A, Post-Pentecost 9 Proper 12 - Romans 8:37 Matthew 13:31-33, 44-52 "Treasured Conquerors"

Romans 8:37 (ESV) “In all these things we are more than conquerors through him who loved us.”

In the Lord’s Prayer we pray, “your kingdom come”.   What hinders God’s kingdom from coming?  The answer to this is also prayed in the Lord’s Prayer.  We pray, for God to “lead us not into temptation”.  In other words, we pray for ourselves and for each other for God to protect us from being led into temptation, by ourselves, someone, or something else, to seek other kingdoms.

Luther tells us in his explanation to the second petition of the Lord’s Prayer that, “God’s kingdom comes when our heavenly Father gives us his Holy Spirit, so that by his grace we believe his holy word and live a godly life on earth now and in heaven for ever.”  (Luther’s Small Catechism: Lord’s Prayer, 2^nd Petition)

Luther also demonstrates in his explanation of the sixth petition that temptations shut out God’s kingdom from coming, saying, “God tempts no one to sin, but we ask in this prayer that God would watch over us and keep us so that the devil, the world, and our sinful self may not deceive us and draw us into false belief, despair, and other great and shameful sins. And we pray that even though we are so tempted we may still win the final victory.” (Luther’s Small Catechism: Lord’s Prayer, 6^th Petition)

The kingdom of heaven comes when God gives us his Holy Spirit so that the devil, the world, and our sinful selves are not led to a faith in ourselves.  A faith in the self ends in death, in vain, vainglory, or vain despair!  Those living in the ways of the world, practise a faith in the oneness of great and shameful sins, which end in despair and death.

The devil stands as the master of this world, deceiving people that they are either, too good to need help, or too bad to deserve help.  The devil, the world, and the sinful self, tempt people into isolation and opposition to God.

The parables of the kingdom of heaven calls for acute listening, measured up against the entirety of God’s Word.  They call you to pray and ponder over what Jesus is saying!  They call you to take time in the Word of God! 

The disciples asked Jesus why he spoke in parables, “And he answered them, “To you it has been given to know the secrets of the kingdom of heaven, but to them it has not been given.  For to the one who has, more will be given, and he will have an abundance, but from the one who has not, even what he has will be taken away.  This is why I speak to them in parables, because seeing they do not see, and hearing they do not hear, nor do they understand.”  (Matthew 13:11–13 ESV)

In Romans chapter ten we are told, “faith comes from hearing, and hearing through the word of Christ.”  (Romans 10:17 ESV)  So, to those who have ears to hear, what is the belief the Holy Spirit seeks to enlighten within us, from Jesus’ teaching in the parables before us today?   

The picture Jesus paints in the parable of the mustard seed is full of hyperbole to get the hearers attention. 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a grain of mustard seed that a man took and sowed in his field.  It is the smallest of all seeds, but when it has grown it is larger than all the garden plants and becomes a tree, so that the birds of the air come and make nests in its branches.”  (Matthew 13:31–32 ESV)

Mustard seed is from the brassica family, the same as canola.  It shares its genus with vegetables such as broccoli, cabbage, turnip, and cauliflower, to name a few.  When these vegies go to seed, the flowers displayed are yellow cross-shaped blooms, hence they are called cruciferous vegetables. 

Jesus uses hyperbole here to shake the hearer’s expectation.  These seeds are tiny, and we do not expect them to grow into trees.  The kingdom of heaven seems hidden but once the cross is planted and Jesus is lifted up, what seems small will grow greater than any human expectation. 

Even today the kingdom of heaven is somewhat hidden!  Just after hearing this parable the disciples saw Jesus feed the five thousand, leaving twelve baskets of leftovers.  Still today we do not understand how this works with only five loaves and two fish!  Yet, we believe, and, like the birds in the branches of the mustard tree, we trust we’ll be nested and rest in the kingdom of heaven eternally! 

The parable of the leaven is next.  “The kingdom of heaven is like leaven that a woman took and hid in three measures of flour, till it was all leavened.”  (Matthew 13:33 ESV)

What on earth is leaven?  Today we might say yeast.  It’s the raising agent in bread!  Once when bread making was an everyday affair in the home, one would keep back some of the leavened dough to put into the bread mixture for tomorrow.  One gets a picture of succession here!  Perhaps an eternal loaf of bread being raised.  Every loaf of bread is borne of the dough from the day before.  

