SPECIAL DAYS: Christ the King Sunday, Worship after the manner of the Pilgrims

November 23, 2003 - Matthew 11.16-19

Sermon Title: Apologia

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INTRODUCTION:

Here is today's Clean Laugh. (1)

One afternoon a waiter served a bowl of chicken soup to an elderly gentleman. As he turned away to return to the kitchen the customer stopped him, calling:......"Waiter!"

WAITER: "Yes, sir, is there something wrong?"

CUSTOMER: "The soup. Taste it."

WAITER: "I beg your pardon, Sir?"

CUSTOMER: "Taste it."

WAITER: "But, Sir, I can assure you that the soup is excellent."

CUSTOMER: "Taste it."

WAITER: "Sir, the soup was made this morning of the finest ingredients."

CUSTOMER: "Taste it!"

WAITER: exasperated, "All right, Sir, I'll taste it."

Then after a pause he said, "Where is the spoon?"

To which the customer replied triumphantly, "Ah ha!!"

    1. There is no spoon.

    2. Where is the spoon?

  1. I titled this sermon Apologia which comes from Apologetics.

    1. The words mean essentially the same thing.

    2. A formal defense or justification of a doctrine or teaching.

    3. I used this because of the last part of Matthew 11.19, "Wisdom is vindicated by her deeds." It is better read "wisdom is vindicated by her children."

    4. Apologetics is a vindication, which is what is taking place here in this incident in the life of Jesus.

  2. What Jesus is doing in this parable is providing us with a spoon.

    1. We are not eating soup for the body.

    2. We are nourishing the soul, the spirit.

    3. The spoon is now symbolic.

      1. There are dangers to which to be alerted.

      2. There are benefits to be acquired.

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MAIN BODY:

  1. To begin Jesus asks a question.

    1. To what will I compare this generation?

      1. They are like children sitting in the market places calling to one another.

        1. Children who have no playground but the wide places in the street.

        2. Tired children

        3. Board children

        4. They are sitting

      2. They are sitting in the market places, places where trade and talk occur.

    2. The children are playing games.

      1. In the first game they are playing wedding reception.

        1. Or we could understand it in terms of a dance.

        2. Let's hire a band and have a dance.

        3. We don't want to play that game.

      2. In the second game they are playing funerals.

        1. Let's play professional mourners.

        2. Lets have fun moaning and groaning.

        3. Or we could understand it in the terms of an old-fashioned, high-powered, revival service.

        4. They didn't want to play that game either.

    3. So Jesus uses their game playing to offer an assessment of the quality of their lives and thoughts.

    4. We ought to play strictest attention here.

      1. We often get trapped by such people and their games.

      2. They can be destructive of life and spirit.

  2. What kind of people are these of whom we should be wary?

    1. They are modern people

      1. What If College Students Wrote The Bible (2)

The Last Supper would have been eaten the next morning-cold.

The Ten Commandments would actually be only five-double-spaced and written in a large font.

A new edition would be published every two years in order to limit reselling.

Forbidden fruit would have been eaten because it wasn't cafeteria food.

Paul's letter to the Romans would become Paul's email to abuse@romans.gov.

Reason Cain killed Abel: they were roommates.

Reason why Moses and followers walked in the desert for 40 years: they didn't want to ask directions and look like freshmen.

Instead of God creating the world in six days and resting on the seventh, he would have put it off until the night before to get it done.

      1. How about a new version of the Doxology

Praise God from whom all blessings flow

Praise God now for an hour or so

Praise God right now while it is chic

Then we'll forget God till next week.

(And the People said, ... "Yeah, Right!")

    1. They are defining people

"Too often we let the world's definitions determine what versions of the "truth" the church will offer, even to the point of accommodating fanciful standards of moral behavior and character. Today, for example, many perceive personal and communal "integrity" as a luxury they simply can no longer afford. For these the "Golden Rule" (Do unto others as you would have them do unto you), long observed mainly in the breech, has pitched down a steeply declining grade of mineral - defined by cheapened values and identified by cheaper ores. There is the "Silver Rule" - "Do unto others as they have already done unto you. " Then the "Bronze Rule" - "Do unto others as you fully expect them to do unto you. " Then the "Copper Rule" - "Do unto others before they do unto you." And finally the "Iron Rule" - "Do unto others and cut out." These latter rules fit all too precisely into our current, competitive, cut-throat culture." (3)

    1. They are petty people.

Pettiness (4)

Mike Yaconelli, one of the founders of Youth Specialties and the humor magazine The Wittenburg Door, was recently killed in an auto accident. Mike was one of those people I never met and wish I had. In one of his occasional serious moments, Mike urged the church to deal with people who would divert us into petty issues:

"Petty people are ugly people. They are people who have lost their vision. They are people who have turned their eyes away from what matters and focused, instead, on what doesn't matter. The result is that the rest of us are immobilized by their obsession with the insignificant.

