Jeremiah 1.4-8; 1 Corinthians 13.4-8
Have you ever been asked to do something and thought to yourself, ‘I don’t think I‘m really old enough, or clever enough, or experienced enough to do that!’
When I was seven my grandfather took me for a walk. On the way back we passed a sweet shop and he pressed some money into my hand and said, ‘Go and buy yourself something.’
I had never bought anything on my own in a shop before, but I didn’t like to tell him that - at seven - I didn’t feel old enough to buy myself some sweets. So I went in, presented the money, and asked for something off the shelf.
The shopkeeper took advantage of me. Instead of saying, ‘How many packets do you want?’ he just took my money and gave me two packets of sweets because I’d given him exactly the right money to pay for two.
Outside my grandfather said, ‘Oh! You’ve bought two packets. I thought you would just get one.’
Well, I was old enough to think on my feet. Quick as a flash I said, ‘One of the packets is for Granny,’ and he was well pleased.
People here today who are older than me will confirm, I have no doubt, that the feeling that we’re not really old enough, or wise enough, or experienced enough to cope with what life throws at us never goes away!
We start a new school and at first it seems huge, and there are people milling about everywhere who all seem to know where they’re going, and we have stacks of books and equipment to remember and carry around, and it’s all a bit overwhelming. But we get used to it.
Then we leave school and start a job, and that’s all rather bewildering too, and we don’t know anyone, or what we’re supposed to be doing, and it’s just like our first day at school all over again.
Then there’s relationships. Sometimes I hear people say, ‘We were too young to get our relationship right.’ Well, I don’t know what magic age they’re waiting to be, when things will suddenly fall into place, but the fact is that we’re never old enough to be sure we won’t make mistakes and get things wrong.
And that’s before we become parents! Your Mum and Dad’s guilty little secret is that they don’t always feel old enough, or wise enough, to be parents. Whether they’re 22, or 32, or 42, or even 52, sometimes they’re putting on an act and just pretending to know what they’re doing. And I speak has someone who has three children and five grandchildren of my own. So I remember looking down for the first time at a trusting little face and thinking, ‘Heck! This person is relying on me to know what to do!’
Some people said that Malala Yousafzai was too young to win the Nobel Peace Prize when she was just 15 years-old. But how old do you have to be? Don’t you just have to do something special, like she did when she insisted on going to school even when extremists in her town had threatened to kill any girl who did that.
Christianity has two things to say about this. First, it says that when we’re called upon to do something we never have to go it alone. We may feel that we’re too young or too inexperienced, but God is always there to guide and inspire us - through the example of Jesus, through the support of other people who are trying to follow him and sometimes through an inner prompting, a conviction, that we have to do something, though that voice inside us has to be checked out to see whether it agrees with what other people are saying and what we know about Jesus. That’s why reading the Bible and learning about it is so important to Christians.
Finally, Christianity says that there is a set of values that we need to try to live up to - kindness, patience, modesty, politeness, consideration for others, forgiveness, loyalty, honesty, hopefulness and love. When St Paul came up with this list some people think that he was just writing down the things that had marked Jesus out as special. If, with God’s help, we can stick to those values we will never go far wrong - whether we are young or old.
Comments