A Sermon for Sunday, July 5, 2020 (Pentecost +5A) delivered by the Rev Justin Kosec to the assembly gathered at Our Savior’s Lutheran Church Sioux Falls, South Dakota This is our fourth week in our Summer Series Kingdom of Heaven, where we consider what it looks like when God’s world draws near to our own. Often Jesus describes the kingdom of heaven with a parable, a story or a striking image. Today’s gospel features an all-time underrated parable. It features gangs of orphan children. These children feel passionate about their experience.

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Passionate enough to write songs about it. Passionate enough to sing. Passionate enough to dance until the whole world dances with them. Jesus’s parable for us today is basically the classic musical Newsies? Where youthful paperboys sang and danced their way to a better society? Okay-- Jesus’s parable isn’t much like Newsies at all. But I think Jesus’s whacked-out portrait of his generation slides toward the recognizable

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when we imagine these characters as rival gangs of passionate paperboys. I think Jesus uses this image to show us how to prepare ourselves for the news that God is here. So who are these newsies? Why won’t anyone dance to their tune? And what exactly do they tell us about the Kingdom of God? Let’s figure it out. * The easiest little gang of musical youths to sketch are the Pharisees. Now, if you’ve been around church at all, you already know these guys. The Pharisees were clergy.

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Highly educated. Skilled rhetoricians and philosophers. They were used to shaping the debate. In Jesus’s model of competing newsie gangs, when they pipe about God it sounds shrill and droning. They would be bagpiping newsies. And they worked for the most powerful, most religiously conservative force of the day. They saw the day’s headlines as evidence of the moral decay of humankind. For all their volume, the Pharisees were a rather small gang. And remember, they newsies are frustrated because

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somebody didn’t dance with them. That somebody was Jesus. Jesus had a bold new message that people want to hear. He embraced a demographic the genteel priests found threatening. So the Pharisees attacked Jesus to get him off their corner. They verbally assaulted Jesus. They dug deep into their privilege. They attempt to use the power of the state against him. When Jesus didn’t dance, they harped and harped.

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For all their power and privilege and authority, I think it’s very easy to imagine people who act this way as lonely, frustrated children waving their arms and shouting to steal back the attention as they desperately feel slipping away. Considered this way, they’re kinda sad, right? * But the Pharisees aren’t the only gang of pathetic paperboys in town.

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Our next group of sad children are led by the prophet John the Baptist. Now, John’s an offstage character in this story. But we need to remember he was in the mix. Partly, that’s because Jesus mentioned him. Jesus pointed out that the Pharisees said John had a demon. John looms over this story. These days, we tend to lump Jesus and John together into one gang. But back then, Jesus and John were seen as two very different preachers. Many people actually thought of them as competitors.

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We know that they were playing the same tune. But that wasn’t so obvious then. So John had his own gang of newsboys and newsgirls. And John won their devotion because he was an iconoclastic firebrand. John sang with a punk shout and a heavy metal roar. He spoke about tearing down authority, and the most powerful people in his society didn’t like his tone. To them, John’s caustic music sounded like a nuisance. It sounded like leftist anarchy. So they threw him in jail. Just before today’s gospel chapter,

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we get a heart-rending portrait of John in prison. John sent a messenger to Jesus because John noticed nobody was dancing to his tune anymore. John’s little gang was fractured. And John’s spirit was broken. He was no longer the boldly-shouting messenger with a dramatic interpretations of the day’s news. Just a helpless kid with a black eye who would never dance again.

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* Another happy newsie! Pharisees on one side, shrieking as their power erodes. And John on the other, bludgeoned and beaten, his little gang scattered. Two gangs of sadly ineffectual juvenile flautists. That’s the image Jesus paints. But wait! There’s more! Today, I’m going to suggest we find a third newsie ringleader in this passage. And it might be a little surprising to you.

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Because I want to tell you today that Jesus himself was one of these frustrated newsies. Now I know when we read this passage, we often think that Jesus is pointing a finger at other people. But I’m telling you today that he’s also describing his personal experience of his generation. Even though Jesus was God, Jesus still lived within human society; Jesus still felt the same forces and social pressures. And that meant for all the truly unique power in Jesus’s message,

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his song was every bit as likely to get lost in the noise. At this moment in the gospel, at this point in Jesus’s ministry, that’s exactly what happened. People were showing up to hear the crazy things Jesus said. Showing up to eat the free bread he gave away; to catch a glimpse of one of those healing miracles. But as soon as people heard some substance behind the catchy headline— they just stopped listening. Jesus raised serious issues.

