Parable 6 Dec. 15, 2000
A Childish Generation
(Matthew 11:16-19)
17 " `We played the flute for you,
and you did not dance;
we sang a dirge,
and you did not mourn.'
Significant differences between synoptic representations:
Matthew
“Wisdom is justified by her deeds.” |
Mark
|
Luke
“Wisdom is justified by all her children.” |
Setting
John the Baptist was imprisoned at Machaerus and it seems that he may have begun to question the outcomes of life. I am sure he was remembering his experience during Jesus’ baptism (Matt. 3:13-17) and some of their concurrent ministry; but the situation as it was caused him to wonder if it really was what it seemed. So he sent several of his disciples to Jesus for a straightforward answer of the question, “Are you the Messiah?”
Jesus had been ministering throughout the Galilee region performing great signs of
power. It was these signs – blind
receive sight, lame walk, lepers cleansed, etc. (Matt. 11:5) – Jesus used as evidence
for who he was. He simply told John’s
disciples to report to John what they had seen and heard.
From this short part of the narrative it would seem that the disciple’s of
John spent enough time following Jesus to witness these things. Since they had traveled from John at
Machaerus east of the Dead Sea to Galilee it wasn’t as if they were going to return
in just a couple of hours. In addition, the
works Jesus was performing were creating quite a stir.
He was developing enough of a newsworthy reputation that crowds were following him,
undoubtedly some hoping to be part of the news (i.e. potential receivers of healing). Knowing how gossip spreads among people I have no
doubt that John’s followers got an earful of stories before they ever made contact
with Jesus.
Once John’s disciples left I get the picture that Jesus immediately turned toward the crowd that was following him and began to speak about John. I have no doubt that most of them were quite aware of the origin from which the delegation, who they just witnessed making their way up to Jesus and talking with him, came. Within this crowd would have been people Jesus had healed, people who had witnessed many of the miracles he had performed, and his disciples. Also among the crowd would have been Pharisees and teachers from the local synagogues. Perhaps even a delegation of religious leaders from Jerusalem, in disguise of course, were following him around trying to figure out what was going on. Oh, and we don’t want to forget the town drunks, prostitutes, pimps, loan sharks, and the like who were also following him around. He was the greatest show in the area. In other words, to understand Jesus’ audience we must realize that his followers, and those with whom he ate and talked with, were a very mixed bag of folks consisting of both good and bad and both disciple and adversary (Hultgren 300).
Only a short time before it was John the Baptist who was the greatest show in town for these very same folks. So, Jesus’ comments about John the Baptist were personal. They cut to the very center motive for most of them. Who do you think John the Baptist was? What did you think he was doing? Why did you go into the wilderness to see him?
Jesus goes on to indicate to the crowd that a great change was taking place in the spiritual realm. This was a violent change, meaning a great shakeup was occurring at that very moment, and it began with John the Baptist’s message. “From the days of John the Baptist until now …” (Matt. 11:12 NRSV), and Jesus was the one now on stage, therefore Jesus was the now. Jesus was saying, “What are you going to do with this? Accept it or reject it?”
Notes:
Verse 16: "To what
can I compare this generation?” This
generation was their generation, the very generation witnessing the violence in the
kingdom of heaven (verse 12). There is a
great upheaval taking place. This is major
event in the universe! A new era is
dawning! And, it is not passive! Jesus told them, “and the violent take it by
force (verse 12 NRSV).” This great
change was taking place through action, their action, and they would have to choose.
“They are like children…” who can’t get along while playing in the market place. Jeremias as well as the rest of us has some problem with this metaphor, as it is ambiguous (161). It kind of gets us to this point, then drops us. Who is talking to whom? How many groups of children are there? Are the children in one group talking between each other? Or are they a group talking to others off to the side? Who represents the people? Who represents Jesus? Who represents John?
We can look at it as one group proposing two different games to their companions while another unresponsive group looks on (Blomberg 208). The group looking on would be the unresponsive Jews acting as a judge between the sides of the group speaking (Blomberg 209).
Or we can look at it as the group speaking as the passive ones. They want to bark and the others on the side jump. Jeremias feels that the word translated “sitting” indicates a passive group unwilling to involve themselves in the rigorous exercise called for (161). They prefer to do the less arduous tasks of playing the flute and singing but they want the others to do the tough stuff of dancing and mourning.
Perhaps both views will in the end promote the same idea, however, I prefer the view Jeremias promotes. It seems that the generation Jesus is talking about is the sitting children who prefer to bark out the orders, but do not move into action. They want to call the tune and have the others respond.
Verse 17: “We played the flute …; we sang a dirge …” but you did not respond as we wanted you too.
If we look at Jesus and John as the others who these sitting children are unhappy with we may get a little bit of a shock if we have some gender expectations. Boys danced at weddings and girls mourned at the funerals. This makes the demands seem a little harsher. It is like making the boys play with dolls and the girls with trucks (I know, my age shows here and today they are apt to do just that.). This would seem great sport in some sadistic sense. Since their subjects did not respond as they wished they would be somewhat incensed and begin to angrily shout, “Spoilsports! Spoilsports!” (Jeremias 161).
Verse 18: “For John came …” with very strict actions of piety and preaching repentance. Perhaps the Jews (meaning the spiritual leaders and not the ethnic group, Jews) were not too unhappy with John’s piety, but his call to repentance was too much for their self-righteous sense of personal accomplishment of “The Law”.
