What are we like? - Matthew 11

There is this thing about God that I have been learning lately. It will sound asinine and obvious, but hear me out: God is God. It’s so obvious that when God tells us He is God in the Scriptures, we are profoundly underwhelmed and a little annoyed by His lack of creativity - or is that just me? Maybe I am the less holy outlier.

Moses has this experience firsthand in Exodus 3. Upon their introduction, he asked God for His name, and as the all-knowing One tends to do, He responded with a classic.

God has shown himself to Moses by way of a burning bush (bizarre approach). It was on fire but not consuming the bush like a normal flame would. God begins to unveil His plan for the Israelites and Moses learns the first play of the opening drive: “I am sending you to free My people from slavery.” Moses, an under-shepherd for his father-in-law, and an octogenarian at this point, has burned (no pun intended) all of his bridges in Egypt. And these bridges were consumed. He has one primary question to God’s unraveling proposition: “Who am I, that you would send me?”

When I read the story, it appears to me that God seemingly ignores this question. At a closer look, however, His focus seems to communicate to Moses that His plan is not all that dependent upon Moses’ identity, background, and skillset. “I will be with you,” the Creator explains.

“Who are you? I will be with you.”

Moses’ retort is wonderful. In an attempt to ask his question once more without allowing God to know that he didn’t really get it, Moses pulls out one of my favorite tactics. Occasionally in conversation with someone more intelligent than myself (most conversations), I will hear a concept, word, or explanation that drifts far above my head in the aether. At this point, I pull out my social decision tree to figure out my next move: do I pretend that I know what this person said or humble myself and ask for clarification? Option A sounds risky, and option B requires a degree of humiliation that I am not generally secure enough to handle, so I manufacture a third choice.

Option C: rope in the person next to me, pretend like they have less of an understanding on the topic than I do and ask the speaker to reiterate what they said for my friend (assuming they will continue to let me call them that)…

“I totally get what you are talking about, but can you repeat it for my wife…?” (Don’t feel bad for her, she knows what she signed up for).

Moses fabricates a hypothetical situation for God to navigate: when the Israelites inevitably ask who has employed Moses to be His mouthpiece, what should he say? “What is His Name?” they might ask.

God offers the perfectly succinct and terribly confusing response: “I AM WHO I AM.”

Who is God? He is a lot of things, but the only way to truly describe Him is by saying that He is who He is. What is God like? He is…well… like God. Self-existent, sovereign, independent, timeless.

God = God. Case closed. Mic drop. Game over. That’s all folks.

What are those people like?
In Matthew 11 Jesus is talking about John the Baptist: the seemingly irreverent, itinerant preacher who subsists on a balanced diet of locusts and honey, and wears a hair-shirt (for some reason). Jesus speaks in the most glowing of terms about the man who went before Him to preach about repentance and God’s Kingdom. He compares him to Elijah the prophet and lands with one of His famous one-liners: “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matt.11:15)

“If you get it you get it. Thanks for coming out, please move along.”

…Or so it seems. Jesus takes His previous flattery towards John the Baptist and places the onus upon His listeners (and readers, if we are willing to humble ourselves and contextualize). Jesus continues…

“To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others: ‘We played the pipe for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, 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, ‘Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is proved right by her deeds.”
                                                                                                                                            - Matthew 11:16-19

“What are you all like?” Jesus asks. Short answer: Children. Ouch!

Not just children, though: “You are like children who sit and chirp at others…” (my paraphrase). The fact that His listeners are called children is not even the worst part; they are painted as whiners and complainers. They are childish know-it-alls, who shove their foolish conclusions and opinions at others taking them as gospel truth.

This is like when I get into an argument with my four-year-old over the pronunciation of the word sandwich (he says “swamwich”, which is cute but insane). When he insists that I am incorrect by shoving his falsities on me, everyone loses.

“You are like children, who sit and chirp at others in the public square (have some humility guys) saying: ‘We played a song for you and you didn’t dance the way we wanted you to,’ and ‘we sang a dirge (remember all the dirges you have sung in your day), and you didn’t lament the way we wanted you to.’”

The absurdity and lack of self-awareness in this picture is palpable! Imagine going to your local town square, whatever that might look like. Maybe for you, it is a college quad, a bustling downtown, the nearest Walmart, or the neighborhood watering hole. As you walk around, searching for what brought you out of your home, you hear the indiscriminate complaints of a band of 7-year-olds being leveled at passersby: “How dare you not act like we wanted you to! Who do you think you are to respond to us differently than you should? Respect our authority and our perspective of the world!”

Okay, kids.

Jesus accuses these people of placing the same disparaging indictment on John the Baptist (the greatest of all men born to woman; see Matt. 11:11) and the Son of God. “You accused John the Baptist of being demon-possessed because he was too strict and ascetic. You have brought out the big guns against Me (Son of God), calling Me a drunkard and a glutton because I am not strict and ascetic enough for you.”

Jesus begins His own allegation with a question and ends it with a strong, pointed finger. The people took their preconceived notions of what God should be like and what His servants ought to be and then hurled insults at those who did not fit into their human-made molds. They wanted John to be happier and more relaxed, and they wanted Jesus to be more strict and selective. Jesus concludes by telling them how you can measure truth and wisdom: “by their deeds (fruit).”

