You can't please everyone

Today’s gospel reading (Matt 11:16-19,25-30) often reminds me of the problems the Church today faces in making ourselves both relevant and heard. Jesus is speaking to people after he has been questioned by followers of John the Baptist about whether he is the promised Messiah or not, and you can almost sense his exasperation as he talks of people’s dissatisfaction.

And he says, ‘John (the Baptist) came neither eating or drinking, and they say, “he has a demon”; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, “Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners !”’

Over the last week or so the Anglican Communion has once more been divided with some Bishops holding their own meeting in Jerusalem, and refusing to attend the Lambeth Conference coming up. Without commenting either way on the rights and wrongs of the various arguments, I think you have to feel sorry for Archbishop Rowan Williams who must somehow try to hold together 2 groups that are absolutely miles apart, when neither of those groups would even consider any sort of compromise…

Division and discontent are sad realities of human nature. Closer to home, I’m sure we all know people who love to moan, they are never happier than when they have someone or something to moan about – they are never satisfied ! We all know people who love to talk in negative tones about something going on – prophets of doom are all too common and often very damaging!!

In Jesus’ time it was just the same. People of course had their own idea of what the Messiah would look like, what he would do, and what his presence would mean for them… Jesus didn’t fit this image because he never could – the images that the people had were selfish – they were for their own benefit.

And that is something that the Church today is often, wrongly I think and I hope in most cases, accused of today. But however wrong people’s perceptions are we must work to change them and we do that by trying to focus more on Jesus and his message.

Some of those who saw Jesus missed totally what his message was about because of selfishness and self interest… it would be great to say that we never fall into that trap but I’m pretty sure that most of us do at times ! And the only way to try and avoid that is to try and remain focused on Jesus.

He didn’t come to meet our expectations, he didn’t come to get rid of all the nasty people in the world, he didn’t come to enforce some sort of rule on people – he came filled with love and compassion to offer a gift that could never be bought – a gift even more precious than earthly life itself…

Today we get caught up very often trying to be the people others expect, or trying to do the things that we think we’re supposed to do. As a Church we often convince ourselves that we have to preserve a tradition, that we have to maintain everything as it was many years ago. I’ve spoken about tradition and change before – I usually try to avoid it because I often get in trouble when I do speak about it, but as a Church what we are about is not preserving a tradition but furthering the ministry of Jesus, in other words making known in words and, even more importantly, in our actions his message, a message that is as relevant today as it has ever been.

And this thought has meaning for us as individuals as well, because faith is personal. Faith may be proclaimed together publicly in worship, but if it is not making a real difference to our lives, then just like so many people who met Jesus, we are missing the point.

As Jesus goes on to explain in this gospel message, he came to bring peace to those whose burden was heavy, to all those who are weary, he came to bring peace to all those who are dissatisfied with their lives, or angry or bitter, or sad, and there are probably times when that includes every one of us.

It is said that when the British and French were fighting in Canada in the 1750s, Admiral Phipps, the commander of the British fleet, was told to anchor outside Quebec. He was given orders to wait for the British land forces to arrive, then support them when they attacked the city. Phipps' navy arrived early.

As he waited, Phipps, who was opposed to any shows of Catholicism, became annoyed by the statues of the saints that adorned the towers of a nearby cathedral, so he commanded his men to shoot at them with the ships' cannons. No one knows how many rounds were fired or how many statues were knocked out, but when the land forces arrived and the signal was given to attack, the admiral was of no help. He had used up all his ammunition shooting at the "saints."

Today we so often use up too much of our efforts doing things which in the overall scheme of things are not actually that important, firing remarks and using thoughts which benefit nobody… We will certainly never satisfy everyone – people will expect different things of us as Christians and as Churches, just as they expected different things of Jesus… People may perhaps make unfair judgements about us…. We can only focus on Jesus and try to be like him in all of our dealings with others.

Sadly, Jesus’ exasperation, expressed so well in this reading, must have been compounded so many times through the history of Christianity… We must surely not make it worse today…

And to this end we can do no better than to just listen to the commands of Jesus, ‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and your soul and your mind, and love your neighbour as yourself’, whoever that neighbour is and whatever that neighbour may think of you, and then of course ‘Go out into the world making disciples of all nations’, remembering always that Jesus is with us. He is with us here, He is with us when we wake up, when we go to sleep, he is with us every moment of every day. AMEN