Elsewhere, Jesus refers to leaven negatively as an unhealthy teaching, spread by the Pharisees and Sadducees. (See Mat 16:5-12)   Paul refers to the leaven of malice and evil, needing to be lifted from amongst believers.  But not so here! 

The leaven is added to three dry measures of flour.  That’s three measures of thirteen litres, thirty-nine litres of flour, yet to rise!  That much bread dough not only overwhelms the mind, but it also makes the hearer realise Jesus is raising a point.

Like the mustard seed that produces cruciferous flowers, that grows into a tree in the parable.  So too, the leaven that’s sometimes bad, here is good leaven, that’s raised up on the tree of the cross.  And it’s placed in the flour by a woman, just as Jesus Christ is nurtured in the world by the church. 

The mustard seed and the leaven seem insignificant and hidden but becomes something great.  One is unexpected to grow so much, the other is expected to overwhelm everything!  

Such is the kingdom of heaven!  What one would have expected to end in death after the crucifixion, flowers and flourishes into eternal fruit that raises up you and me and all who believe.

This leads us to the next two parables.

“The kingdom of heaven is like treasure hidden in a field, which a man found and covered up. Then in his joy he goes and sells all that he has and buys that field.  “Again, the kingdom of heaven is like a merchant in search of fine pearls, who, on finding one pearl of great value, went and sold all that he had and bought it.”  (Matthew 13:44-46 ESV)

Many times, we’ve probably been told these parables are about what we should “do as disciples”!  But the cost of discipleship is not our cost, we cannot buy the kingdom of heaven.  Rather these two parables are about “being disciples”.

What do I mean by this?  Jesus pays the cost, and he does so because you and I are the treasure and the pearl that costs Jesus his Sonship, making us Sons of heaven, Sons of God.  It cost him his human life.  In complete selflessness he served, suffered, and died to save us from our sin.  So treasured are you as the pinnacle of God’s creation, he became weak so you would become more than conquerors despite your weakness.

To that end, we are so treasured by God, he sends the Holy Spirit to help us in our weakness, to help us in our discipleship.  And even so today, as the Spirit intercedes for us with levelling groans that straighten out our prayers, they are presented to Jesus, “who is at the right hand of God, who indeed is interceding for us.” (Romans 8:34b ESV) 

Jesus Christ treasures you so much, that through him, with him, in him, in the unity of the Holy Spirit our prayers are joined with all those treasured of every time and every place, and are united with the eternal petitions of Jesus, our great high priest, who intercedes for us at the right hand of God, until he comes as the victorious merchant man to unveil you and me, his treasured possessions!

The parable of the dragnet is possibly the easiest of these parables to understand. 

“The kingdom of heaven is like a net that was thrown into the sea and gathered fish of every kind.  When it was full, men drew it ashore and sat down and sorted the good into containers but threw away the bad.  So it will be at the end of the age. The angels will come out and separate the evil from the righteous  and throw them into the fiery furnace. In that place there will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.”   (Matthew 13:47-50 ESV)

This parallels the parable of the weeds that come up in the wheat.  They too will be burned in the eternal furnace, painting a picture of suffering an eternal mental and dental living hell.  This simple parable warns the unbelieving hearer will be red flagged from the kingdom of heaven. 

Finally, Jesus asked the disciples if they understood what he was saying.  They said, “yes”.  But desertion at the cross shows they still had much to learn.

Yet they were Jesus’ apostles, his twelve baskets of treasured leftovers!  Even Judas was treasured, who in unbelief would turn and betray him!  He said to them, “Therefore every scribe who has been trained for the kingdom of heaven is like a master of a house, who brings out of his treasure what is new and what is old.” (Matthew 13: 52 ESV)

God trained his Apostles to be the scribes of the kingdom of heaven, so having been sent you might believe the old and new treasures of his Word.  This is the death of original sin inherited in us from the old Adam and eternal life into which we’re born by the new Adam, Jesus Christ. 

Having receive these treasures of the kingdom of heaven, we who are treasured are given the Holy Spirit.  He gives us relief as he leads us to repent, and belief in knowing we are being loved by God. 

The kingdom of heaven is Jesus’ victory for you.  He treasures you so much he makes you more than conquerors!  Those who have ears, let them hear!  Amen.

