Like Children in the Markets

Matthew 11:15–19

The Preacher:

Ermanno Rostan has been since 1958 Moderator of the Waldensian Church of Italy. After studying at Rome and Edinburgh, he was ordained in 1933 and served as pastor in the Waldensian Valleys. From 1940 to 1943 he was the only Protestant chaplain in the Italian army. He holds a doctorate in law from Turin University, and an honorary D.D. from Moravian Theological College, Bethlehem, Pa. Dr. Rostan is the author of two evangelical books in Italian, and has edited Protestant religious journals.

The Text:

He that hath ears to hear, let him hear.

But whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows,

And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, He hath a devil.

The Son of man came eating and drinking, and they say, Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans and sinners. But wisdom is justified of her children.

During his earthly life Jesus liked to watch children at play in the village squares in the peaceful Palestine countryside. He would notice children and watch them at length, not from mere curiosity, but because their behavior had a special meaning for him, about which he wanted to speak to the adults of his generation.

In Matthew’s Gospel we have preserved a vivid and realistic impression of those children’s games as well as Jesus Christ’s motive in speaking of them to his contemporaries, to make them face up to their responsibilities. Since Christ’s word is pronounced with the accents of truth and eternity, it will not be difficult for us today to recognize in it a message for all of us—both as churches and as individuals.

A Meaningful Game

The game of which the Gospel speaks is a very simple one but it involves active responsible participation in order to be played properly and meaningfully.

The children would be divided into two groups, one seated, the other standing. First a marriage would be enacted, then a funeral. The children seated in the square would play a dance tune on a flute. The game required dancing and festivity, but it would happen often enough that the children remained motionless in their places for who knows what reason, moodiness or indifference. Then there would be a change of scene, if the marriage game had not succeeded well, and they would sing dirges, as at a funeral. This time also however, the actors remained unmoved as if the matter had nothing to do with them or displeased them. In each case it was at once obvious why the children refused to respond: it was their lack of interest in the game, or lack of concern for it to go well; and so their behavior provoked their fellows’ rebuke: We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

In such terms, common as they seem, Jesus spoke to his contemporaries, pointing out to them their spiritual make-up so childishly uninvolved in the great crisis of faith and the clamant necessity for Christian action to bring about the plans to God. Whereunto shall I liken this generation? It is like unto children sitting in the markets, and calling unto their fellows, And saying, We have piped unto you, and ye have not danced; we have mourned unto you, and ye have not lamented.

Why this bitter, scourging, comment of Christ with all its overtones of severe condemnation?

The men and women of that day had been present at two great spectacles and had heard two tremendous messages: those of John the Baptist and of Jesus. John the Baptist—so the Gospel says—came “neither eating nor drinking”; his personality was marked by moral austerity and a vigorous prophetic preaching, whose characteristic was the coming of the wrath of God: O generation of vipers, who hath warned you to flee from the wrath to come? Bring forth therefore fruits worthy of repentance” (Luke 3:7, 8). But his contemporaries considered him on the one hand, too demanding, and on the other too lacking in sociability and humanity. His language was harsh even for the ears of the religious so that they said: “He hath a devil” and preferred not to listen.

But Jesus had also come, the Son of Man, clad in Messianic dignity, according to prophecy and, as prophecy had said, not, using his powers for himself but putting them at the disposition of the poor and the lowly: Though he was rich, yet for your sakes he became poor, that ye through his poverty might be rich” (2 Cor. 8:9).

Jesus Christ had come “eating and drinking”; he had entered the homes of Zaccheus and Levi, though he was Emmanuel—God with us. Yet his contemporaries, mostly unconscious of that miraculous presence of the Godhead in the reality of human flesh, made light of him and, unfavorably impressed by the way Christ sat so loosely to the rigid formalism of official religion, said of him: Behold a man gluttonous, and a winebibber, a friend of publicans, and sinners.

Both alike, the men and the children in the streets, in Jesus’ time refused to take the stage and act in God’s plan with a sense of concern and responsibility.

