Seeds for 08/15/2023 - Matthew 11:16-19
Scripture: “To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
“‘We played the pipe for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
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, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
Observation: As Jesus considers His cousin John’s ministry, He’s transitioning to how He and John have been received by certain parties. John called for repentance in the style of an Old Testament prophet. Jesus has come preaching, healing, and working miracles, signs (potentially) of the Messiah. So, what has been the response? Mixed. In these verses, the theme is discontinuity—what you’d expect to be straight cause and effect doesn’t work out that way.
First, the children’s verse. Music doesn’t lead to dancing and a dirge doesn’t evoke mourning. This is a clue that something is amiss.
Next, “this generation” can’t make up it’s mind about John and Jesus. John practices a strict asceticism and folks are suspicious — “He has a demon,” they say. Jesus comes feasting with folks (albeit with all the wrong sort) and He’s considered “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” This is a textbook example of the old phrase, “you can’t win for losing.”
Jesus laments their insistence on finding fault, seeing reasons to object and protest no matter what. Their inconsistency betrays that the problem is themselves. They aren’t engaging what John and Jesus are saying and doing, they’re just suspicious about them personally. This suspiciousness is different than critical thinking. They aren’t working from principles, otherwise, they’d pick one practice to affirm and one to reject—John’s fasting or Jesus’ feasting. Instead they grump about both.
Jesus doesn’t mind active discernment for a second. After all, He did instruct His followers to be “wise as serpents and innocent as doves.” But this is simply contrarianism for its own sake. A critical mind is one thing, but a closed heart is another.
Application:
What might the Holy Spirit be speaking with you about in the text today?
Prayer: Lord, give me an open heart and a discerning mind, to know what is from you and what is not. Amen.
“But the seed falling on good soil refers to someone who hears the word and understands it. This is the one who produces a crop, yielding a hundred, sixty or thirty times what was sown.” (Matthew 13:23)
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