Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
16 "But to what will I
compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and
calling to one another, 17 "We played the flute for you, and you did not
dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' 18 For John came neither eating nor
drinking, and they say, "He has a demon'; 19 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."…25 At
that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth,
because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have
revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. 27
All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son
except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to
whom the Son chooses to reveal him. 28 "Come to me, all you that are weary
and are carrying heavy burdens, and I will give you rest. 29 Take my yoke upon
you, and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find
rest for your souls. 30 For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
One of the sayings I heard my dad
say the most when I was growing up was, “son, we just can’t win for losing.” Now,
I have to admit, I didn’t really know what he meant by that phrase; I suppose
it was his own way of saying, “you’re danged if you do and danged if you
don’t.” Now that I’m older (and if I can be honest with you, now that I’ve
served in the ministry for nearly ten years) I think I know exactly what my dad
meant when he said that phrase. You see, I’ve witnessed the kinds of things
that would cause one to say “I can’t win for losing.” Whether they have been
incidents I’ve witnessed in the lives of friends in ministry or incidents I’ve
personally experienced, I can tell you there are many times in the life of a
minister when it feels like you can’t win for losing.
Take for example something that happened
to one of my friends and mentors in ministry. He was sitting in his office,
preparing his sermon for Sunday morning, when a member of his church came
through the door, and with the sound of pent up frustration in her voice said,
“Preacher, I’ve got something I’ve been meaning to tell you for some time now.”
She sat down in the chair in front of his desk and said, “Every Sunday morning
I come to church, and every Sunday morning I use my hymnal when we sing in
worship, and every Sunday morning the music director says, ‘We’re going to sing
the first, second, and last stanzas.’ Well, we paid good money for those
hymnals, and good, Christian folks wrote those hymns, so we ought to sing every
word of every stanza!” My friend looked at this obviously disgruntled
parishioner and said, “I’ll talk to our music director, and we’ll be sure to
sing every stanza to every hymn next Sunday morning.”
Well, the next Sunday came, and
every time the congregation stood to sing they sang every word of every stanza
of every hymn they sang that morning—regardless of whether that hymn had two
stanzas or five. About halfway through his sermon that morning, my friend
noticed folks looking at their watches; it was a quarter after twelve (their
service started at eleven). So, he wrapped up his sermon, and after singing
every stanza of the invitational hymn, he gave a benediction, someone said a
closing prayer, and he was at the door to the sanctuary by 12:30. However, this
same woman, who just a few days prior had given him an earful about singing
every stanza to every hymn, made a beeline for the pastor after the service.
She walked right up to him and said, “It’s 12:30! I think you and the music
director need to work on planning services so we can get out by noon!” You just
can’t win for losing.
Or how about this experience I’ve
had in ministry: one day during the “fellowship/meet-and-greet/passing the
peace” portion of worship, a church member grabbed my hand, pulled me in close
and said, “I’ve driven by the church every day this week, and I haven’t seen
your car in the parking lot one time. Now, we pay your salary and give you an
office, the least you can do is be in your office and let folks know you’re
here during the day.” Now, he drove by the same time every day, and that time
just happened to be lunchtime, not to mention I spend several hours each week
visiting hospitals, the nursing home, and members in their homes, but that
doesn’t really matter to someone looking for something to complain about. But
that next week I shifted my schedule around so that I would spend more time in
the office, my car visible in the parking lot so people would know I was in the
office and available. And that next Sunday morning, the same person grabbed my
hand, pulled me in close and said, ““I’ve driven by the church every day this
week, and every day I’ve seen your car in the parking lot one. Now, we pay your
salary, the least you can do is get out of the office and visit folks in the community.”
You just can’t win for losing.
I’m afraid my colleagues and I could
tell many more stories like that, but it is a reality of ministry. In fact, I
believe it is a reality of life in general, that feeling that we can’t win for
losing, and it happens most often when we are coerced into thinking that
winning is a result of pleasing people. I believe Jesus knew about this sort of
sinful coercion, this misunderstanding that the drives so many of us to
believing that we can’t win, that feeling that leads so many of us to sleepless
nights and days spent always on the defensive. I believe Jesus knew that the
work of God’s kingdom isn’t about pleasing people, but about pleasing God, and
what’s pleasing to God isn’t always pleasing to all the people.
That’s why Jesus tells this little
parable in chapter eleven of Matthew’s gospel when he asks in verse 16, “But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting
in the marketplaces and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.' Can you see
the picture Jesus is painting with this parable? There are children in the marketplace, playing a tune on the
flute, a nice little jig for the folks to dance to, maybe tap their feet and
bob their heads as they pass, but the people are unmoved by the children’s
music. So they children, figuring the folks in the marketplace aren’t happy,
begin to wail, to play the blues if you will, hoping that maybe those who pass
by will show signs of mourning, but they don’t. The children can’t win for
losing: they play happy music and people stroll on by unmoved; they play a
dirge, sing the blues, or wail in mourning, and the people still stroll by
unmoved. It doesn’t matter what they children play, the people react the same
way. It’s as if Jesus is saying, “It’s not up to the children or the music they
play to change the attitudes of the people passing by—it’s up to the people to
change their attitudes.”
