Speaking to a crowd, Jesus calls out the people living in the first quarter century.
Writing a gospel to his community, the evangelist we know as Matthew calls out the people living at the end of the first century.
Proclaiming this gospel in churches all over the country this morning, deacons and priests call out the people living in the 21st Century.
“To what will I compare this generation?”
Jesus answers his seemingly rhetorical question by saying “children”. And not just children, but children that demand of others and expect gratification.
But we know that he isn’t speaking to the individuals in the crowd exclusively. This condemnation goes toward the whole generation. It is not only universal, but he is talking about the entire system, the entire culture.
This is further reinforced by his use of Son of Man—a signal that he is talking about the
Jesus gives them an example of the problem: “John fasted and you called him possessed. I didn’t fast and you called me glutton and drunkard.” Petty judgments of each other are not kingdom behaviors, but worse, they impede the revelation of the
So, “to what will I compare this generation?”
Are we not still children? Are we not still possessed of the need to judge? Are we not still projecting out this separation from God’s Kingdom?
I am reminded at this time every year that the one holiday that needs to go by its proper name is Independence Day. “The 4th of July” hides the purpose of a national celebration, instead we wrap it all up in a flag, fireworks, and a nebulous sense of patriotism. Two hundred thirty-two years and two days ago, a small group of people declared their independence from an empire. They incited a revolution against a human king.
This was not manifest destiny. This wasn’t the influence of God because our republic looks nothing like the
But we as a people have seen revolution—we know it. We have seen what change looks like. For some, it reveals a host of horrors: a monstrous separation from principles of belief. For others, it is the revelation of deeply rooted desires. Revolutions are nothing if not messy.
Despite this intimacy, this knowledge of revolution, this sense that pervades the very fibers of our national being, we have rejected revolution. We have rejected the principle of overthrowing tyranny for a world of freedom and self-determination. We have rejected the essential component, precursor, and securer of our freedom for comfort, status, and self-promotion. We are children demanding that others dance for our amusement. We are children that cannot understand why others don’t cry at the sight of our tears.
The Episcopal Church’s canons were written alongside the U.S. Constitution. Embedded in our polity and church practice is that sense of revolution and corporate freedom from tyranny. And yet, where is that sense today? Where is that place where we stand up together? But again, we are children, demanding and judging, preferring destruction and self-preservation.
But what does Jesus do after the thorough condemnation in the missing verses from this morning’s gospel, verses 20-24, but pray:
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
The prayer reveals that God cares for infants—putting the earlier derision on its head—he cares for infants and children.
Stanley Hauerwas points out that
In [First Corinthians] Paul tells us that God chose the cross to ‘destroy the wisdom of the wise.’ Paul directs the Corinthians’ attention to their own selves, pointing out that most of them are not wise by human standards or of noble birth. They were chosen not because they are strong, but because they were, in the world’s eyes, weak and foolish.[1]
Sounds like the disciples to me.
And he continues:
Jesus, like Paul, is not suggesting that we try to be infants, but rather as those engrafted into the kingdom, we in fact are infants. We are just beginners, dependent on Jesus and one another for our very survival…That the deaf, the mute, the blind, the poor, those rendered helpless in the face of suffering, recognize Jesus is not accidental.[2]
Jesus explains to the crowd what living a Kingdom life is like, revealing this commonality of our own status as infants. Our society doesn’t merely break us down between race, class, gender, sexual orientation, and ability, but between each individual. We are the others. Like on the show Lost. We are our own opposition, othered by a system demanding our separation.
In Jesus, however, we are shown the nature of the
The revolution that Jesus taught, that Peter and Paul sought, was not a military revolution like those we’ve read about or have known since we were born, no use of guerilla tactics in the city streets and homes of the East Coast, especially in
And this revolution doesn’t create new laws of oppression and restriction. It doesn’t create a new class of ‘wise and intelligent’ (and wealthy) elites. It doesn’t replace one earthly king with another or even a round table headed by 12 earthly kings.
No, this revolution is different. This revolution is of children: children whose wisdom is faith in God. Children who love one another. Children who refuse to ‘other’ those around them—using laws, money, location, status to separate themselves, to wall off their houses from the kingdom around them.
This new revolution is different because we won’t wall our church off and drive strangers away. All are welcome here. We will encourage our fellow children to love one another by serving one another.
The new revolution is different because the stakes are no longer tied to the current ruling system. We won’t measure success by money or influence or power. We will know the
The new revolution is different because it may be us.
“To what will I compare this generation?”
Jesus.
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