The Modern Parallel

Today the game goes on, and history repeats itself. The situation is no less disturbing because our generation—at least in the West—does not withhold official respect from Jesus Christ and has no desire to rate him as a “gluttonous and a winebibber.” Yet it is perhaps more serious for our generation, for ours is a civilization that, for several reasons, calls itself Christian. Many are content to use Christianity’s external wrapping which they believe in, or say they believe in, merely to promote their private or national interests under specious excuses that drain the Gospel of its content and life. Thank God, there are men who repent like Zaccheus or go in search of the Master like Nicodemus: yet the Christian conscience is not deeply moved by the message of Christ which is ever a message of judgment and of grace. The number of churches and church organizations multiply; yet so does the number of those who sit as dull, apathetic spectators of world scene through which Christ passes every day, and where every day we can respond with the obedience of faith or with lack of concern.

When we talk like this it is easy to think of other people, of men far removed from our religious spheres. There is always the temptation to draw a hard and fast line between church and world, between sacred and profane, between “religious” people and those not so (or at least not seemingly so, even if, at times, they have hearts not as hard as our own). We speak easily of West and East, of Christianity and materialism, of belief and unbelief, as if God’s judgment was for but a part of humanity, especially the part not officially Christian. But Christ’s presence on the stage of human history is a disturbing presence for all, even for the Christian churches, amongst whom is no lack of lookers-on who cannot clearly make out the message of Christ, and do not feel the urgency of that interior response—the decision born of faith in Christ.

One hardly knows any more how to speak to such superficial Christians, perpetually turned aside by other issues. Give them a serious word and they do not want it because it lacks the note of joy. Give them a glad word, full of hope, and they reject it because they miss in it the notes of severity or solemnity. However the Gospel of Christ is presented, they always find a way of side-stepping the need of self-involvement. What they want, even they do not know: but what they do not want is quite clear. They want nothing that would compel them to stop and enter into themselves in the presence of God: nothing that would oblige them to take up the cross and follow Jesus. As long as religion keeps to the realm of a discourse of an academic or a social nature, they are willing to show interest. But let religion become that serious demanding thing it was on the lips of the Baptist and even more so in the preaching of Jesus, then they decide that is not the game they want. They change the subject, they talk of work, of affairs, of national or international situations as if Christ were not present in our generation with us, or with the problems of our day. So, today, many remain apathetic and bored in the presence of the Lord, though they are far from being indifferent towards all that concerns their material well-being and their political and ideological convictions. Should we play at weddings or not? Then someone will have to dance! Do you want to play at funerals? Then someone will have to weep! Too many Christians, alas, stand still and only play the “bagpipes.”

The Need For Commitment

Now, should you ask me where such Christians are to be found, I have to reply that one cannot easily make a map of Christendom. One thing I do know, and that is no one can be quite certain of himself or of his own Christian denomination. None is quite immune from the Satanic suggestiveness of apathy and conformism in religion. We are often impressed by the scientific achievements of our epoch and yet we do not manage to grasp the idea of Christ being here on our earth, inside our life and inside the destiny of men. All too often we exchange essentials for what is of minor importance and condemned to perish. For that reason the Gospel recalls us to personal commitment and a clear sense of responsibility.

Commitment to Christ is the negation of apathy, and of that Christian rhetoric so much more dangerous than worldly rhetoric. It is that intimate act of decision made by man before his God: the “yes” of faith in Christ; a yes to be repeated day after day in a world that is changing and where other lords seek to reign over us.

Commitment to Christ does not mean getting Christ on our side, making him keep step with us or forcing him to walk in our ways. He walks down all the ways of the world, even those where we would prefer he did not go lest he disturb our ecclesiastical or national projects. His word alone is worthy of our trust for life and for death. Only let us be willing to follow him without complaint, without a nostalgia for dead things, without fear in the face of disasters that threaten the earth. It is he who gives a new direction to our being, it is through him that we have life: And this is life eternal, that they might know thee the only true God, and Jesus Christ whom thou hast sent (John 17:3).