A, Post-Pentecost 8 Proper 11 - Romans 8:12-25 Matthew 13:24-30, 36-43 "Without Weeds Within"

Romans 8:12–14 (ESV) So then, brothers, we are debtors, not to the flesh, to live according to the flesh.  For if you live according to the flesh you will die, but if by the Spirit you put to death the deeds of the body, you will live.  For all who are led by the Spirit of God are sons of God. 

Those who grow things yearn to have gardens without weeds.  But alas!  Weeds appear year after year much to the disgust of those who work the soil to remove them.

There’s a saying, “If one can’t grow weeds, one can’t grow anything.”  So that means all have green thumbs, even if the green is obscene and disordered.

Weeds are a sign of disorder in creation.  All who bend their knees and back to pull out a weed are reminded we live in a fallen world.  Just as we bow to dig out what we did not plant, generations before us have done the same.  All who suffer from the pain of removing prickles from their patch are reminded they are children of Adam.

We are reminded of what God said to Eve and Adam in the garden at Eden.

To the woman he said, “I will surely multiply your pain in childbearing; in pain you shall bring forth children. Your desire shall be contrary to your husband, but he shall rule over you.”  And to Adam he said, “Because you have listened to the voice of your wife and have eaten of the tree of which I commanded you, ‘You shall not eat of it,’ cursed is the ground because of you; in pain you shall eat of it all the days of your life;  thorns and thistles it shall bring forth for you; and you shall eat the plants of the field.  By the sweat of your face you shall eat bread, till you return to the ground, for out of it you were taken; for you are dust, and to dust you shall return.”  The man called his wife’s name Eve, because she was the mother of all living.  (Genesis 3:16–20 ESV)

Because of this we live with weeds.  They cause suffering in our daily existence, as we produce product to eat, clothe ourselves, and provide places of protection over our heads.

But we also struggle with weeds within.  We suffer producing progeny!  Procreating is fraught with failure and fatality, from the womb to the tomb.  Sexual productivity is under siege from original sin. 

Wanting children, not wanting children, children born with birth defects, not wanting to care for the elderly or those with disabilities, fighting against sickness, disease and death, along with all the variants of sexual irresponsibility and brokenness are humanity’s experience. This is the reality because Adam and Eve chose to pleasure themselves rather than please God by heeding his word.

Having heard this, Jesus calls us with ears to hear, to hear what he says about the other end of creation.  He compares the kingdom of heaven to a field planted with good seed only to have the enemy plant weeds in the crop.

We are given a picture of the coming of God’s kingdom when God will finally weed his garden and restore it to its ordered beauty.

The frustration we have with weeds is akin to the workers in the parable asking the master if they should go out and remove the weeds from the wheat.  But the master says, “No, lest in gathering the weeds you root up the wheat along with them.  Let both grow together until the harvest, and at harvest time I will tell the reapers, “Gather the weeds first and bind them in bundles to be burned, but gather the wheat into my barn.”  (Matthew 13:29-30)

Pulling out weeds is a dangerous task.  What’s worse than weeds in the garden, is accidentally removing what one thought was a weed, but was a healthy good plant.  No matter how careful one scratches around plants, closer and closer to remove the weeds, it’s too late once there’s the “oops!”

As sad and frustrating as it is when one weeds out what is good in the garden, things become a whole lot more critical when we turn our focus from the garden and the curse of the ground to what’s within each of us, knowing a time is coming when all will be judged by the Master of creation.

We, the workers of God, may yearn for a creation of perfection and pleasure that’s pleasing to God.  But we’re also acutely aware we’re far from perfect creations ourselves!

“For we know that the whole creation has been groaning together in the pains of childbirth until now.  And not only the creation, but we ourselves, who have the firstfruits of the Spirit, groan inwardly as we wait eagerly for adoption as sons, the redemption of our bodies.”  (Romans 8:22–23 ESV)

Our bodies groan because of what is within us and from what we’re subjected to, from without.  We suffer and struggle with the physical realities of the fall.  We have been separated from God, so we suffer and struggle spiritually too.  What we produce within is done without fear and without trust in God! This is humanity’s reality having been recreated recreators of life from our procreative father and mother, Adam and Eve.

