MT 11:15-19 (20-24) 25-30

Matthew in the Margins…5th S after Pentecost…Revised 2017 

We all need to ‘hear’. Some need to hear differently in today’s world. Even those who have never had, or lost, the gift of physical hearing. How to preach so all have an equal chance of hearing Jesus, the Word of God, one way or another?

Have the children been watching their adults playing music & dancing to it, & are now mimicking them? Have they been watching funeral processions go by & are now playing at that too? Jesus’ contrasts between joy & sorrow seem to embrace all the ‘games people play’. Perhaps we all need to be spiritually wise enough to eat, drink, & dance with God & enjoy God in the process? Or mourn with God on occasion! A more joyful relationship with God than some we may preach? 

John & Jesus both end up as losers in the world’s eyes, yet ‘winners’ in God’s! What matters from our beginning, our middling, & our earthly ending, is God & God’s Truth. Revealed in God’s prophet(s) & supremely in God’s Anointed One.  Truth that puts all earthly rulers in their place! Can we expect holding to such Truth will cost us less than it costs John & Jesus?

(The bracketed verses illustrate accepting / rejecting in other terms. To pursue these, try settings from today’s world that might speak more to our hearers.) 

Praising God is central to Christian personal & corporate spiritual life. Can there be a life of faith without perpetual praise? Jesus Himself leads by example, not only on this occasion. As Jesus sees us, those who are really wise & understanding are those who are the ‘little ones’ He often speaks to & about. Those who are a gift to the Church & the world, but overlooked & under-valued for the gift they are to us. No matter the role we play in our local church & world, are we among those ‘little ones’ for whom God always has a ‘soft spot’? There are no ‘elites’ in God’s eyes. Scrambling to join one elite or another reveals who we are & what we are!

In a multi-faith & no-faith world, Jesus’ claim that no-one knows God except through Him sounds extraordinary! But from a Christian’s point of view, there it is! In black & white! Others will disagree, & we mustn’t put them down if they claim another way to their God or no-god! But as a Christian, in Luther’s words, ’here I stand!’ How & what do we preach this in today’s multi-everything societies?

In the 1662 Prayer Book eucharistic rite, at one point there were what were called, ‘Comfortable words’. Among them were Jesus’, ‘Come to me…’ Except that the second bit, the ’take my yoke ..’ was extraordinarily omitted! Can we ‘Come’ without taking the yoke, or as some seem to do, ‘Take’ the yoke without coming?