Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
[Jesus said,] “To what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplace, calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you and you would not dance. We wailed and you would not mourn.’ For John the Baptist came, neither eating nor drinking and they said, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man comes, eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look! A glutton and a drunkard. A friend of tax-collectors and sinners.’ And yet, wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
At that time, Jesus said, “I thank you Father, Lord of heaven and earth, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and you have revealed them to infants. Yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things on heaven and earth have been handed over to me by my Father. For 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.
“Come to me, all you who 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 of heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”
These words from Jesus today seem a little disconnected and strange at first and there are a lot of ways a preacher could preach about this bit from Matthew’s Gospel. I could talk about the fickle ways of faith from those who didn’t like John the Baptist because he wouldn’t eat and drink like the rest of them and those who were suspicious of Jesus because he did eat and drink. They accused him of being a glutton, a drunkard, and a phony, because he hung around with drinkers and jokers, tax collectors and sinners, presumably. Even Jesus, himself, couldn’t please all of the people, all of the time.
And then there’s that stuff at the end, where Jesus welcomes the weary. “Come to me all you who are carrying heavy burdens… Take my yoke upon you… learn from me… I’m gentle… I’m humble of heart… you will find rest for your souls… my yoke is easy and my burden is light.” And I’ve done a whole thing with that before about God’s call and command to Sabbath and rest as a discipline of faith. And, frankly, there’s a lot in the world these days that makes me weary, and tired, and heavy-hearted. And I know that’s true for many of you, too. But, I don’t feel like I have a right to feel as weary or as heavy-hearted or as burdened as so many others do, in our world, these days.
So this time around, I couldn’t stop wondering about how Jesus talks about the infants. He says, “I thank you, Father, for you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent, and have revealed them to infants.” God has hidden something very important from the wise and the intelligent and, by God’s strange, gracious, holy will, these important things have instead been revealed to the likes of infants.
As far as I’m concerned, all of that is just another way of saying what we’ve heard from Jesus many times before: that God chooses the least among us – the weak, the needy, the humble, and the small – to receive and to share, to bless and to be blessed by the grace and Good News revealed in Jesus Christ.
And all of that means Jesus wasn’t really, only talking about “infants.” It means “infants” was just one way of suggesting, once again, that the “least of these;” the last, not the first; the power-less, not the power-full; are the ones in the world for whom God’s Good News comes first and foremost and can be received most loudly and clearly and purely and faithfully. Which means, too, then, that that same Good News can be hard to hear – hidden, even – from the wise and the intelligent; hidden from the “first;” hidden from the powerful; hidden from the more fortunate, more often than not.
Which means, I think, many of us – myself included – are missing more than we realize – more than we would like to – and more than God would hope for us – when it comes to wrapping our heads and our hearts around the fullness of God’s grace and good news for the sake of the world, because our “wisdom and intelligence,” our status and privilege (to use the buzz word of the day) – and the abundance and wealth that go along with that – hide the fullness of that Good News from us so much of the time.
To try to show you what I mean, I cobbled together some passages from Scripture, the meaning of which might be hidden from those of us who live in a more safe, stable reality compared to so many others in the rest of the world; passages that speak differently to the proverbial “infants” of the world than they do to the “wise and intelligent” ones to whom Jesus refers.
For example, the Exodus story of the Israelite’s release from slavery in Egypt would be received with a different kind of hope by African-American slaves in the earliest days of our nation, than it could possibly have been received by their more privileged and powerful, supposedly “wise and intelligent” slave owners, right?
The slave owner might wonder why God had been so harsh as to harden Pharaoh’s heart and destroy the first-born. The slave might rejoice at and hope in the Hebrews’ deliverance, at all costs, from the same oppression and suffering and death he suffered.
And think about how someone in war-torn Afghanistan this morning might hear Psalm 46:
“God is in the midst of the city; it shall not be moved; God will help it when the morning dawns. The nations are in an uproar, the kingdoms totter; he utters his voice, the earth melts. The Lord of hosts is with us; the God of Jacob is our refuge.”
That must come with a measure of hope – or maybe even impatience and frustration – that you and I can only guess about.
Imagine what Isaiah’s prophecy to bring release to the captives and freedom to the oppressed has to say to the millions of refugees displaced and homeless, all over the continent of Africa. Imagine what those same promises of release and freedom would mean to a young girl being controlled and trafficked right here in our own country.
How differently does my friend Madame Jean, in Fondwa, Haiti – a widow, raising her orphaned granddaughter in the poorest country in the western hemisphere – find hope, if not some righteous anger and frustration, in God’s charge for faithful people to care for the widow and the fatherless?
I can’t help but wonder what the men we worship with up at the Pendleton Correctional Facility think when they hear Jesus’ invitation to us, in Matthew 25, to visit the prisoner – and that when we do, it’s as if we are visiting with Jesus, himself.
How would the family of Breonna Taylor, who was shot 8 times and killed by police in the middle of the night while sleeping in her own bed, in her own home, for having done absolutely nothing wrong? – how must they – or any parent who has lost a child, for that matter – hear and pray and cry the words of Psalm 121 – “I lift up my eyes to the hills, from where will my help come?”
I could go on. And, please don’t misunderstand me. These words and promises – this Good News – from Scripture has meaning and depth and hope and promise for each of us in our own ways, too, at various times in our lives.
But what I’m challenged by this morning is Jesus’ reminder that we have a lot to learn from so many of God’s children who live and suffer and struggle and survive and hope and persist in this world - in ways and under circumstances most of us are blessed only to imagine. In so many cases, we are the “wise and the intelligent,” in Jesus’ comparison this morning and so much is hidden from our sight, because we are blinded by our own privilege and our own abundance and our own safety and security – and that is a hard truth to hear.
But there is hope … so much hope here. Because Jesus says that wisdom is vindicated by her deeds. Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds, people! And I like to say that real wisdom, true wisdom, faithful wisdom and understanding is not only vindicated by her deeds, it is indicated by our deeds whenever we respond with faith and love and generosity and service and humility and sacrifice on behalf of the struggle and suffering that surrounds us in this world.
If we use our holy imagination… if we could read our Bibles and hear God’s Good News from the perspective of the last and the least out there in the world – and then respond to what we know with a greater measure of the grace that is already ours…
If we use the wisdom and the intellect, the power and privilege with which we have been blessed – our own eyes will be opened; our own hearts will be set free; our own hope will be stoked for the benefit of the world around us so that the last will be first; so that the oppressed will be set free; so that the lost will be found; the blind will see; the lonely will be comforted; the hungry filled; and all of God’s children will find rest and peace and hope and new life – together – under the loving yoke of God’s grace and mercy and justice and joy, in Jesus Christ our Lord.
Amen