As much as we yearn to have a yard without weeds, we also yearn to be without weeds within.  The physical weeds we can view in the mirror, but the social weeds become obvious when our pride has had the garden fork plunged into it from someone else.  These spike the spiritual weeds one does not even know about buried deep within.  These are the weeds often mistaken for good plants and nurtured as such.

This is why God does not allow the pulling out of weeds in our time.  If he did allow for this to occur, we just might be the weeds being pulled out and cast into the fire!

Therefore, God calls for patience because he is patient with you and me.  He is waiting for your full frustration.  We longingly groan with creation, but he patiently waits!   He seeks the full function of first fruits of the Holy Spirit within you, over against your human spirit which yearns for the fatal fruits of Adam and Eve.  These are weeds of slavery within and they bind one without God!

God the Father is waiting for the law of sin and death and the gospel of salvation in Jesus Christ to work us.  The Holy Spirit works to bring each of us to full realisation that, “Our help is in the name of the Lord who made heaven and earth”. 

Like a young child who says, “help me daddy!”  Our father waits for us to believe we are completely helpless without him.  He waits for us to realise we are blessedly helpless, so we cry out, “Abba Father!”

You and I are works in motion.  We are works of the Holy Spirit.  He works to put to death your deeds of the flesh.  He works to sow in you the seeds of faith, growing them into productive fruit.  He works to make us Sons of God, so we allow Jesus Christ to be our Rescuer and our New Identity.  Through you, others will hear and receive the good news of salvation, as the Spirit works his fruit within.

Like Jesus, who put his divinity aside, we put trust in ourselves aside, and allow the Holy Spirit to lead us in humility, like the Son of God. We also learn to lean on the Holy Spirit, in our blessed human helplessness, just as Jesus did, for his ability to be the servant Son of Man. 

So, like Jesus we too willingly pray, Abba Father, be holy, come, do your will, give, forgive, lead, and deliver us.

In the Holy Spirit, God the Father calls you to patiently wait with full hope, for the final deliverance, to be without weeds within, in the eternal garden without weeds. 

God has the kingdom, the power, and the glory! 

Those who have ears, let them hear!  Amen.  

A, Post-Pentecost 7 Proper 10 - Psalm 119:105–112 "God's Word Walking"

Psalm 119:105–112 (ESV) Your word is a lamp to my feet and a light to my path.  I have sworn an oath and confirmed it, to keep your righteous rules.  I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word!  Accept my freewill offerings of praise, O LORD, and teach me your rules.  I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.  The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.  Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.  I incline my heart to perform your statutes forever, to the end.

God’s Word was a lamp to Isaac and Rebekah.  Through them God was to give what he promised to Abraham. 

Last week we heard Isaac was comforted by his marriage to Rebekah after the death of his mother, Sarah.  Rebekah is of the same family as Isaac.  Her grandfather is Nahor, making Abraham her great uncle.  Isaac and her father Bethuel were first cousins.

God had led the servant of Abraham to Rebekah, and the family knew God was at the centre of this event.  Laban, her brother, and Bethuel, her father, agree, saying, “The thing has come from the LORD; we cannot speak to you bad or good.  Behold, Rebekah is before you; take her and go, and let her be the wife of your master’s son, as the LORD has spoken.”  (Genesis 24:50–51 ESV)

Rebekah, against the will of her mother and brother, agrees to go immediately to her husband-to-be and not wait the ten days her family requested, since she also knew God was at the centre of the marital union.

However, the immediacy of the union, did not result in the immediacy of conception after the marriage.  So, Isaac petitions God on behalf of his wife and is granted his request.  One might query why God would allow this to occur because he was the orchestrator of the marriage, and since he also had promised Abraham, he was to be the father of many nations.

Nevertheless, just as his mother and father before him struggled with barrenness.   Just as they were granted Isaac through God’s Word of promise.  And as Isaac lived in remembrance of God testing his father, Abraham, with the near sacrifice of his life.  Isaac was embedded with similar faith, which was only made deeper by the patience, suffering, and the calling on of God in prayer. 

The barrenness was no accident, but rather was a test to continually rely upon God.  In Psalm one hundred and nineteen we hear, “I am severely afflicted; give me life, O LORD, according to your word!”  (Psalm 119:107 ESV)  Like the Psalmist, Isaac trusted God enough to cry out to him, to fulfil the promise made to his father Abraham. 

