July 7, 2002
7th Sunday of Pentecost
Year A
Title: Satisfying Anyone?
As a minister, one of the things I often hear when people are talking
about their particular spiritual journey, especially when it relates to
church, is something like this: “You know, I think that church is a great
thing and I totally support you, but I don’t think I would fit in…I’m just not
a church person….I’m too bad…I do this or that which I think would
exclude me from really being a part of church, because, you know,
church people wouldn’t be that way.” Its an odd statement, really,
because I always think, at least in the back of my mind, “Now, what are
they expecting church people to be like? And more selfishly, I think, well,
am I meeting their expectations of whatever this image of church people
they have in their mind? Am I living up to their image of a religious
person??!?!?!” But then passages like the one we have before us today
find their way into the Lectionary, and I realize that NOT only did Jesus
have those same stereotypes to fight about what it means to be a person
of faith, but that he had an answer to those people that don’t believe that
they are good enough to be disciples of this Christ, that they are not
good enough to be a part of this transforming community called the
church. In the Mathew passage, we find Jesus talking about whole issue
of recognizing the Messiah, about the whole problem of how to recognize
when God is working in the world. And in the midst of talk about
recognizing the Messiah, Jesus is trying to find a way to describe this
impasse between what their expectations about what it means to be a
person of faith, as they had seen lived in people like the Pharisees, and
the REALITY of what it means to be a person of faith—he was trying to
destroy their old notions of what it means to be religious and, instead,
call them into authentic relationship with God.
You can hear his frustration as he talks to the crowd gathered around
him that day some two thousand years ago—they too had some notions
about what it means to be religious, just like people who often talk to me
about their struggle with coming to church. Listen to what Jesus says:
“How can I describe this generation? They are like children sitting in the
marketplace and calling to each other. 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 Human
One came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a
drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” This is such an
incredible passage because Jesus names the fact that people who have
stereotypes about what it means to be a person of faith are never going
to be satisfied. Its as if he saying to that crowd around him that day,
“Look! It seems as if you are never going to be satisfied…first, you
criticize John the Baptist for giving up food and wine, and then you
criticize me for NOT giving up food and wine! What is ever going to
satisfy you?!?! You want it both ways—you complain about both me and
John—you say that both of us are not being the type of person you
expect us to be! What kind of God are you looking for?”
And then what he says next is, I think, is especially brilliant—he says to
the crowds—“Yet, God’s wisdom is proved right by its results.” The life
of faith is not about what you or I think a person of faith should be like—
the only way to see whether a life is grounded in faith is by what comes
of that life. Both John and Jesus are two types of people who lived their
faith differently—but the results of those different lives are lives
grounded completely in God. The results of their lives is life itself. But
then Jesus pushes this envelope even more with enraptured crowd—he
begins to talk to God directly and he thanks God for something pretty
odd—he thanks God for NOT showing the truth about what it means to
be a person of faith to those WHO THINK THEY KNOW what it means to
be a person of faith. Jesus thanks God for “hiding these things from the
learned and wise, and revealing them to the simple.” Now, keep in mind
that he is being sarcastic and ironic—he is digging deep into those who
are never satisfied with other people and how they live our their spiritual
journeys. We know, as his listeners, that it is the simple—those who are
attracted to that powerful honesty and authenticity that both Jesus and
John lived out—it is those people that Jesus really believes to be much
wiser than those who think they know how a “REAL” person of faith
should live their life. Jesus is reaching out to those people who have
seen the results of a holy life, in whatever form, and that know and feel
the authenticity that is there, the reality of God in those lives.
But what is Jesus offering to this crowd? What kind of people of faith he
is looking for? Is he looking to set up another set of rules for people to
follow, where people get some easy yardstick to determine whose life is
holy or not, by following the 1-2-3 set of rules that Christ decides upon?
No, not at all, listen to what Jesus terms for his followers are, what Jesus’
terms for discipleship are: “Come to me, all who are weary and whose
load is heavy; I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you, and learn
from me, for I am gentle and humble-hearted; and you will find rest for
your souls. For my yoke is easy to wear, my load is light.” To all those
people that think that being a person of faith is about following rules, that
the life of faith is about being good enough, Jesus offers this: “Come to
me, all of you who are tired of playing religious games and who are tired
of never being good enough or religious enough, I will give you a break
from all that. What I ask of you is a joy, and what you will find from
following me is rest, what you will find is a teacher whose patience has no
limits and whose love has no bounds. To follow me is let go of the
religious rules, to the games of never being good enough, of not being
religious enough.” This passage from Mathew really is an answer to
those people that you and I encounter who think that they have to better,
more moral people to be in this place, or that they have to love God
more to be in this place. No, the terms of discipleship that Jesus lays
before us this morning are not another set of rules, rules that we can
beat ourselves up with or beat each other up with. No, Christ says, “To
follow me is find rest for your soul, to follow me is be set free from the
religious games and the religious rules—to follow me is to be in
relationship and to be transformed by that relationship.” No, the Church
is full of those simple people who find themselves accepted as they are
at this moment, and who live their lives in this world being transformed by
the God who meets them in this place, among these people. It is
passages like this that remind me that Christianity REALLY isn’t about
being good enough for God—its about being met by goodness itself and
being set free to be yourself and being able to dance when the flute is
being played, and to wail when its times to wail, as the Jesus says in the
first part of this passage. What Christ is calling you and I and those
people that never feel good enough to be a part of this place, of this holy
and transforming community, is to this wonderful dance of discipleship, to
this wonder-filled relationship with God that is never a burden but a
complete and utter joy. I must admit that I’m ready to dance—are you
ready to dance? Amen
