July 3, 2005
Mathew 11:16-19, 25-30
“Wisdom is vindicated by Her Deeds”
1. When I go down to the Methodist Annual Conference in St. Cloud every year it is a chance to meet old friends and find out what has been going on … and so I get together with various individuals and groups … for lunch or supper or just to talk briefly in the hallways between meetings.
One of the groups I get together with … is a good group … except that every once in a while they lapse into complaining about everything that is wrong with the church … and this tends to get everyone worked up and pretty soon they really get in the groove and it just goes on and on …
Maybe there is a group like that at your workplace … in fact … I think there is one at every workplace … because whether you work at the hospital or are a teacher … or at the college … or at your business … or company … or government organization … chances are … if it is large enough … you can sooner or later find a group that gets together and likes to complain … maybe in the teachers lounge … or in the workroom … or at lunch … or in the coffee break area … it’s always the same thing … I find … no matter what your job is …
Isn’t this familiar to most of you …?
And it seems to be pretty normal behavior … and I even have to admit I have indulged in it myself from time to time … let’s face it … we all do it … and it all comes under the guise of the that great old adage:
MISERY LOVES COMPANY!!!
2. Misery does love company…for after all … who likes to complain alone? … And what doesn’t feel better than having our prejudices and petty envy and personal disappointments confirmed by others …? It really feels good … and besides … if others feel the same way … THEN WE DON’T HAVE TO DO ANYTHING ABOUT IT…DO WE? We can wallow in it … to our hearts desire.
Now, the only downside is that in the long run it tends just to get us down … after all who wants to go to work … where everyone is negative all the time? Have you ever been in that situation? As a short term solution it works pretty good … but as a long term remedy it is counterproductive … I think.
In my last job there was plenty of that … sometimes better and sometimes worse … However, after a while it would get so bad sometimes I just couldn’t stand it … so I eventually learned to stay away … and just focus on my job … which I actually liked most of the time … and it preserved my energy for focusing on the good parts of the job …
Besides … when you are in a group that likes to complain … the last thing you want to say is “Hey, I like my job!”
Just try saying that sometime … and see what happens!!!!
3. Now, this last month … I finally got tired of listening to everyone complain … and I said …”Hey, if you think the Methodist Church has problems … let me tell you it was the just the same at the Red Cross … SAME THING!”… In fact …I said, I think it’s pretty much the same wherever you work … well, everyone laughed a little and because most of them have never worked anywhere else … they really didn’t know what to say … but, that changed the topic of discussion at least for a while.
Now, what I was trying to say … but I didn’t … was: GET OVER IT!! Life is difficult … stop feeling sorry for yourselves and see what you can do to make it better … instead of complaining all the time.
But, of course, I didn’t say it. Because I like these folks, and for the most part, and they are all good people … and I understand that we all do it …
So, somtimes you have to watch what you say … especially at work … if you want to get along … on your job … it’s part of life …
4. Now, because complaining is part of human nature … and we all get into it … it can also affect our religious life … as well … and so it is important from time to time to take stock of our spiritual values … and attitudes … and our faith in God … as well.
After all, what is our attitude? Not about our work … but about life in total … and about ourselves … and about our faith?
Are we happy …are we satisfied … do we like living pretty much … or, are we more apt to belong to the complainer group?
Well, sometimes … it’s one and sometimes it’s the other … I suppose.
After all, it kind of depends on what is going on at the moment in our lives … and sometimes … when things aren’t going so well … it is likely that we do feel like complaining …
And the last two Sundays we talked about the Psalms and prayer and about laments … and about honestly taking our complaints to God … as a healthy way to deal with life … rather than stuffing our anger and sorrow … and how it’s okay to speak up … and tell God how we feel … so I don’t want to imply that everything is supposed to be hunky dory all the time … when, of course, it’s not … And I don’t want you to think that that’s what faith in God is all about. And, with all due respects to Dr. Schuler, I don’t think positive thinking is always the answer to life’s dilemmas, either.