Verse 19: “The Son of Man came …” with too loose of a regard for their interpretation of “The Law”. There are several actions of Jesus illustrated in this one short sentence which greatly incensed the religious leaders toward Jesus. First, he referred to himself as “The Son of Man”. For us today we would probably say, “So?”, but to the Scribe of the day this would bring the response of, “Blasphemy!”
Daniel 7: 13-14 says,
13
"In my vision at night I looked, and there before me was one like a son of man,
coming with the clouds of heaven. He approached the Ancient of Days and was led into his
presence. 14 He was given authority, glory and sovereign power; all peoples,
nations and men of every language worshiped him. His dominion is an everlasting dominion
that will not pass away, and his kingdom is one that will never be destroyed.
Jesus’ reference to being “The Son of Man”
harked back to this reference in the minds of the Pharisees and Scribes. “Hence in the vision, not only is ideal
humanity made to image the character of the kingdom, but the bearer of it appears coming
in the clouds of heaven, the proper chariot of Deity – as himself being from above
rather than from beneath – emphatically, indeed, the Lord from heaven”
(M’Clintock 879). This Messianic
identification of Jesus to himself infuriated the Jews because he was not acting as they
wanted him to.
Many knew, or had rumors of, the way he was born.
There was no arriving in clouds with a great show of his authority, glory and
power. Instead he was born under questionable
circumstances and probably attended synagogue school with many of them, some may have even
been his teachers.
Secondly, look who he associated with: Tax Collectors?
Sinners? Tax collectors in their mind
could only be the lowest of the lowest sinners. Especially
those who were ethnically Jews, who would have been seen as selling out God. And sinners would apply to all those who denied
“The Law” (Hultgren 208). Surely
the Messiah would prefer themselves for company over such despicable people.
Interestingly Jesus seemingly has no problem with the
derogatory term he characterizes the religious leaders giving him of “coming eating and drinking”. This designation may hark back to Deuteronomy 21:
20 where it refers to a rebellious son as one who is “a profligate and a
drunkard” (Jeremias 160). Such a
rebellious and obstinate son (one who won’t obey) was to be stoned so that “All
of Israel will hear of it and be afraid” (Deut. 21:22b NIV).
In this passage we see that Jesus and John were not very
much alike in their lifestyle. However in our
exploration of the setting of this parable we find Jesus linking himself and John together
in the message (Hultgren 207) that will make a violent takeover of the kingdom of heaven. The spiritual leaders of the time had a hard
time in this spiritual turn, they tried to temper Johns message with a little lighter tone
and Jesus’ grace with a little more strictness (Blomberg 209).
This generation then, is an obstinate one which prefers to
be preoccupied with the petty issues of the rules and unable to see the action of God. While the work of God is going on around them they
become “disorderly children who quarrel among themselves” (Hultgren 205).
The final line of this parable, “But wisdom is proved right by her actions.” Contains the major difference between the two synoptic representations. Matthew portrays the emmissary of wisdom’s vindication as actions where Luke uses children. Perhaps the best preservation of Q is rendered by Luke, and Matthew changes it because of his emphasis on the words of Jesus as being the works of the Messiah (Blomberg 109, Hultgren 208). In either case wisdom is justified by what becomes the result. The righteousness of God’s children and the actions they will do justifies the message of John and Jesus over the way of the religious leaders of the time. It is not the letter of the law that will matter, but the response of the people to Jesus (Blomberg 321).
This parable laments the attitudes of the religious leaders as well as the unresponsive people who are in it for the show (Blomberg 311). Jesus says that You are “like these domineering and disagreeable children” who blame their companions for being spoil sports (Jeremias 161). You hate preaching of repentance and you hate the proclamation of the good news of grace (Jeremias 162). The gospel is not what they want to hear, so they want to change the tune and make it what they do want to hear. Perhaps they are the ones who are spoiling the sport.
Blomberg gives us three lessons from this parable (210):
1) The joyful message of forgiveness should be celebrated and not dampened with legalism.
3) The truth of these principles will be demonstrated by those who accept them.
I think that each of these are very appropriate responses to the story of the spoilsports.
Application:
Perhaps we can today put ourselves in the shoes of the Jews. We too can have it all figured out. When someone comes along not dancing to our tune, we get just a little bit out of shape. Imagine our reaction to the harshness of messages that cut into our areas of gray. Like the one of forgiving seventy time seven. We always have some situation ethics we like to apply to such action. “But I didn’t deserve it. Surely God doesn’t want us to be a rug for people to walk on.” Or perhaps it is some of our thoughts, or missed actions we want to hang onto; we really shouldn’t have to repent if we really didn’t do anything real bad, do we? The preaching of repentance is hard for many of us to accept today when so many times we can seem to shift the responsibility away from ourselves onto some other agent, such as our environment. We may also seek to temper John’s message with the desire for a lighter response.
On the other hand Jesus’ message of grace is hard for many of us to take. We just can’t seem to see some people as being able to find salvation. The tax collector for us too, may be just too far beyond the realm of grace. Certainly the murderer, drug pusher, and most certainly that person that just slandered my person cannot make it. So, why should Jesus bother with them?
Could it be that often we too sit in the marketplace angrily yelling “Spoilsport!” at others who are out doing the work of the kingdom? If we are to continue in bringing the kingdom of God unto the world it will require the rigorous exercise of action. Maybe Matthew is right in the long run, and it is our action that proves our response to the message of repentance and grace.