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Luke's Parables -
Children in the marketplace
(Luke 7:24-35, Proverbs 3:5-18)
Rev. Jeanette Mathews
7 March 2004
Introduction
Recently some sheets came home from school entitled "getting to know
your child". Parents were being asked to provide information for class
teachers about our children's strengths and weaknesses, issues at home that
might impact on their performance in class and also an important question
about what are their main interests? I thought I had a pretty good idea but
checked with the boys when I'd filled in the sheet and one of them said
"you should say my interest is 'playing with my friends'."
Well of course this is an interest for my
children. For all children I daresay. And isn't it amazing how the games
they play often mirror real life? My kids are always delving into the dress
ups box to equip them for battles, or parties, even playing at schools. There
is a never forgotten time at the coast when my children and some friends
played out a wedding - with salami rings and a reading from the book of
Harry Potter during the ceremony. In public service dominated Canberra I've
even heard of kids playing at Committee meetings! Little do they know.
One of the earliest parables found in the
gospel of Luke is this little reference that Jesus makes to the children at
play in the marketplace - this sort of play has clearly been happening for
millennia. Jewish men dance at a wedding. So the boys pretend to be at a
wedding, dancing to the music the girls sing. Jewish women sing the dirges at
a funeral. So the girls pretend to be mourners at a funeral while the boys
presumably pretend to be dead. Only in this case they were not playing -
"we played the flute for you and you didn't dance. We wailed and you
didn't weep." I'll come back to that.
We know that Jesus often taught through
parables - starting with a scene from everyday life that his listeners could
understand and maybe even identify with. They often found themselves in the
story. So who are the listeners here? What is the point of this little
parable? How does it connect with the tag line which says "wisdom is
vindicated by her children"?
I The reading began at verse 24 today,
but it is really part of a longer section starting with some disciples of John
being sent to Jesus to ask him 'who are you?' Five or six times in these
few chapters in Luke the question is asked - by John's followers, by
Pharisees when Jesus is a guest at their house, by Jesus' own disciples, by
Herod, and eventually Jesus himself asks "who do people say that I
am?" The answer finally comes in Luke 9, in Peter's confession 'you
are the messiah'. But here where he is first asked the answer is 'Go and
tell John what you have seen and heard: the blind receive their sight, the
lame walk, the lepers are cleanses, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, the
poor have good news brought to them.' (8:22) He was more or less quoting
Isaiah - a passage that prophesied the way God's messianic servant would
act. If you want to know who I am, Jesus was saying, watch what I am doing and
draw your own conclusions.
II The problem was, Jesus wasn't
exactly acting in the way anyone expected. John's disciples were used to the
messenger of God living a life of austerity - fasting and waiting for the
promise to arrive. John lived in the wilderness, wore rough clothing and
preached repentance and judgement. I suppose the Pharisees expected God's
messiah to live a good Jewish life - praying regularly at the Temple,
associating with teachers of the law, fulfilling the commandments. Yet Jesus
was described as 'a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and
sinners' - with a reputation for a celebratory lifestyle of eating and
drinking in association in bad company, and a cavalier attitude toward the
legal restrictions of Jewish life. Some commentaries have even seen an
allegory between the parable and the lifestyle of John and Jesus. John
represented those who mourn at a funeral while Jesus was the one who danced at
weddings. But in this passage Jesus identifies his mission with that of John's
- they were not in opposition to each other but on a continuum. They may
have had a different approach to spirituality, to life. John with his wild
appearance and strong message of self-denial and Jesus with his healing
message of good news and his emphasis on table fellowship where all were
welcome. But both stand in the traditions of the prophets. Both are children
of wisdom. When Luke moves the focus from John to Jesus in this chapter he is
showing that times were changing. John represented the former ways: the son of
old parents connected with the priestly tribe, the last of the Old Testament
style prophets; while Jesus was the son of a young woman, ushering in a new
vision. In him God was doing a new thing. No need to prepare any longer -
the bridegroom had come. The invitation was there! Join the party.
The South Australian composer Robin Mann has
written a song called "Party Song". The words go like this:
You won't get a letter in the post and you
won't get a message on the phone
You can't get a ticket or a voucher; leave your visa card at home.
But.
you are invited! You ARE, you are invited
So come and celebrate a family
come and celebrate a friend
life is bigger than a dollar
bigger than a fashion trend
You are invited to God's party, to God's feast
you are invited from the north, south, west and east
you are invited - tell your family, tell your friends
You are invited to the life that never ends.
Already in his actions and in what he had said
Jesus had issued such an invitation, and some were accepting it. The very next
story in Luke's gospel is an example of that - a meal at a Pharisee's
house at which respectable people were present but a "woman of the
city" gate-crashed and gave hospitality to Jesus which the Pharisee had
not bothered with, wiping his feet with her hair and anointing them with
precious oil. It was people like this that Jesus meant when he said the
"least in the Kingdom" were greater even than John (7:28) -
because they had understood God's good news of grace and forgiveness.
