Children in the Marketplace
Luke 7:31-35 || Matthew 13:31-35
Kacy Madsen
Setting:
The Parable of the Children in the Marketplace exists both in Luke 7:31-35 and
in Matthew 11:16-19. According to most
interpreters, both Luke and Matthew drew their information from a common source, Q,
although each Evangelist took liberties of interpretation (Hultgren 204).
As Luke tells the story, Jesus spoke this parable within his Galilean ministry, following a series of sayings regarding John the Baptist, who was, at that time, imprisoned by Herod Antipas. Jesus delivered the parable in the presence of his disciples, addressing it to the crowds. Specifically, the imagery of the parable alludes to the reality that the crowd understood neither John nor Jesus -- later both men would be executed. Most interpreters hold that this parable originated with Jesus (Hultgren 204).
Luke
begins the parable with a reference to “this generation”; an expression that
appears eighteen times in the Synoptic Gospels and is used to refer to “Jesus’
contemporaries as the last generation before the end, just prior to the approaching final
judgment. This utterance always carries a
negative connotation -- sometimes with the added phrases “faithless,”
“evil,” and “adulterous” (Hultgren 207).
In
this parable the children represent the aforementioned "generation." Their
refusal to play along with one another represent their accusations directed against both
John and Jesus. They refused to "play
wedding" -- To them, “[John] the Baptist was a madman because he fasted
while [the children] wanted to be merry.” And
they refused to "play funeral" -- They reproached Jesus because he
“ate with publicans while [the children] insisted on strict separation from
sinners” (Jeremias 162). In John the
children rejected the solemnity of repentance, while in Jesus they rejected the
proclamation of the good news.
The message of this parable is that the children “in the midst of their
preoccupation and sullen manner, look upon John as possessed and upon Jesus as a glutton
and a drunkard and thereby miss what is being offered through the ministry of these
figures” (Hultgren 206). Therefore the
lesson of this parable is as follows: “1) The joyful message of forgiveness should be
freely celebrated and not dampened by legalistic restrictions. 2) The solemn message of repentance should not be
ignored but taken up with full seriousness. 3)
The truth of both of these principles will be demonstrated by those who implement
them” (Blomberg 210). Finally, one
should keep in mind that the resurrection will be the vindication of the crucified one and
of John. According to Hultgren, “a
person can reject the message of John and Jesus, and even kill the messenger. Or one can listen, repent, and be counted among
the children of wisdom” (211).
In a very real sense, the parable of the Children in the Market Place is a call for mutual understanding and cooperation. Why does it seem that we are never satisfied? John is too ascetic. Jesus is too liberal. I don't want to play wedding anymore. I don't want to play funeral now. Why can't we put aside our selfish interests long enough to enter into the experiences and needs of others?
This reminds me of the time I spent in Papua New Guinea this summer. While the parable speaks specifically to the
importance of somber contemplation of repentance and of joyous praise over salvation, it
also reminded me that God has called us to join in the joys and sufferings of our
neighbors.
Whenever a person spends any time in a nation troubled by poverty, a few things become very clear. One of these is that the people in impoverished countries have very little. That notion seems to be quite obvious in the mere description of the people as impoverished, but truly to grasp that concept is another thing all together. The idea of poverty is simply an abstraction until one observes it firsthand; it is not enough merely to describe the one-room, thatched-roof huts, or the crowds of people gathered along the edges of the street selling trinkets, or the children with dirty faces and open sores.
Once the initial shock of the shabby economy wears off,
one notices a second, amazing thing. One
becomes aware that despite the impoverished conditions of the people, they are all happy
and content. In the States one is
hard-pressed to find a stranger who will smile and wave with no inhibition, but in places
like Papua New Guinea everyone smiles and everyone waves.
The dissonance between the people’s economic condition and their emotional
condition is truly striking!
During
my time in Papua New Guinea I was forced to grapple with the idea of sharing in
another’s sorrow as well as joy, and I found that sometimes it is very difficult to
breech the gaps constructed by economic and cultural influences. I found myself not knowing how to relate to these
people -- how could I join in their happiness when my heart was broken over their poverty?
To express this struggle, I wrote a bit of prose:
Sometimes beauty is so stark.
Today I met a boy named Alex. There was something about the way he smiled, about the way it made me not notice the flies on his skin and the dirt in his hair. Today I met a girl named Rachel. Something in the sound of her voice distracted me from her feet. These feet resting on metal pads, lifeless.
I hated the way she looked ashamed when I glanced at her feet. I hated the way that they made Alex move back when
the flies started landing on me. I hated the
way that this invisible wall stood between us - -- my white skin, my healthy white skin,
healthy white feet.
Today I met this girl with white skin. A girl with white skin who watches the world,
whose heart is penetrated by beauty -- by a smile, by a voice, by the touch of a
sand-papery hand. A girl who is ashamed of
the beauty she lacks, ashamed of her soft, clean hands, by the sterility of her spirit, by
the vanity in her smile.
Ashamed by the thought that she will never have the bent back of labor, or the rough feet of walking on hot rocks and dusty streets.
Today I met this girl who doesn’t know how to overcome a wall
that shouldn’t be there.
And through this experience my prayer has become that God will teach me what it means to
share in the joy and suffering of others -- for it not to be an abstract,
unattainable thought, but a reality that endears me to others in every situation.