We must take a stand!

Matthew 11:16-17

16 "How can I account for this generation? The people have been like spoiled children whining to their parents, 17 'We wanted to skip rope, and you were always too tired; we wanted to talk, but you were always too busy.' 18 John came fasting and they called him crazy. 19 I came feasting and they called me a lush, a friend of the riff- raff. Opinion polls don't count for much, do they? The proof of the pudding is in the eating."

Food for thought!

Jesus was saddened by the sheer perversity of human nature. To him men seemed to be like children playing in the village square. One group said to the other: "Come on and let's play at weddings," and the others said, "We don't feel like being happy today." Then the first group said, "All right; come on and let's play at funerals," and the others said, "We don't feel like being sad today." No matter what was suggested, they did not want to do it; and no matter what was offered, they found a fault in it.

John came, living in the desert, fasting and despising food, isolated from the society of men; and they said of him, "The man is mad to cut himself off from human society and human pleasures like that." Jesus came, mixing with all kinds of people, sharing in their sorrows and their joys, companying with them in their times of joy; and they said of him, "He is a socialite; he is a party-goer; he is the friend of outsiders with whom no decent person would have anything to do." 

They called John's asceticism madness; and they called Jesus' sociability laxness of morals. They could find a ground of criticism either way. The plain fact is that when people do not want to listen to the truth, they will easily enough find an excuse for not listening to it. They do not even try to be consistent in their criticisms; they will criticize the same person, and the same institution, from quite opposite grounds.

If people are determined to make no response they will remain stubbornly unresponsive no matter what invitation is made to them. Some of us are much like spoiled children who refuse to play no matter what the game is. Sometimes, we don't know what we want in life. Like these children, nothing is good enough, nothing is bad enough. All is nothing and nothing is all. Nothing is good, nothing is bad. All is good, all is bad. We complain when it rains, we complain when it shines; we never take a stand on anything. 

It would be well if we were to stop judging people and churches by our own prejudices and perversities; and if we were to begin to give thanks for any person and any church who can bring people nearer to God, even if their methods are not the methods which suit us.