The Lord of the Dance

To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:

“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, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and ‘sinners.’” But wisdom is proved right by her actions. . . . . . . .

At that time Jesus said, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children. Yes, Father, for this was your good pleasure. All things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.

“Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

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God’s Problem

God has a problem . . . and the problem is us! We want God to do what we want him to do, to act like we want him to act, to will those things that we want him to will.

“We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.” We called the tune, and you wouldn’t dance to it; we sang the song that was supposed to move you, and you wouldn’t be moved! What more can we do to make you do what we want you to do, to act like we want you to act, to will those things we want you to will? For surely you see, do you not, God, that we know what should be done . . . and if you will only listen to us, the world will be better off – at least the little circle of the world in which we move. God must constantly listen to all that and remain God!

And then, to add to that, of course, like children at a game, we move quickly from one want to another, from one game to the other, never satisfied, always fickle about what we want or what we expect.. “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.”’” What is God to do? Whatever he does or whoever he sends, it is never right!

Yes, God has a problem . . . and the problem is us!

The Human Problem

Meanwhile we think that we have a problem . . . and the problem is God! We are relentlessly frustrated with God’s unwillingness to listen to us as we wish he would. “We play the flute and he will not dance to it; we sing our dirges and he will not mourn.” He seems so immovable in his ways, so implacable in his dealings with us, so uncaring about what clearly are our needs and wants, so independent, as though he doesn’t really have much concern about those things we think or say.

Well, there is truth in that – and there is falsehood in that. It is always surprising when truth and falsehood lie in such close proximity.

If God is to remain God he must, indeed, be independent of what we think, do, want, or ask for. Were he to submit to our will, we would be God and he would be our servant. But if he is to be God, we must seek a different place under him, alongside him, with him in order to properly relate to him. He must sing the dirges and we are to mourn with him. (Matthew 5:4) He must play the flute and we must dance to his tune. (Jeremiah 31:3, 4; Ecclesiastes 3:4)

Yet God insists that there is no divine indifference toward us. He is by no means unconcerned about us, uncaring about our needs, coldly impassive in the way he deals with us. It only means that, as he spoke through the prophet Isaiah, “My thoughts are not your thoughts, neither are your ways my ways . . . As the heavens are higher than the earth, so are my ways higher than your ways, and my thoughts than your thoughts.” (Is. 55:8, 9)

So Where Does That Leave Us?

“Wisdom is proved right by her actions,” Jesus says. The Anchor Bible translates this, “Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” Yet another translator boldly interprets it this way: “And yet God’s ways were proved to have been right by their results.” (E. V. Rieu, The Four Gospels)

One may rightly ask, “And who is this ’wisdom’?” It is important to ask the question rightly, for if one were to ask, “And what is this ‘wisdom’?” it would sound like one were asking for a philosophical response, a bit of sound thinking from one who is known for assessing situations in a considered way, a reflection on how things work according to human experience and expectation.

To be sure, there were (and are) those who asked the question in that way. That is undoubtedly why Jesus says, “I praise you, Father, Lord of heaven and earth, because you have hidden these things from the wise and learned, and revealed them to little children.” At first hearing the words are strange – that God would hide what is right and good for all people. But on second hearing, Jesus is saying that he thanks God for acting in behalf of his people in such an extraordinary way – a divine way, if you will -- that it far surpasses any human effort at understanding this way. Jesus has been unable to “break through” the merely human levels of understanding. Those who depend on purely earthly wisdom, those who are “wise and learned” in the wisdom such as is available only on earthly terms, have simply not understood what was happening in and through the One who speaks these words.

Indeed, this entire section of Matthew’s Gospel seems to lean on a sense of apparent “failure” on the part of Jesus to measure up to the expectations that all around him had in terms of what a “Messiah” would look like or act like. The whole context suggests this sense of turning to the Father and saying that “to the world, everything I have said or done seems to crumble back into the dust of the earth. But I praise you that you reveal what is really happening to those who receive it as little children. Therefore it is only hidden from those who want their own expectations fulfilled while it is revealed to all who look to you expectantly, waiting for you to act.”

That Leaves Us With Jesus!

Those who look with simplicity and humility (i.e., like little children) upon this One who speaks, however, will understand that “all things have been committed to me by my Father. No one knows the Son except the Father, and no one knows the Father except the Son and those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.” With these words Jesus claims himself to be the wisdom of God through whom the will of God will both be revealed and performed. A person will not listen for deep philosophical forms of wisdom if one approaches the One speaking here. A person will, rather, see in this One speaking the fullness of wisdom wrapped into a human package. He has known the Father from all eternity, and what he says and does is born of the Father who sent him. To look upon him, to listen to him, to watch him, is to see deeply into the heart of the Father from whom all wisdom comes and in whom all wisdom resides.

To receive him like a child, then, in all humility and simplicity, is to become one of “those to whom the Son chooses to reveal him (the Father).” These words bring to mind a scene from my childhood. The church I attended had no Sunday School, but when we visited an aunt in a neighboring town I would attend that Sunday School. I remember standing beside my aunt’s chair as she again rehearsed the Sunday School lesson that I had brought home. I remember receiving that lesson in the childlike simplicity spoken of in the Gospel, thrilled and excited over the lesson we were sharing. It was the word within which this One who revealed the Father brought him into the life and heart of a little boy so really that it was as though he were there beside me. And indeed he was. As he is when anyone hears his word and follows his deeds through the Scripture within which he is wrapped and brought into our presence today. It is not a surprise to hear that Luke, narrating this same scene, tells us that “Wisdom is proved right by all her children.” (Luke 7:35) Whether it be by the “deeds of wisdom” or by the “children of wisdom,” then, the will of God is revealed through this man who is both the Son of the Father and the Deed of Salvation performed in behalf of the straying and rebellious world.

