Matthew 11:16-19
“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.’ For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon;’ the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
If you’ve ever been in a situation where you felt that no matter how hard you tried you just couldn’t please someone, you know just how Jesus feels at this moment. After heaping high praise on John, Jesus now compares the listening crowd to a fickle audience who can’t decide what they want. Nothing seems to please them. When John came with his message of austere repentance, they complained. When Jesus came welcoming all and proclaiming God’s abundant favor, they dismissed him.
What do you want? Jesus seems to ask the crowd. Except he knows they won’t answer. Can’t. Because what they want is to grow, to evolve, to improve and more. And yet at the same time they want to be left alone, untouched and unchanged. Why? Because to change is to risk losing something, and so to change can feel like dying. And more than anything else the people who listened to Jesus – then and now! – want desperately to grow but not really to change.
Change, you see, brings the unknown. Change is not certain. Change implies risk and even potential loss. Which is why we often stay in failed jobs and relationships – they may not be much, but at least they’re something and at least we know what to expect.
But here’s the difficult truth about life in Christ. You cannot enter into it and expect to be unchanged. Which means a precondition of receiving Jesus – perhaps the only one! – is to recognize your need for Jesus. Forgiveness, when you think about it, is meaningful only to those who have sinned, grace avails only those who are broken, and the promise of life abundant and eternal is only attractive to those who know they are dying.
Wisdom, Jesus says, is vindicated by her deeds. Might that be a assertion made, not just to the crowds, but to us? You will, Jesus seems to imply, have to choose: resist change and stagnate, or risk change and grow. I suspect that’s not a decision we can make well alone, which is perhaps why I keep coming to church: to gather with other souls that want, but are afraid, to change, so that we hear together the message of God’s love, love that can overcome even the fear of risking change.
Prayer: Dear God, remind us how much you love us that we might let go of those things that keep us from becoming the people you have called us to be. In Jesus’ name, Amen.
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