Here God gives us a clear example that we glorify him when we trust him and seek his blessing in our hardship.  When we’re tempted not to bother God with our daily needs, we hear in this Psalm the opposite, as God actually gives us his Word to cry out to him.  Isaac glorifies God when he prays to him and so too does Rebekah.

Rebekah besieged with pain, struggling to understand, prays,  “If it is thus, why is this happening to me?” (Genesis 25:22 ESV)  She feared for her life, thinking the war within her womb was going to kill her, she asks God if this is just and right that she is experiencing such turmoil within.

Have you ever lamented and prayed, “What on earth is going on?”  Especially when things are tough!

Such are times of testing when patience is put under pressure, and pleasure is replaced by pain and suffering.  Isn’t it extraordinary how time seems to stand still when one suffers?  What is it that God is seeking us to learn about ourselves, and him, at times like these?

“And the LORD said to her, ‘Two nations are in your womb, and two peoples from within you shall be divided; the one shall be stronger than the other, the older shall serve the younger.’” (Genesis 25:23 ESV)

She gets her answer from God.  Sometimes it seems to us God does not answer our prayers.  In an age of instant gratification, perhaps our expectation is too immediate, or we are looking in the wrong place for the answer.  Not every answer can be found on Google!  Nor is our time always the right time for us to understand God’s answer with appropriate learning.  God answers every query of him, in his time, which is always the right time!

The Psalmist says, “I hold my life in my hand continually, but I do not forget your law.”  (Psalm 119:109 ESV)  The Psalmist knows his life, but he also knows God’s Word.  Throughout Psalm one hundred and nineteen there is a repetition of words with which the Psalmist glorifies God.  Not just any words, but words that are synonymous with God’s Word!

Laws, precepts, commandments, rules, testimonies, steadfast love, salvation, statutes, and promise are all alternative expressions for God’s Word.  When we have ears to hear his Word, this is the place God answers prayer. 

The two boys are born with difficulty, both pushing to get into the limelight, so it seems.  One is a heel grabber, and he grows into a quiet sneaky heel of a man, and the other, the older, is boisterous and brash.  He has little respect for his heritage, treats it with contempt, and sells it for a bowl of stew.

What has become of God’s promise to Abraham.  It seems Abraham’s grandsons are far from the ideal through whom God would work his will.  The Psalmist says, “The wicked have laid a snare for me, but I do not stray from your precepts.  Your testimonies are my heritage forever, for they are the joy of my heart.”  (Psalm 119:110–111 ESV)

Yet these two seem as if they would not have much joy in God’s Word, or for the heritage they had in it.  Jacob would live his life as a deceiver and fraudster and Esau having been deceived would not receive Isaac’s blessing.  It seems Jacob was the wicked one and the one to lay a snare for his father and brother, and Esau would become a nation that strayed far from the precepts of God.

Yet these are the generations of Isaac through whom God worked.  It might surprise us that God would work his will through people who seemed to be less interested in God and his Word, and more interested in their own schemes and desires.

We’ve all seen people like this and thought, “I’m glad I’m not like them!”  Yet, a serious look at Psalm one hundred and nineteen and we soon realise, in God’s eyes, we’re not all that different to Jacob and Esau.  Even in our lucid moments when we seek the Lord as did Isaac and Rebekah, they are just that, “moments”! 

We seek to use many other lamps for our feet other than the Word of God.  If we swore an oath of promise to God, we would eventually break it!  After we are afflicted, rarely will we return to make a freewill offering, and once the pain is gone, we forget to praise God! 

We stray from God’s Word and set snares for others.  How many of us look to God’s Old and New Testimonies as their heritage and seek to pass this inheritance onto their families.  Our hearts seem far from hearing and abiding with God’s Word for a moment, let alone till the end!

Despite this reality, we have a greater reality.  The Word made flesh, Jesus Christ!  He is the promise to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, fulfilled!

Jesus is the “I” in the Psalms, fulfilling all God’s commandments, precepts, laws, rules, testimonies, and  statutes.  Jesus takes all these words of God and lives them with love for God the Father in his flesh, without spot or blemish.  Jesus is God’s Word, going out from his mouth and returning to him.  It does what he intends it to do, through his Son, Jesus Christ.

