Matthew 11.16-19
16 ‘But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children
sitting in the market-places and calling to one another, 17 “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.”
we wailed, 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, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-collectors and sinners!”
Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.’
Games have
rules. This is something that I learned
as a child. And if you don’t follow the
rules you can ruin the game for everybody.
I know for me at least when I was a child, following the rules of a game
became all important, you could not change the rules because that would be
tantamount to cheating, the worst of all sins.
You learn quickly enough that the games that children play are
preparation for the lives they will live as adults. Life is like a game, it too is filled with
rules, rules that we are promised will even the playing field, rules that at
least seem to make the game the same for everyone. There is nothing more frustrating than
someone who won’t play by the rules.
In today’s
Gospel, Jesus’ compares his opponents to children in the market place, children
complaining about their playmates, “You
are supposed to dance when we play the flute and mourn when we mourn, these are
the rules and you are not following them.”
Of course those rebellious rule breakers are none other than John the
Baptist and Jesus. Both of these men are
found to be offensive in their own unique ways.
John the Baptist was an ascetic; he lived out in the wilderness, wore
ugly hair shirts and ate a disgusting diet of locusts and honey. That guy was a weirdo. But he was nothing compared to Jesus, who seemed
like he could be really cool if only he would stop partying with all of those
losers. The world had set standards of
conduct which John and Jesus did not live up to. Neither of them could satisfactorily fit into
polite society, and what was really infuriating is that they didn't even seem
to care.
Neither of them
was dissuaded from their paths by other people’s impression of them. They just did not care how they
appeared in the eyes of others. Jesus in particular was not dissuaded by the
shocking accusation that he was a drunk and a glutton; it did not stop him from
spending time with tax-collectors and sinners.
Sadly the
world hasn't really changed much. We
have certain standards of dress, standards of speech, standards of
conduct. The societies in which we live have
both explicit and implicit guidelines in place that regulate how we live our
lives.
A big part
of this is appearance. We can’t help but
to judge the world and the people in it by how it all looks. We are constantly told that we have to look
the part. It is drilled into us that
without the appropriate clothes, home, and car no one will ever find us
attractive or be willing to give us a suitable job.
This
does not just apply to the secular world.
If anything it may be worse among Christians. We certainly seem to have so many more
reasons to judge each other than the secular world does. Even in Church you have to look the part. After all, without a full church, a big
endowment and a beautiful liturgy how will we ever be able to be a shining
light of Christ in the world?
Of course we
know that this isn't true, we know that at our core - appearances don’t matter, but do we live that
way? And more importantly, do we treat
each other that way? It is so easy to
get caught up in ‘how things should be’ that even though we may know we should
let our judgments go, we can’t.
The problem
is that our judgment of the world around us is so wrapped up in our
understanding of virtue that we cannot destroy one without uprooting the
other. So often in our attempts to
nurture our virtuous selves we also windup nurturing our resentment towards
those who are not similarly virtuous.
I know I am
guilty of this sort of behavior year round, but I have become particularly
aware of it around this time of the year. You see, I have spent so many years
trying to have that perfect, yet seemingly elusive, Advent experience. I know that if I could just get Advent right
it would make Christmas that much more magnificent and beautiful. And every year I think to myself why can’t
other people observe the season of Advent in the right way? How am I supposed to reach a place of
stillness with all of this chaos and Christmas music? And every year all I wind up getting out of
Advent is frustration and indignation.
Unfortunately
though this is something that infects all of our lives, this judgment disguised
as virtue. Those little questions that
nag at us, like “why can’t they get the liturgy right?” “Why can’t she dress
like an adult?” “How can he possibly think he is suitable for the priesthood?” Again
and again we turn our judgment outward, allowing ourselves to become obsessed with
how we think things should be, and we wind up missing the moments that truly
matter. We wind up playing music and
dancing when we should be mourning, and weeping when we should sing.
So how do we
break free from our false notions of righteousness, from our resentment and
judgment? I think there is a clue in the
last verse when Jesus says, “wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
This wisdom
is not in us, not while we spin ourselves in circle, chasing our own tails. All of our rules and virtue do not seem to be
able to save us from ourselves. No, this
wisdom belongs to Christ and it is only when we stop in our tracks and look to
Christ that we can get an idea of what that wisdom may look like in our own
lives. Christ vindicated wisdom on the cross, releasing us from our worldly
bonds, turning many of the rules that we live by on their head, and for this
reason freeing ourselves from our own expectations and anxieties may be the
hardest thing we ever do. But once we do,
once we let go of trying to make the world conform to our own rules, and
instead conform ourselves to Christ, then we can find the relief and gratitude
that comes from surrendering ourselves to God.
Amen
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