The Proof of the Pudding

The proof of the pudding, then, is in the works that incarnate the words and anticipations and expectations that were set forth by Jesus, the so-called “glutton and drunkard,” and by his fore-runner John, who “came neither eating nor drinking.” Is John proved in the long run to be a “demon” – or, even more to the point, is Jesus proved to be a “sinner” among all those sinners with whom he associated? Concerning John, Jesus insisted in verses immediately before our text that “there has not risen anyone greater than John the Baptist,” although he adds, “yet he who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he.” The “children” of John’s ministry, so to speak, will see what John longs to see and will be counted among those who are among the most blessed of God.

For they will see what John was never privileged to see – the “failure” of God to protect his Son when he was nailed to the cross as the sinless One being crucified as the “sinner for all sinners,” the “weakness of God that is his greatest strength,” the “will of the Father to reclaim all the lost ones of the earth through the blood of his own Son.” This moment which appeared, of all moments, to be the “weakest” moment of God to the human eyes and reasoning and wisdom of this earth, was shown to be the deepest revelation of the depth of God’s love when he raised him from the dead and “gave him a name that is above every name, that at the name of Jesus every knee should bow in heaven and on the earth and under the earth, and every tongue confess that Jesus Christ is Lord, to the glory of God the Father.” (Phil. 2:10, 11) For “wisdom is proved right by her actions,” and “wisdom is proved right by her children.” In either or both cases as Matthew and Luke put it, the wisdom of God is set forth through the act of self-giving by the chief child of God on the cross. Human wisdom is put to shame when it looks and longs for the wrong thing, thereby missing the eternal action of God taking place before its eyes . . . the “hidden wisdom of God.” (I Corinthians 1:18-31) The proof of the pudding lies in this, that the One who associated with sinners acted in their behalf by becoming sin for them!

God “sang a dirge,” -- a dirge mourning the loss of the innocent life he intended his children to have and which he sang for them through this man they put on the cross -- and “they would not mourn.” God “played the flute” of resurrected life for these children whom he sought with a passionate love, and “they would not dance.”

In the Crucified and Risen One There is Rest for the Weary

But there were (and are) children who, in all simplicity and readiness of heart “saw through” what was happening by the grace of God’s Spirit, and Jesus invited them into his loving and protecting arms. “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.” The burdens of life weigh heavily on the children of this world. They are burdened by demands on their lives of every sort, and the eventual affliction of death haunts every other burden. To those who long for the compassionate and caring presence of God as a tent of surrounding shade giving relief from the burning sun of this world’s troubles their refuge is not in words, but in “the Word made flesh,” for in him they will find God’s presence supporting them on their journey. To us today as well as to those of his own day the words ring out in most inviting fashion: “Come to me, all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest.”

“Resting,” however, is not a permanent state of “do-nothingness,” one must note. If one remains permanently at a “Rest Stop” along the highway one never gets to where one intends to go! To “rest” is to have a momentary “relief” (a preferred translation for some interpreters) from the weariness incurred by the journey, a time to regain strength preparing one to move forward again. When one moves onward from the shade of this rest, however, one is struck by the fact that it is as though the singular “yoke” by which we have strained ourselves, pulling the burdens laid upon our lives, had become a “double yoke,” so to speak, for One has quietly stepped up beside us from the shadows of our rest to strain and pull alongside us. “Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light.”

This is the Rest that Lightens the Difficulties of the Journey

How nice it would be to stay at rest in the shadows shielding us from the burning sun. But it is not to be. Here in the shade of our gathering this morning we have responded to the dirge mourning our sins with confessing sorrow, but we have also heard the flute of God’s mercy playing for us, urging us to dance to the tune of grace and forgiveness. We have been fed on the word of the Lord within which the Word of Life has refreshed us, restored us, reassured us – the word that surpasses all words of this earth as it bursts forth into our lives bearing the presence of him who has spoken in the words of the Gospel for today. Here in the shade we are fed on the body and blood of him who took up the burden of our sinfulness and our needs, and he nourishes our hope with renewed energy. He has spread the tent of his grace over our weary heads to give us rest.

He who was with us at the beginning of our journey of life has assured us in all these ways that he will not only give us momentary rest on this day, but will remain with us to the end of our journey where the mournful dirges of life will no longer need to be sung because the Lord of the Dance will play for us the flute-tunes of everlasting life. Here in the shade we have been reminded again that a merciful God has named us with his name in the waters of our baptism and has given us his name to carry as we resume our journey in and with the world.

It is that name which we carry as we return to the highways of our life. He has offered us rest.

Now he bids us return to the journey, promising to go with us as One who bears our yoke alongside us. When we feel we can no longer pull the heavily laden cart of our troubles and suffering as we should, he will be there to pull it for us and with us. When we feel that the journey is longer or more difficult than we can manage, he will draw us forward with the gentle strength that comes only from him to whom all things have been committed by the Father and who alone shadows our lives with the grace of a Father who is “Lord of heaven and earth.” He promises to never leave nor forsake us. By his Spirit he draws us up out of the darkness and heaviness of life into the rest that is present even now in and for those who place their ultimate hope in this One who is “The Lord of the Dance” playing the flute song of eternity.

Hubert Beck
Retired Lutheran Pastor
hbeck@austin.rr.com