At the cross two paths meet.  These are the paths of failure and forgiveness.   In Jesus Christ, the victim and the perpetrator are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the law breaker and the law keeper are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the innocent and the guilty are crossed! r In Jesus Christ, the righteous and the self-righteous are crossed. r And in Jesus Christ, the right and the wrong are crossed! r

At the cross, knowledge of good and evil is exchanged for a knowledge of Jesus Christ, the only goodness good enough to be holy in every moment of time!

The Holy Spirit lit up the path for Jesus to walk the way of the cross; to walk in all holiness, but to walk carrying the full curse of humanity.

Jesus now walks with you; you do not walk alone as he walked!  You walk in the Holy Spirit who illuminates the filth of your feet; but shows you the feet of Jesus who carries you.  You hear the failures of your promises, but you hear the eternal faithfulness and forgiveness of his Word.  You feel the severity of your afflictions, but you see your condition washed in the flow of his blood from his side.  From the cross into the eternal font of baptismal faith.  You learn his rules, and he delights in your freewill offerings of sins confessed. 

Jesus holds your life in his hand, and he does not forget to give you life by the Holy Spirit.  He breaks the snares you set and frees you from those in which you are caught.  He carries you his eternal way, and he does not stray. 

Jesus’ heritage is forever!  It’s the only true way!  He has fulfilled the testimonies of the Law.  With joy in the Holy Spirit, you know the Ten Commandments are good and perfect in Jesus Christ.  You can allow the Holy Spirit to incline your heart to live in God’s presence!   You can perform the works, with which God’s forgiveness wills you to confess, to the end.    

Jesus is the steadfast love, salvation, and promise of God the Father to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, and he is the promise of God the Father to you and me too!  Amen!

A, Post-Pentecost 6 Proper 9 - Matthew 11:15–19, 25–30 "No Need - Know Need"

Matthew 11:15–19, 25–30  (ESV) Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.  But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their playmates, “ ‘We played the flute 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, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” At that time Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.  All things have been handed over to me by my Father, and no one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.  Come to me, all who labour and are heavy laden, and I will give you rest.  Take my yoke upon you, and learn from me, for I am gentle and lowly in heart, and you will find rest for your souls.  For my yoke is easy, and my burden is light.”

Boastful big-mouthed immature children, call out and scoff at those passing by.  They are obnoxious youths, who have no need.  They do not listen.  Therefore, they do not hear!  They are children who do not know what they want!  They don’t want to mourn, nor do they want to rejoice!  Nothing is good enough for them!  They mock and scoff at those who mourn, as well as those who celebrate.  These are the children Jesus compares to the generation around him.

Jesus likens those who reject John the Baptist as children who do not mourn at the singing of his dirge, at his call to repentance before the coming of the kingdom.  He quotes Malachi and follows it up, saying, “‘Behold, I send my messenger before your face, who will prepare your way before you.’  Truly, I say to you, among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.  He who has ears to hear, let him hear.” (Matthew 11:10–11, 15 ESV)

The children who reject John the Baptist have no need for the past.  They do not need the law to call them to repentance, nor do they need a prophet to expose their need for a saviour!  They need neither Elijah nor John the Baptist.  As they scoff, “He has a demon”, they have no ears with which to hear.  They languish, with a bad spirit, because they do not listen.

Similarly, these children also refuse to celebrate the coming of the Son of Man.  They have no need either way!  Either mourning in repentance nor rejoicing at the coming of the Redeemer is not what they want or need.  It seems nothing is good enough for them!  They are brash boastful children who do not have ears with which to hear!

Jesus speaks of this generation like children in a town’s public marketplace.  He also addresses himself as a child too!  He calls himself the Son of Man!  A son, a servant of those in the public place. 

Despite the shaming of those mocking him in public, Jesus declares, “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!’ Yet wisdom is justified by her deeds.” (Matthew 11:19 ESV)

Jesus is not only the Son of God and Servant Son of Man, but he is also the Wisdom of God, personified, in flesh, and Wisdom is justified by her deeds.

Some of the ancient manuscripts do not say “deeds”.  Rather, they say, “Yet wisdom is justified by her children.”  This is the same as what Jesus says in the parallel account in Luke seven chapter thirty-five.  Therefore, the Wisdom of Jesus Christ is justified in the children produced.