5. But, what this passage in the Bible – in Mathew - is all about … is about chronic complaining … chronic negativity … and about letting chronic negativity keep us from doing anything about it …
For, if anything, at the time of Jesus the Jews in Israel were profoundly stuck in some serious negativity … and not necessarily without cause … because they were a captive nation … ruled over by the brutal Roman legions … and there wasn’t much they could do about it either …
Partly because of this, their religious practices … which had been developed over hundreds of years … had become more and more adapted to a sense of survival … at the lowest common denominator … and while they prayed and looked forward to a savior …(the Messiah) …they mostly just paid lip service to God … in elaborate religious rituals … while their religious practices … resulted in stagnation.
What it came down to was that faith in God … for many in Jesus’ day … was an empty ritual … which kept a few of the more prestigious leaders at the top fashionably and comfortably in control … and left many at the bottom with little or no hope …
It was not a healthy situation.
6. Enter John the Baptist … the fiery prophet … who lived in the desert … and preached a stern message of baptism and repentance … and warned of God’s eternal judgment … on sinners …
Now here was something different … a wake up call … and passionate … and truthful message from someone completely outside the power structure … and as John preached many people curiously began coming to hear him … and many were impressed and even followed him … and as they did they turned their back on the religious authorities … who John denounced in no uncertain words.
And then, after John, came Jesus … who also condemned the religious authorities … and proclaimed not that the Kingdom of God was coming in judgment but that it had already come … that it was already at hand … and unlike John, Jesus did not live in the desert … but, instead, went about doing things in a normal every day way … and even ate and drank and went to weddings and mingled with the common people … healing them … and teaching them …
Two very different ways of going about things. Yet both John and Jesus were proclaiming a new message of repentance and renewal. A new message about getting things straight with God and giving up the old ways which had become rigid and unproductive.
7. So what was the response to these two men? Well, Jesus compares it to children … in a strange but interesting parable …
16"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: 17" 'We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge and you did not mourn.' 18For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, 'He has a demon.' 19The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, 'Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."
Now this is a very interesting way to put it. One that has always intrigued me … “we piped and you would not dance, we wept and you would not mourn.” I have long pondered the message in that line.
What does it mean?
Well, have you ever talked to someone … who was dead set on being a complainer? And no matter what you did to cheer them up … they always managed to find fault with whatever you said?
Do you know someone like that?
In this comparison … Jesus actually likens the Pharisees to children … who are playing in the village (something he often observed, probably) … and one group of children calls out to another group of children … “Come on and let’s play at weddings” – and they say, “No, we don’t feel like being happy today.” And so they say, “Alright, how about playing at funerals?” And the others say, “We don’t feel like being sad today, either.”
Can’t win, either way!!!
8. In other words, when he compares the children to the people of his day … Jesus is saying that even grown men and women can act like spoiled children sometimes … especially when they are stubbornly opposed to anyone who comes along and tries to get them to change … for the better. Does that make sense?
It’s kind of like … “You didn’t like John the Baptist? You didn’t like Jesus? So, “Who do you like?”
Well, the truth was that for the Pharisees and religious leaders and many of the ordinary people … religion was all just a child’s game. It was all playacting. All pretense. All for show. Just a façade. And, underneath it … there was no real relationship to God. No genuine life changing sincerity … no genuine repentance … and therefore NO HOPE.
Because … let’s face it… without God … there is NO HOPE. So, the situation was, in all honesty … HOPELESS. Except … no one wanted to admit it. Instead, everyone wanted to go on with the game of pretend … and feel good about their misery by going through the motions. Kind of like at work sometimes.
Reminds me of that story in the old Soviet Union … about the woman sweeping the pavement in Red Square.
“We pretend to work, and they pretend to pay us.”
Well, that’s what John the Baptist … and Jesus were objecting to … ENOUGH! THEY SAID … LET’S GET REAL, FOLKS … that is the only thing that will make anything change … for the better.
9. And then, Jesus ends his parable with a curious statement:
“Wisdom is justified by her deeds.”
Or, in Luke is says: “Wisdom is justified of all her children.”
