVUE) 

Our blended family raised four humans to adulthood, their range of ages now being almost 20 to nearing 40, and I used to think the hardest ages were easily defined. Once upon a time I bought the book Your Three-Year-Old: Friend or Enemy to help me parent the eldest, and later I gave a copy to my future wife during that time zone with the youngest, trying to cope with what is now popularly called a “threenager.” The one girl we have between us presented challenges from ages 11 to 15, the classic struggle zone for moms and daughters.  

The hard truth: they were all doing what is normal. It was us (hi!); we were the problem. We didn’t know how to be the parents our children needed, or the parents we wanted to be, in a new stage.  

The second hard truth: it’s even harder to be the parents we want to be when the children are adults.  

My long-standing sympathy for Mary only increases. And you don’t have to be a parent to relate to Mary here. Whatever age or stage of development we are in, we only know what we know. Was she wrong to worry about Jesus’s safety? No, that’s what we expect in a parent. But the moment demanded that she expand her understanding. Jesus was, as some translations put it, “about his Father’s business,” capital F.  

So I wonder, like Mary who ponders, where do I need to grow next? 

Prayer
Runaway Jesus, Father of All Our Business, Spirit of Growth and Change, help me to grow in understanding, in whatever relationships need me to be more than I am right now. Amen.