III What about those who refuse the
invitation? The religious leaders seem to be the target for Jesus' question
"to what will I compare the people of this generation?" Their
criticism and rejection of both John and Jesus show they are satisfied with
nothing, just like disgruntled children who refuse to play the games. "We
played the flute for you and you didn't dance. We wailed and you didn't
weep." How frustrating it is when children refuse to join in, or won't
play unless it is by their own rules. It was easy to find fault with both John
- too radical - and Jesus - too libertine - and so it was easy to
ignore their invitation to change. It is far easier to criticize than to obey.
And so they stayed glued to their chairs, "wallflowers at the kingdom
dance" as one commentator colourfully put it (Long, 128). Because God had
not acted as they expected, they refused to respond to the call to leave the
sidelines and join in the Kingdom of God.
Parables make us think, sometimes even cause us
to stumble. They use ordinary everyday scenes that we can imagine ourselves
in, then turn around and ask us if that is indeed a picture of us. Are we the
neighbours rejoicing at a lost coin being found? Are we the older brother
resentful of the welcome the prodigal received? Are we the religious people
walking by? As we hear the sounds of children playing or maybe grumbling in
the marketplace we need to ask ourselves "are we the ones ready to
criticize and refusing to join in the struggle to bring about God's justice?
Are we the ones refusing to join the celebration of the announcement of good
news to the poor?" If Jesus was asking the question of OUR generation
where would we line up?
IV We like to think of parables as nice
stories Jesus told to get across a point. But if this was the main way that
Jesus taught, and if his teaching and his lifestyle got him into such trouble,
we may need to re-evaluate the power of such stories. Would the religious
leaders have been happy to hear themselves described as disgruntled children?
Would they have welcomed the implication that they were not wisdom's
children? Their problem with Jesus was that he flouted the structures that
kept the society running smoothly. He treated outcasts as equals. He healed on
the Sabbath - no-one would begrudge a lame man the ability to walk but why
not heal him on another day? Breaking one Sabbath commandment even with good
intention might just be the thin edge of the wedge that breaks open the whole
system.
But would we be so different? We are not happy
when our society is threatened - think about the fuss over 15 boat people
this week. It occurred to me that Jesus would have eaten with people such as
these - while our authorities keen to excise even more islands are concerned
to send a signal that we do not welcome such strangers on our shores. Baptist
ministers in our city are worried that supporting interfaith chaplaincy in our
schools and universities will water down our witness, but didn't Jesus heal
and minister to those from outside the Jewish faith? A few years ago following
the Tiananmen Square incident there was an unprecedented number of
applications by Chinese students to study at Whitley College in Melbourne -
some of whom I had in classes and realised their decision was less from a
sense of call to ministry and more that Whitley had one of the cheaper
tertiary courses available. Some at the college were frustrated at the sense
of being used, but others saw the situation as a gift - an opportunity to
turn lives around. The same sort of differences in attitude are at work
currently at Morling College - some are concerned that anti-discrimination legislation
will force the college to accept students whose sexual orientation is
different to the college guidelines, while others welcome a genuine desire to
study the bible and prepare for ministry and the opportunities that will come
for examination and dialogue over lifestyle choice. Do we look for and welcome
God at work outside of the normal structures?
V Are we willing to join in? Jesus
concluded the parable by quoting a common saying: "Wisdom is justified by
her children." Do we make time to dance with those who are joyful and
weep with those who are mourning? Do we make room for the Kingdom of God in
our marketplace? Do we really let faith impact on our lives or are we
oblivious to its demands? Surely the message of the incarnation was that God
joined in. Jesus laughed, celebrated, grieved, suffered. Jesus was fully human
and invites us to be fully human too by following his example.
Jesus signalled his acceptance of others most
often in the context of a meal. There are all sorts of links between stories
of table fellowship and the coming of God's Kingdom. Meals foreshadowed the
prophetic dream of all nations coming together in reconciliation in a great
feast at the end of the age. The celebration of a wedding feast occupied a
number of parables and remind us that Jesus likened himself to a bridegroom.
If not a wedding feast then a Banquet that turned etiquette upside down, where
the poor were invited and the last seated first. And of course a meal was the
location for his final act of self giving which gave rise to the tradition of
the Lord's Supper, or Eucharist as some traditions call it. 'Eucharist' ('eucharisteia')
means thanksgiving and we do well to retain the joy that characterised Jesus'
ministry and pointed forward to his resurrection.
As we prepare to take communion today we could
ask ourselves - is this just a ritual or does it represent our commitment to
be part of the Kingdom of justice and joy that Jesus represented. If Jesus
were to ask the question in our church today "To what shall I liken this
generation" wouldn't it be great if the answer was "they are like
Christ the Lord, whom they follow and in whose life their life has joy and
meaning and love for each other."
You are invited to God's party, to God's
feast
you are invited from the north, south, west and east
you are invited - tell your family, tell your friends
You are invited to the life that never ends.
Jeanette Mathews
7 March 2004
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