Or, as Eugene Peterson puts it:
16"How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents, 17"We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always too busy.' 18John came fasting and they called him crazy. 19I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riff-raff. Opinion polls don't count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating."
(Interestingly enough, in our Mystery Book Club book this past month … a most delightful book … and best seller called “The #1 Ladies Detective Agency” – the main character … Madame Ramotswe … in Botswana … is trying to figure out how a certain man died … and she mulls it over and over … and can’t get anywhere … and finally she goes out and starts … following up on her hunch which is that he was eaten by an alligator … and she says … “You have to eat the pumpkin.”
In other words … you will never know whether the cooked pumpkin is done by looking at it … finally, you have to taste it …
Which is just what complainers don’t want to do … which is stop complaining about what could be or should be … and actually do something to make things better. Because, deep down, THEY REALLY DON’T WANT THINGS TO GET BETTER … THEY LIKE THINGS THE WAY THEY ARE. THEY LIKE PLAYING THE VICTIM.
Do you know people like that? Who get a lot of mileage out of being “Poor Me” all the time? Ever been in that situation yourself …? Of course, we all have … don’t you think?
10. Which meant, that what Jesus was saying was “stop criticizing me … (or John Baptist) and try doing what I say … and then you will find out whether what I am saying is true or not …”
In other words, Jesus was saying “if you aren’t willing to trust me … or trust God … then you don’t really care … and your religious faith is all a pretense …”
Or, as we sometimes say, “Put your money where your mouth is …”
Now, what about this wisdom business? Well, the author of Mathew is trying tos ay that Jesus is really personifying the words of wisdom which are found in Proverbs (Chapter 3):
1 Does not wisdom call out?
Does not understanding raise her voice?
2 On the heights along the way, where the paths meet, she takes her stand;
3 beside the gates leading into the city, at the entrances, she cries aloud:
4 "To you, O men, I call out; I raise my voice to all mankind.
5 You who are simple, gain prudence; you who are foolish, gain understanding.
6 Listen, for I have worthy things to say, I open my lips to speak what is right.
11. And how should we respond to God’s wisdom as it is revealed to us in Jesus …?
Here some more words from Proverbs …
32 "Now then, my sons, listen to me; blessed are those who keep my ways.
33 Listen to my instruction and be wise; do not ignore it.
34 Blessed is the man who listens to me, watching daily at my doors, waiting at my doorway.
35 For whoever finds me finds life and receives favor from the LORD.
Well, hopefully we will respond in better ways than those who refused to listen to Jesus! Those who find this, that, and the other thing to criticize … like how he looked, or what he wore, or what he ate … or who he associated with … or all the other things we do when we want to find fault with someone … but don’t know how …
Or, like the kind of thing that happens in politics so frequently … where instead of talking about the issues … things are decided on the basis of personality or other idiosyncrasies …
12. Well, that is not what God is all about. God wants us to be real. God doesn’t want us to be phony.
God wants us to stop judging other people and to do as Jesus tried to teach us … and that is the Gospel message for today …
Now, let me leave you with one last thought … because as I said, I have long pondered this passage … and this is my own idea … based on my own observation that people who are in tune spiritually … and are real about their faith … are most likely to also be honest about their true feelings…
In other words … they don’t fake it …
Which means that people who are intact spiritually do actually experience genuine joy and happiness … when someone else does well … and good things happen to them. In other words, they dance when it is time to dance and laugh when something is funny.
On the other hand, when something is sad … or something bad happens, people who are intact … experience genuine sorrow …
But people who are not together spiritually … people who are too wrapped up in themselves … do not … really care … and like the Pharisees in Jesus’ day they are more concerned with appearances and how they look … on the outside … while on the inside they feel nothing … genuine at all … and because of it they have nothing really helpful to offer … and in their deeds their lack of wisdom is revealed for what it is … although, I must say, sometimes many are led astray by their false pretenses. Do you follow me?
So, beginning today, let us strive to be both hearers of Jesus words of wisdom … and let us strive to be doers as well in thought, word, and truth. In other words, let us not be afraid to “eat the pumpkin!”
Let us pray …
