Sermon: Wittenberg Academy – Oct 10, 2023

10 Oct 2023

Text: Matt 11:1-19

In the name of + Jesus.  Amen.

“John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon.’  The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look at Him!  A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’”

Now that John the Baptist has been arrested, and with some of his disciples coming to Jesus, our Lord reflects on John’s ministry and points out how the kingdom is being rejected by those who are hearing the Good News.  They stop up their ears to John, supposedly because he is too introverted.  They refuse to listen to Jesus, supposedly because He is too extroverted.  And Jesus is pointing out that their reasons don’t make sense.  They don’t really think John “has a demon” because he avoids wine and feasts – just as their priests do when they are serving at the temple.  They don’t really think that Jesus is “a glutton and a drunkard” because he drinks wine and eats with them, just as they do, at the very same feasts.

These are just childish slurs with no basis in reality.  Our Lord compares them to children taunting one another in the playground, and a popular little chant that kids had at the time: “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” 

We see this kind of irrational behavior among young (and not so young) people on social media.  And we see it among older (and not so old) people in our parishes.  When the Good News of Jesus is met by a rejection for reasons that make no sense, when you see logical fallacies being used to deny the Good News of the coming of Christ and the kingdom, when you notice that those with some ax to grind about something in scripture that they don’t like (even Christians!) set up a “heads I win, tails you lose” argument, it is clear that the problem is with the message, not the messenger.

We see this when church members complain about the pastor conducting the liturgy with too much reverence (how else should he serve at the holy altar?).  We see this when they argue against the church taking a stand on certain controversial subjects (and when their own family members are living certain “controversial” lifestyles).  We see this online when people call confessors of Christ “bigots” and some kind of “phobes” instead of engaging what they have to say in light of scripture and plain reason.

And this, dear friends, is why Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  For in rejecting the preacher or the confessor of Christ, in coming up with ridiculous distortions of logic and attacks on the messenger (which in logic is called the “ad hominem fallacy”), it is as though they have cut off their own ears.  They do not hear the truth of the Gospel because they do not want to hear it.  They deny its truth because they do not want it to be true.  And that is why John the Baptist was arrested and put to death: for speaking truth to power.

And that is why our Lord was crucified.  And that is why we confessors also bear our own crosses.  But whether it is received with joy, or condemned by a mob, truth is still truth.  The Good News is still the Good News.  We continue to speak the truth in love, and those who receive it receive it in love.  Those who reject it are themselves so distorted that they don’t even know what love is.  Let us continue to teach them, dear friends, by word and deed, and most of all, by the grace of God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ!  For “blessed is the one who is not offended by [Him]!”

Amen.

In the name of the Father and of the + Son and of the Holy Spirit.  Amen.