"It is time to rid the church of pettiness. It is time the church refused to be victimized by petty people. It is time the church stopped ignoring pettiness. It is time the church quit pretending that pettiness doesn't matter. Pettiness has become a serious disease in the Church of Jesus Christ--a disease which continues to result in terminal cases of discord, disruption, and destruction. Petty people are dangerous people because they appear to be only a nuisance instead of what they really are--a health hazard."

Or as Dave Coverly writes in his "Speed Bump" comic strip,

"Son, there are two kinds of people in this world those who are good at math, those who are good at English and those who ain't good at neither"

    1. They are hollow people

Watching a huge man weigh in at the doctor's office, and not knowing that the scale was out of order, a little boy watched with his mother as the indicator stopped at 75 pounds. "Whaddya know," the boy marveled. "He's hollow."

    1. These are people who are good for something, but not good for either.

      1. This is because John came neither eating or drinking, and they say, "He has a demon."

      2. This is because the son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, "Look a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.

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  1. Now we get to the proof of the matter.

    1. Wisdom is vindicated by her children.

    2. The children are those who follow the teachings of true wisdom.

    3. True wisdom is to be found in the teachings of Jesus Christ.

    4. This is what Paul writes in 1 Corinthians 1:18-24, NRSV

18For the message about the cross is foolishness to those who are perishing, but to us who are being saved it is the power of God. 19For it is written,

"I will destroy the wisdom of the wise,

and the discernment of the discerning I will thwart."

20Where is the one who is wise? Where is the scribe? Where is the debater of this age? Has not God made foolish the wisdom of the world? 21For since, in the wisdom of God, the world did not know God through wisdom, God decided, through the foolishness of our proclamation, to save those who believe. 22For Jews demand signs and Greeks desire wisdom, 23but we proclaim Christ crucified, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles, 24but to those who are the called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ the power of God and the wisdom of God.

    1. The children who vindicate the power, glory and truthfulness are those who justify all God's ways in the acquiring and developing their salvation.

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CONCLUSION

  1. Introjection is a term used in Gestalt therapy which describes those parental injunctions which we have swallowed whole, without really examining them. Working with them involves "chewing" them up, swallowing, and owning what fits for us and spitting out and rejecting what does not.

Theodor Seuss Geisel, the celebrated author of Dr. Seuss' children's books, gave a commencement address some years back at a college in Illinois which illustrates this therapeutic principle of introjection. Geisel began his speech in this fashion:

"It seems behooven upon me to bring forth great words of wisdom to this graduating class as it leaves these cloistered halls to enter the outside world...My wisdom is in rather short supply, and I have managed to condense everything I know into this epic poem consisting of fourteen lines."

He then proceeded to recite his epic poem entitled:

"My Uncle Terwilliger on the Art of Eating Popovers" (5)

My uncle ordered popovers
From the restaurant's bill of fare
And when they were served, he regarded them
With a penetrating stare...
Then he spoke great words of wisdom
And he sat them on the chair.

"To eat these things," said my uncle,
You must exercise great care.
You may swallow down what's solid...
But...you must spit out the air!"

And, as you partake of the world's bill of fare,
That's darned good advice to follow
Do a lot of spitting out of the hot air,
And be careful what you swallow.

Enough Said?

1. posts@cybersaltlists.org

2. Beliefnet Religious Jokes [BeliefnetReligiousJokes@partner.beliefnet.com]

3. Homiletics Online HOMILETICSONLINE, Uh-Huh!, 11/24/1991, Used with permission

4. The Wittenburg Door December 1984/January 1985, quoted in PreachingNow Vol. 2, No. 43, (preachingnow.com)

5. © 2002 COMMUNICATION RESOURCES, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED, Used with permission

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