We Played the Flute for You, and You Did Not Dance...

An Admonition to Stay on Task

In the Gospel of Matthew, Jesus gives us insight into the heart of sinful man when he is confronted by the truth. He declares —

“But to what shall I liken this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to their companions, and saying:

‘We played the flute for you,
And you did not dance;
We mourned to you,
And you did not lament.’

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, ‘Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ But wisdom is justified by her children.”¹

Christ’s point here is that these people were dissatisfied regardless of who was bringing the truth to them, and regardless of how the truth was being given to them. And this puts the heart of sinful man on full display for us to see: The heart in rebellion will come up with objection after objection after objection, even after those objections have been shown to be insubstantial.

Moreover, it isn’t just those who do not share a like-minded faith with us who do this, but those whom we think of as Christian brothers. If the messenger is too harsh, the messenger and message are rejected. If the messenger is too seemingly irenic, the messenger and message are rejected. And this shows us that what is being identified as the issue with the unbeliever or professing believer not accepting the messenger and his message is the message, not primarily the manner in which it has been deliver, nor is it primarily the kind of messenger who has delivered the message — the issue is the message itself. The message will not conform to the sinful desire of the person, so the person displaces his hatred of the truth onto another person (namely, the messenger).

Modus Tollens

This kind of analysis is found throughout the Scriptures, but one particular case that I think is powerful is found in Matt 25:14-30. In this portion of Scripture, Christ gives the parable of the talents. The passage in question reads as follows —

“For the kingdom of heaven is like a man traveling to a far country, who called his own servants and delivered his goods to them. And to one he gave five talents, to another two, and to another one, to each according to his own ability; and immediately he went on a journey. Then he who had received the five talents went and traded with them, and made another five talents. And likewise he who had received two gained two more also. But he who had received one went and dug in the ground, and hid his lord’s money.

After a long time the lord of those servants came and settled accounts with them. “So he who had received five talents came and brought five other talents, saying, ‘Lord, you delivered to me five talents; look, I have gained five more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you were faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’ He also who had received two talents came and said, ‘Lord, you delivered to me two talents; look, I have gained two more talents besides them.’ His lord said to him, ‘Well done, good and faithful servant; you have been faithful over a few things, I will make you ruler over many things. Enter into the joy of your lord.’

“Then he who had received the one talent came and said, ‘Lord, I knew you to be a hard man, reaping where you have not sown, and gathering where you have not scattered seed. And I was afraid, and went and hid your talent in the ground. Look, there you have what is yours.’ “But his lord answered and said to him, ‘You wicked and lazy servant, you knew that I reap where I have not sown, and gather where I have not scattered seed. So you ought to have deposited my money with the bankers, and at my coming I would have received back my own with interest.

So take the talent from him, and give it to him who has ten talents. ‘For to everyone who has, more will be given, and he will have abundance; but from him who does not have, even what he has will be taken away. And cast the unprofitable servant into the outer darkness. There will be weeping and gnashing of teeth.’”

What we see in this passage is that one’s behavior is a consequence of one’s thinking. We also see that the day of judgment will make it clear that our excuses are simply lies, false assertions justifying one’s rebellion that can easily demonstrated to be false in light of a simple argument known as a modus tollens argument.

Symbolically, the argument looks like this —

(p→q)
¬q.
∴ ¬p

Replacing the variables with what we find in the parable, we have —

If you believed x, then you would have done y.
You did not do y.
Therefore, you do not believe x.

Christ shows us that the man in the parable was lying, because his actions were not those in keeping with one who truly believed that the Master was “a hard man, reaping where [he had] not sown, and gathering where [he had] not scattered seed.” Had he actually believed that about his Master, he would have worked just as hard to make money for his Master and avoid resorting to labor that he, apparently, thought was unjust or harsh.

Now, placed in the context of those who reject the message because God’s messenger has failed to meet some specified standard of behavior — be it dancing or mourning — we see very clearly that the reasons these people had for rejecting Jesus and John had nothing to do with Christ and his prophet failing to meet some specified standard of behavior. The truth is simple — The people did not want the truth, so they were making up excuses to reject the Lord Christ and John the Baptist.

A Truth to Keep in Mind

It’s very easy to fall into the trap of thinking that it is always our fault when the truth is rejected. After all, those who don’t accept it have to blame someone for their unbelief. And, if we are honest with ourselves, we can cause others to stumble into disbelief, and have had to ask for forgiveness for our poor representation of Christ to the world. However, it is not always the case that we are to blame for their unbelief. There are many cases in which the unbeliever is simply concocting new standards that must be met in order for him to accept the messenger and his message.

The goal that we have as Christians is not to meet every demand for conformity to some specified code of conduct given to us by the unbeliever, but to be faithful to God, to strive to meet his absolute standard. There have been many movements in church history that failed to take this into consideration when trying to understand why men would reject the truth presented by God’s teachers and preachers. For these people, their failure to do so ended up with them at first modifying their approaches to preaching and teaching. And in the long run, once it became clear that the messenger was not really the problem, the message was modified to suit the sinful thinking of their listening audiences.

We are not called to dance to flute ditties, and mourn on cue. We are called to follow and proclaim the truth, regardless of the consequences.

—h.

1. Matt 11:16-19.