So, who are these obnoxious children in the marketplace?  The children that chide and scoff are not those from the outer but rather from within the town centre.  They are those who should have ears to hear, to have received the Wisdom of God, through hearing what has been taught to them.  Rather than having no need for the Word from John the Baptist and Jesus, they should have listened as those who knew they needed a Saviour.

They should have known what Paul reports, “Now we know that whatever the law says it speaks to those who are under the law, so that every mouth may be stopped, and the whole world may be held accountable to God.”  (Romans 3:19 ESV)

But the mouths of the children were not stopped by the Law, they did not receive a knowledge of sin.  Therefore, they boastfully block off their ears having no need for salvation.  Without knowledge of sin, they did not know they needed to stop their mouths, and hear with their ears, to receive the Word of Life!

We are the generation to which he says these things.  Jesus speaks to every generation.  He is the New Adam, the Servant Son of Man to all children of Adam.

Like Paul, we are called to a knowledge of sin, having had our mouths stopped, and our ears opened.  We know we need!  We know nothing good dwells in us.  Our sin makes us tired and heavy burdened, often leading us to dis-ease with God and therefore, disease.  We are debased and cry out, “Wretched man that I am!  Who will deliver me from this body of death?” (Romans 7:24 ESV)  Such is the reality of all recreated from Adam!

God peels back the layers of our blindness to sin; he repeatedly stops our boasting.  He replaces it with Holy Spirited repentance.  In our knowledge of sin, we know our need.  As God the Holy Spirit reveals the depth of our sin, peeling and re-peeling us, he shows us the eternal magnitude of Jesus’ generosity and forgiveness.

Even the children chiding and scoffing in the marketplace are offered a new place under Jesus’ forgiveness.  This is the Wisdom of God, justified in Jesus Christ, and him alone.  All people need Jesus Christ, some know, and some don’t want to know and say “no”.  He takes the depraved children who know their need, burdened and heavy laden with sin and gives them the yoke of forgiveness and rest in the promise of his Word!

We are the children in the marketplace.   But unlike us, the Son of Man is the Son of God who is not haughty nor hollow.  He is meek without being weak.  He is humble and serves all people in his fulness as the Son of God, but he does it in humility.       

Jesus gives us the Holy Spirit.   We who allow the Holy Spirit to remain within, allow him to stop the unruly child within, recreating us as the children of God.   Therefore, as God’s children, with the Holy Spirit within, we know we need and have received our Saviour Jesus Christ!

Jesus declared, “I thank you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, that you have hidden these things from the wise and understanding and revealed them to little children;  yes, Father, for such was your gracious will.” (Matthew 11:25–26 ESV)

We once, boastful children, have been stopped and given the Holy Spirit.  We are the little children of God!  Literally, we become non-speakers, as opposed to the brash foolish bad-mouthed babblers we once were.  As non-speakers, we become hearers of the Word in the Holy Spirit.  This is God’s will and his good pleasure.

As children of God our ears are opened, and our mouths are shut.  Our mouths open only to receive the body and blood of Jesus Christ and tell others of our forgiveness.  We are the body of Jesus Christ!  As his body under the headship of Jesus Christ we are the Wisdom of God for the whole world, as we remain in his Word. 

The wisdom bestowed upon us, gathers us as the faithfully receiving church of God.  The church is the new bride of the New Adam being born from his side.  Not like Eve, who was created from Adam’s side with his bone and flesh.   But the church is the justification of Jesus’ death at the cross.  From the cross, the Wisdom of God flowed as water and blood from the side of the New Adam, Jesus Christ. 

The church, the faithful body of Christ, is the new woman, created by water and the Word, and sustained with the blood and body of Jesus Christ, as his body of Wisdom in Christ.  In Christ the church gives life to those the Holy Spirit calls through his Word and sustains with the sacraments.

When the church uses things other than Jesus Christ and remaining receptive to his Word, the church loses its wisdom in Jesus Christ, and she soon finds herself turning away from God’s Word in worldly pursuits of good and evil.  Confused at best, she returns to join the children in the public marketplace pursuing the popular opinion of folly and foolishness.

But the church remains wise, she remains Christ’s bride, when she allows the Holy Spirit to return her to the knowledge and forgiveness of sin in Jesus Christ, the Word of God in flesh. 

Jesus says, “He who has ears to hear, let him hear.”  Amen.