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Jesus pointed out social sins in his age. In town after town, Jesus invited people to repent. But the people who came for the sensational story weren’t buying the raw and personal side of Jesus’s good news. Being the Son of God wasn’t all adoring crowds and ecstatic fans. It was shouting a message of truth to people who didn’t really want to listen. In this chapter Jesus was so angry about it he cursed the towns where he did great miracles. That’s why I think that when Jesus describes this pitiable

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little picture of plaintive paperboys, he’s not just talking about someone else. It’s personal. Better than anyone else, Jesus knew what it felt like to play the flute for people who just wouldn’t dance. * Now,

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if you still think it’s unusual to imagine Jesus as one of the profitless piping paperboys, and to picture crowds that could see his miracles and tune out his message, well. Let’s just consider where we are today. * We’ve been through a lot these last couple months. We are quaking from age-old tectonic faults in this country’s racial inequality. A tiny virus is revealing the frailty of our bodies and our social systems.

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Our families are changing. Jobs are changing. Towns are changing. With all that in mind, consider for yourself. If you heard some miracle-working preacher had whipped up huge crowds in Omaha and Sioux City and Fargo. If you heard this preacher was gonna be downtown at the Levitt tonight shouting his own brand of good news; if you heard some people say he had done miracles; but you also heard some people say his message was tough; and pastors you trust

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told you this preacher was trying to turn the world upside down; if that’s everything you knew, would you… would you clear your schedule to go? Would you make time to listen to yet another challenge that could change your world? Personally, I gotta admit: I probably wouldn’t. Especially

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not if it conflicted with toddler bedtime. And I know I’m not alone. * We’ve been through a lot these last couple months. Certainly today we face a uniquely 21st century combination of problems. But our exhaustion and helplessness and ennui and apathy— those feelings consumed the people of Jesus’s generation, too. And you can bet plenty of people just didn’t turn out for Jesus’s message because it seemed like too much work.

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So. What happens when we feel so intensely overwhelmed by the world that we find ourselves entirely unmoved by God’s most passionate songs? Or what happens when we want to dance, but then the voice of the Pharisees convinces us to sit back down? Today, so many us were outraged by George Floyd’s death. How many of us were finally moved to do something about racism in this country? But how many of us

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found ourselves sitting back down when we heard George Floyd hadn’t lived a perfect life? Is that any different than what Jesus faced when the Pharisees preached against him? I am sure some people started to contemplate leaving their homes and following him. They wanted to see the sick cured and the poor fed. They wanted to befriend the Samaritan. Hug a leper. But then they started thinking-- what if what if the Pharisees

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had some good points? What if Jesus really was a drunkard? And they were so apathetic or exhausted or overwhelmed that even a little doubt was all they needed to walk away. Let’s face it, my friends. Dancing takes work. Dancing well takes practice and conditioning. Some people actively try to dissuade us from dancing to God’s tune. But for many of us, the problem isn’t that we don’t care.

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The problem is that we take on so much that when God calls us to dance we are just too tired to tap a toe. * And I think this was the same world Jesus saw when he looked at his generation. Jesus saw Pharisees harping. Jesus saw John mourning. Jesus witnessed his own ministry falter

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as people failed to believe. Jesus saw all of this. Jesus saw that when people live like this they are very unlikely to notice the kingdom of God. I think that’s why this whole chapter ends with these beautiful words where Jesus calls everyone to rest. Jesus wanted everyone to break out of the clumpy childish gangs.

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Jesus wanted them to recognize the truth in his voice. And to remember that before they were lonely fractious newsies they were all just children of God. But they could never learn to recognize this because they were wearing themselves out with all this profitless fluting! Jesus called them to rest so they could remember how to love. * Right now,

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we are bitter in rivalry. We are hoarse from yelling. We are so very tired. That’s why this is our parable, too. The kingdom of God is near. But we will not see it if we spend our whole lives trying to convince the world to dance to our tune. Maybe, instead, we need to spend our energy learning from God what it means to be gentle and humble.

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Likewise, the kingdom of God is near. But we cannot dance if we are too tired to stand. We cannot hope to be moved by God’s rhythm if we are weary. We cannot pick up the flute to play God’s melody if our hands are full of heavy burdens. As of followers of Jesus, we must call the world to stop acting like lonely children. We must remind the world that each and every one of us is God’s little baby. We must model what it means

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to stop treating each other like rivals and begin sharing the gifts God gives. But we cannot do any of this if we are too tired to recognize God’s voice. And we cannot learn to dance together if we are always stepping on each others’ toes. So, having acknowledged this about our own world, let’s remember what Jesus tells us. God’s song has has always included measures of rest. Every once in a while, we need to let that be enough.

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God invites you to dance. But dancing is hard work. So sit down for a minute and breathe, my friends. It’s the only way you’ll be ready to get on your feet when the beat drops.

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