The truth of something and its connection to God has nothing to do with what you prefer it to look like, and it has everything to do with the life that comes out of it. Wisdom is known by her fruit, and fruit will reflect that from which it came.

What a bunch of goons! Fools! Dummies! How dare they operate with such foolish presuppositions and opinions.

But what about you and me? What are we like?
I am a hypocrite. Don’t worry, it gets worse. From my throne of hypocrisy, I look for other hypocrites to point out and devour. As the comedian Bo Burnham would say “I am a hungry hungry hypocrite.”

I am an avid supporter of the local church, but I likely have serious qualms about your local church, because no one had the common courtesy to ask me my opinion. I am a relentless consumer of information (significant and trivial), but quick to tell others to focus on what is important and ignore the fluff. I am politically conservative and hypnotizingly intrigued by the declarations and decisions of politicians, but I am ready to argue with those that both agree and disagree with (yet I would never run for any political office because I don’t want to deal with peoples’ complaints. That would be too hard).

You are like me. Perhaps you are less boisterous and obnoxious with your hypocrisy, but you know it.

The Church does itself a disservice when we fail to recognize our own failures in this regard. We do ourselves, and the watching world, an even greater disservice when we point out the failures of others without acknowledging and owning our own faults.

When we spout phrases like, “I love Jesus, but I hate the church,” we don’t realize that we have made ourselves out to be a snake eating its own tail. We have cut off our noses to spite our faces. We have swallowed poison in hopes of killing another. (Do you need any more metaphors?)

So let me ask you, as I ask myself, “To what can He compare this generation?” Do not allow yourself to forget that your presence in the conversation makes you a participant in this generation. What is your most glaring blindspot? What preconceived notions do you use to judge Jesus and His Church?

…It’s all too narrow…
As a teenager, I could not square away the closed-minded, intolerant caricature of Christianity that I had seen. God gave a list of “Thou shalt nots” and “Thou shalt’s”, and I wanted liberation from them all.  Living off the beaten path of Christianity and attempting to figure out life without any objective source, I quickly concluded that God had to think like me. Funny how that works.

A man once said “God created man in His own image. So man, being a gentleman, returned the favor.”

I certainly would not keep my friends out of heaven who decided to bend and break some rules to have a good time. As long as they didn’t hurt anyone intentionally and physically, it made no sense to me that God could judge them either. And even if they did hurt someone, it was probably an accident, and they were just trying to figure everything out.

What’s the big deal anyway?

It would be fair to say that this is one of the most influential viewpoints in our culture. This is the religious, but not spiritual crew. This is the weapon wielded by the live and let live band. In hopes of including all, we have excluded most.

Who should we tolerate? All but the intolerant. And the snake unhinges its jaw to bite its tail.

… it's all too broad…
As a follower of Jesus, I often swing in the opposite direction. How could Jesus allow those who disagree with me on secondary topics to be a part of the club; it's our club. If someone wants to wear clerical robes and read the King James Version of the Bible, I lose patience. Catch up with the times. Do your homework. Look at the culture. Open the windows and smell the air outside.

To double down, I get frustrated that God allows those who are too narrow in their theology and practice to be a part of His Church. Kick those people to the curb who are too narrow so that we can know who is really on our team. My face is without a nose and I have dizzied myself again.

But the list can go on:
…too conservative…
…too liberal…
…too legalistic…
…too much liberty…
…too judgmental…
…not focused enough on justice…
…too heady…
…too charismatic…
…too political…
…not political enough…
…too focused on attracting the world…
…too inbred…

There is room for criticism in each of these categories, and truthfully some presuppositions require more critique and sobriety than others in our date and time, but that is a topic for another day. Certainly, there is no clarity without a measurement of the fruit. Jesus famously spoke about false teachers’ fruit clarifying their nature and the substance of their wisdom:

“By their fruit you will recognize them. Do people pick grapes from thorn bushes, or figs from thistles? Likewise, every good tree bears good fruit, but a bad tree bears bad fruit. A good tree cannot bear bad fruit, and a bad tree cannot bear good fruit. Every tree that does not bear good fruit is cut down and thrown into the fire. Thus, by their fruit you will recognize them.”
                                                                                                                                              - Matthew 7:16-20

There is a requirement and a responsibility for discernment and correct judgment, but you cannot judge accurately until you start with yourself. You certainly cannot judge with an innocent heart and mind until you have had the humble audacity to look at your own presuppositions.

This begins with looking at God. Who is God? He is God. What He has said is inherently good and true. Now, what has gotten in the way of you understanding Him correctly? What needs to be rewritten in your mind and heart as you help those around you recalibrate their view of God?

To fail to do this is to throw rocks in a glass house…to light a cigarette at the gas pump…to warm your home from the tailpipe of your car. (Enough metaphors?)

To follow this pursuit with honesty and submission to God and His people who yield good fruit is to venture onto the path that Jesus called His people to. It is to lace up your shoes and take the next step on a path called discipleship.