To really drive the point home with
a true-to-life illustration, Jesus compares the reactions given to his cousin,
John and Jesus himself in verses 18 and
19: “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!'” There was John: teetotaler, abstainer,
old-fashioned revivalist preacher, standing out in the country preaching about
repentance and fire, but everyone pointed at him and called him an ole’
tightwad, would so tight and so fired up he must have a demon! But then there
was Jesus; he came eating and drinking. In fact, one time, at the wedding
party, when the wine ran out, Jesus made several gallons of the best wine anyone
had ever tasted out of water in stone jars just to keep the party going! Jesus
wasn’t a solitary preacher in the country: no, he hung out with everybody,
walking around the city just as well as the country. But still, the people who
pointed at John and said he was too uptight and must have had a demon because
of his teetotaling ways, well…they pointed at Jesus and called him a drunk,
bleeding heart liberal with too much time for socializing! You just can’t win
for losing with some folks, “yet wisdom is vindicated by her
deeds."
Now that little phrase there
is terribly important. You see, here again, Jesus says it isn’t about the
surface level outcome of what John did or what Jesus himself was doing. No,
because if you just look there, well, it isn’t really all that wonderful—they
don’t really please a lot of people. John winds up in prison and eventually
gets his head served up on a platter, and Jesus…well, Jesus gets nailed to a
cross in a public show of Roman power, and only a few women (and one other disciple)
stick around to see it all happen. “Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds,” for
we know that that isn’t all that happened to either of these two: some of
Jesus’ first disciples, the first apostles, were followers of John. He pointed
the way to Jesus, prepared the way before him. As for Jesus, well we know his
deeds went on to change the world, to show the world that the God of creation
is a God of love, compassion, and grace. And this day there are people from all
manner of nations, tribes, and tongues that know the name of Jesus. Because
winning isn’t about pleasing people; it’s about pleasing God and seeking to do God’s will.
But that isn’t always so easy, is
it? There’s something within in us that makes us feel as if the only way to
win, the only way to be successful is to please people, to hopefully please
everyone. But, can I be real with you all for just a moment? You see, you can’t
please all the people all the time. Heck, as a pastor I can tell you, it’s hard
to please some people any time! I’ve been your pastor now for a year and a
half, and some of you have been mad, frustrated, or just down right disgruntled
for a year and half! That’s ok. Some of you have been just fine and dandy for a
year and a half. That’s fine too, because I know from experience there will
come a time when I’ll do or say something you won’t like, when this church will
do something you don’t like, or not do something you want it to do. And I hope
those of you who’ve been mad, frustrated, and disgruntled will come to realize
that you’re in control of how you feel, and that we’re all in this together to
do the work of God and not the will of any one person, family, or party. And to
those of you who haven’t had your toes stepped on or your personal wants and
wishes put aside for the good of the whole, that time may come. I simply ask
that when it does, you’ll show grace and remember that no one is ought to get
you, and we’re all striving to work together for the good of God’s kingdom.
You see, I’m convinced that at the
heart of this desire to please people is that root sin of selfishness, that sin
that creates within us a desire, a want for others to please us, a desire for
others to like us. And when we allow such desires to become the focus of our
lives, our faith, our church, they becomes burdens, heavy burdens that drain
our energy and distract us from the real work of faith, the real work of doing
God’s kingdom work.
Maybe that’s why Jesus says what he
does in verses 25 and 26: "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven
and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the
intelligent and have revealed them to infants; yes, Father, for such was your
gracious will.” Infants, little children: they don’t worry about such
things as pleasing people. Jesus goes on to say in verse 27: “All things have been
handed over to me by my Father; and no one knows the Son except the Father, and
no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to
reveal him.” Maybe God reveals God’s self to those who aren’t really in
it for themselves in the first place?
You see, all of our attempts at pleasing others, at having others please
us, well, it’s just exhausting. It’s a never-ending struggle that only wears us
out and keeps us from drawing closer to Christ, from pleasing God. That’s why
Jesus offers us comfort with his words in the final verses of our text today:
"Come to me, all you that are weary and are carrying heavy burdens, and I
will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me; for I am gentle
and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy,
and my burden is light."
Jesus offers us relief from the
tireless pursuits of life. Jesus offers us a way to lay down our burdens and
take upon ourselves his yoke, a yoke of gentleness and humility. The rabbis,
when they spoke of their teachings to their disciples, they referred to their
rules, their ways as a yoke (an instrument used to guide and harness the power
of beasts of burden). We place all kinds of our own yokes upon ourselves—the
desire to please people to be pleased by people, the desire for success by this
world’s standards, religious rules and rituals created by men in order to
measure rigged righteousness—but Christ calls us to lay all of those aside, to
rid ourselves of whatever burdens we carry in order to take his yoke upon us,
to carry the kinds of burdens and concerns that truly matter. Jesus offers us a
yoke that is easy and light because it frees us from ourselves and the
expectations we have of others. It frees us from the sin of thinking we’re in
the business of pleasing people and reminds us that we are called to please
God, to do as the prophet Micah proclaimed: “to do justice, and to love
kindness, and to walk humbly with [our] God.”[1]
Jesus is calling you to lay
aside your burdens, especially those burdens you’ve placed upon yourself, to
give up your attempts at pleasing people, to cast of your own selfish desires
to be pleased, and open yourself up to doing the will of God. For when it comes
to pleasing God, we win. We win God’s blessing and joy as the Teacher says in
Ecclesiastes 2:26. When we seek first God and God’s kingdom we win the joy of
knowing that what we’re doing is making an eternal difference. When we confess
our selfishness and lay aside our pride, our anger, our self-made hatred and
take the yoke of Christ upon ourselves in order to see God’s will be done and
God’s kingdom come on earth as it is in heaven…then we win! But as long we hold
on to our selfish desires to have things our way, as long we seek to only
please people and have people please us, as long we put ourselves or anything
else above, in front, or in place of Almighty God, well…then we can’t win for
losing.
Amen.