Commitment to Jesus Christ opens the path for us to responsible Christian living. The finest of theological formulae remain a dead letter unless translated into action and living witness. Jesus has come into the world as an actor with full responsibility for effectuating God’s plan for the redemption of humanity. He wants us to be his fellow workers, not mere spectators of his coming, or profiteers of his kingdom. The command “Do thou follow me” is for one and all of us, and calls for a humble response from us. The brief time of our earthly life, the Today in which he speaks to us, is the time for us to decide and to serve.

Perhaps this will entail humiliation or fatigue. Faith is indeed a battle to be constantly sustained, not a quiet and fixed possession. What is essential is to be able to discern in all the confused voices of the world the voice of him who is still calling men into his service. Can we but listen to that voice in our corporate and individual existences, I believe we shall be able to say with the apostle: For therefore we both labour and suffer reproach, because we trust in the living God, who is the Saviour of all men, especially of those that believe (1 Tim. 4:10).

Certainly we must pray every day that this become our experience.

It is senseless to divide our citizens who make up the loyal, active, dependable supporters of the nation, by using invectives and bitter criticisms, just because a few become overzealous, and sometimes say things that cannot be proved about some namby-pamby political leadership, and soft-peddling on atheistic Communism.

The newspapers, a little time ago, quoted a state leader as being vociferous in his damnation of what he calls the “rightist groups,” and said, “These are more dangerous than the Communists.” That is just nonsense.

These political “straddlers” and “moral inbetweeners,” and “religious no-man’s-landers” surely know that the Communists have no “middle ground” in their ideology. All men of all nations are, to them, either Communists or anti-Communists. We all know where the Communists stand. They are not afraid to declare themselves. They glory in it. However, they also know, if by use of smears and innuendos, they can get Americans divided by the neutralists, then the “in-betweeners” are actually aiding their Communist conspiracy. We can destroy ourselves without Communist atomic bombs. Jesus said, “He who is not with me is against me and he who gathers not with me scatters abroad.” That is pretty clear-cut thinking. That is the kind of thinking, loyal Americans, whether rightist or not, expect from the Capitol at Washington down to the humblest cottage.

This is exactly the day when all Americans, whether Christian or otherwise, should let each other know where they stand on the truth about our enemies, and atheistic Communists, and also on materialistic Socialism and the American free way of life. The best way to combat extremes, whether they be called rightists or leftists, is for all of us to let all other Americans, and even our enemies, know where we stand on all moral, economic, political, sociological, yes, religious loyalties.

The Americans who advocate coexistence, free fellowship, and companionship with professed enemies of Christian freedom and the true free way of life, seem always more ready to defend the so-called rights of these enemies than they do of their patriotic American brothers. We believe there can be no “in-betweenism” in matters of life and death, right and wrong, good and bad, truth and lies.… We want our leaders, political, social, educational, religious, to let everyone, even our enemies, know where they stand, just as did Luther when he said, “Here I stand, I can do no other,” or like Patrick Henry, when he declared, “I know not what others may do, but as for me, give me liberty or give me death.” There was no equivocation or secret evasion there. There must be none in our political, economic, social, religious leadership in America, against atheistic Communism—the world’s great conspiracy.

America could, and would, change for the better, the whole complexion of political and moral confusion in a few weeks, if all elected and appointed leaders in all national agencies would declare themselves as dedicated Americans, unable to be bought by any group except for the welfare of all Americans, and also, that they would demonstrate by their actions and by their votes that they will stop the waste in government, and practice sacrificial living and spending themselves, instead of just demanding the sacrifice be made by the people who elect them, and moreover, that they will practice Christian ethics at home and abroad.

Christian patriots must be known as men of the right, because they are dedicated to God’s truth, to the whole truth. They must endeavor to be truth-tellers because they are truth-lovers, and therefore, truth-livers. “Speaking the truth in love,” is the finest formula for the cultivation of goodwill and friendship in cooperative living, whether personal or national or international. No one need to be ashamed to be called a rightist, if he thinks right, speaks right, and lives right. This is the day to come out of the grey into the white, to come out of the dark into the light, to come out of the left into the right.—DR. GORDON PALMER, former president of Eastern Baptist Theological Seminary, Philadelphia, in a radio broadcast on the Christian Patriotism Hour.

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