Jesus said, "But to what will I compare this generation?
It is like children sitting in the marketplaces
and calling to one another,
"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 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."
At that time Jesus said, "I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and the intelligent and have revealed them to infants; 26 yes, Father, for such was your gracious will. All things have been handed over to me by my Father; and 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 that 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 in heart,
and you will find rest for your souls.
For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light."
According to Biblical scholars,
In the time of Jesus and John,
many people were looking for
(and even expecting)
a messiah,
someone who would come and bring about the Reign of God,
who would save God’s people
and restore them
to something sovereign
or holy
or maybe just something good.
On the one hand,
some believed that a messiah
descended from David
would come as a king,
and perhaps a warrior-king.
He would lead an army against Rome and restore Israel to independence.
He would then sit on the throne of Israel
and reign
forever and ever! "Kingdom without end!"
On the other hand,
some believed that perhaps a descendent of Aaron would come as a messiah-priest, perhaps not so much to restore the kingdom or conquer the empire, but rather to restore the temple--to clear the house of worship and the home of God from corruption, (to turn the tables over, so to speak), and to restore God’s people to right worship and proper devotion.
Still others hoped for a maybe hybrid of these two,
or a modification of one or the other.
And perhaps some hoped for something different, altogether.
Whatever the case, hope for and expectation
of a messiah
was common.
And Whatever folks believed exactly, when they looked at John,
and when they looked at Jesus, a lot of them said:
This is it! He’s our “One.”
Finally, they believed, we have our Messiah!
(This is why the beginning of the Gospel of John makes such a big deal about Jesus’ being the One--and not John--
BTW: “No!” John says in the gospels, right? “I’m not him. In fact, I’m not worthy to tie the messiah’s sandals!”
This is allegedly included because historically a lot of folks thought that John was the messiah they had been waiting for--and so the gospels clarify for us).
Whatever the case, folks placed their hopes in
John and Jesus--
not just in their message of God’s Reign,
but in them as people and as more than people--
as potential Messiahs--
Ones (they hoped) who would fulfill their every desire
and establish their visions
about the way the world ought to be,
in all the earth.
Pretty soon, it seems, however,
some of these folks actually started listening to what John was saying.
And pretty soon, also, (scripture seems to indicate)
they started to realize the kind of “unsavory characters”
(according to cultural norms)
that Jesus spent his time hanging around with.
And it wasn’t long before the crowds, the hungry poor, the Pharisees and the scribes, the centurions and the tax collectors, the folks who gathered around John and Jesus, started to realize that maybe not everybody in the room
wanted the same thing.
“Wait a minute!” they said.
“This is supposed to be MY MESSIAH! So why is he saying things that make me so uncomfortable?”
And so they complained
and they lamented : “This is not what we gather around you for!”
and they let Jesus know that he is
actually
not
what they were expecting when they prayed for him to come.
“We’re disappointed in you,” they said.
“Who do you think you are?”
And it’s exactly those frustrated expectations
and that disappointment
that Jesus addresses in his teaching in the Gospel story today.
And this is what he says:
“You what y’all are like?” Jesus says to them.
Y’all are like children running around in the toy aisles at Walmart, he says.
Playing pretend.
Which is awesome because Jesus loved children.
And playing!
However, he says:
“You’re like children running around in the toy aisles at Walmart, but your not even having fun doing it!
Let me try to clarify.
Did you ever play _____ anything as a kid?
Like, so I know growing up we “played house,”
or we “played school”
we played just about anything.
We played whatever TV show we had recently watched on TV.
And there were no formal rules,
but it was clear, as we played,
that there was always that one kid
who would sort of have a sense of what a “normal” household
or “normal” school was (a vision for our playtime--an expectation)
and that one kid would always get super mad
if the other kids went out of character or deviated from their
expected vision.
You know: “You can’t be that!” they’d complain. “There’s no elephant when we’re playing house!” “You have to be a dad or a baby, or a grandma or an uncle or so on--but no elephants!!! Not when we’re playing house!!!
And then there was always also the kid (sometimes it was the same kid) who would get really mad that you didn’t understand what it is they were pretending to be or to do.
It should be obvious, that kid would assume, but the rest of us just wouldn’t get it. We weren’t inside of their head. We didn’t know their intent. We were not of one mind.
So, we’d try.
So, we’d try to play along, but we’d get it wrong.
And when we did, that kid would throw a tantrum.
For example,
“I was being the teacher!” they would scream (as we ‘played’ school).
“When I am being a teacher, you have to sit down and do homework!” “You can’t go on the playground when the teacher is teaching! Ugh!”
Don’t you know how to play school?
Don’t you know what a school even is?, they would accuse.
Huffing and stomping and pointing.
And suddenly, none of us really wanted to play anymore.
It’s this kind of personality to which Jesus compares the grown-ups gathered around him to today.
“Couldn’t you tell, Jesus?”
“We played the flute and you didn’t dance!”
“Couldn’t you tell?
We were playing funeral, Jesus!
You’re not supposed to laugh and eat with sinners, Jesus!
Not when we’re playing funeral!” they lamented.
“Not when you’re supposed to make us holy!”
“You’re supposed to cry, Jesus, and be strict!” they demanded.
“You’re supposed to slap our hands with a ruler!
You’re supposed to get us in line! Under control!”
“Don’t you know how to play our game, Jesus?”
Don’t you even know what a messiah is?
And so those gathered grown-ups go on and on, throwing a tantrum that Jesus isn’t really being a Messiah, that he’s not what they had hoped for, that he is not doing what was expected of him in this spiritual game of life.
And they pout. And some of them walk away.
The problem with that game (the one the upset grown-ups wanted Jesus to play)--that is, the problem with their messianic expectations of purifying priests and conquering kings,
Jesus seems to say in the scriptures today,
is that when our hope becomes frozen and fixed--or fixated on one vision or one ending, it becomes really difficult to invite others into the game.
You see hope always has to do with playing. It is playful.
And when we play, when we really, truly, and deeply play, (when we become like children again, as Jesus calls us in the scriptures to do) we are not bound by arbitrary rules,
but we recreate the world in the image of our collective, of our shared, joy.
There is no normal, no norm, no pre-scribed “right way” to play.
All things can truly be made new.
“A priest and a king? The Kingdom of God belongs to children!” Jesus says with a playful heart.
And the tax-collectors and the prostitutes with whom I dine? I hat to tell you, my angry religious friends, but
they
are getting in
first.
According to Biblical scholars,
In the time of Jesus and John,
many people were looking for
(and even expecting)
a messiah.
Some believed he would be a king who would restore a nation.
Others hoped for a priest who would make everyone worship an imagined “right way” again.
Instead, Christians got Jesus.
You’re playing the wrong games, he said.
In fact, it seems you’ve forgotten how to play!
Your imaginations are in captivity.
Become like children again, he urged them.
Play!
Dream with me of God’s Reign.
I am not here to conquer or to purify. But to make all things new.
Play! And dream with me!
The hungry shall feast and the last shall become first!
Blessed are those who hunger and mourn!
Play! And dream with me!
And all you who are weary and are carrying heavy burdens:
shall find rest.”
Amen.
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