July 5, 2026
Genesis 24:34-38, 42-49, 58-67
Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30
Some people – and apparently some birds, if my story has any connection to reality – are never satisfied. Serve them coffee and they’ll ask for tea. Serve them hot tea and they’ll ask for iced. Serve them iced tea and they’ll ask for coffee.
That’s fine, mostly. There are many ways in which I, personally, would like the world to be better than it is. I’d like my skin to be more resistant to ultraviolent light. I’d like the rain to hold off until I’m under a roof. I’d love to officiate at fewer funerals of friends and beloved members of this church.
On this day after Independence Day, I’d also like to see the Constitution’s goals of a more perfect union brought closer to fulfillment. I few years ago I read Jill Lepore’s These Truths, a history of the United States from 1492 to 2016. I came away with an appreciation of how often people had made significant gains in achieving a more just and egalitarian government – and how often those gains had been clawed away by succeeding generations, to be won again at a later time.
As the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., said, paraphrasing the abolitionist Theodore Parker, “the arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends toward justice.” In Dr. Lepore’s work, we also see that people keep trying to bend it back.
I don’t think anybody should be satisfied with bending away from the full inclusion of all people in the social and political life of the nation. I don’t think denying rights to people of color or to women should be tolerated. I think that LGBTQ+ folks should have every right that a straight person has. I think that any person present in the United States accused of misdeeds deserves proper process of law and reasonable bail.
If we look at this nation without rose-colored filters, we’ll see that we have not attained these things. There’s no reason we should be satisfied. There’s no reason we shouldn’t do the work toward achieving these goals.
But was that what Jesus was talking about two thousand years ago? A little bit, perhaps.
The issue wasn’t the organization or inclusive nature of government, which was organized against inclusion far more than that of the United States of America. The issue was how some people found ways to discount the similar messages of two dissimilar figures: John the Baptist and Jesus of Nazareth.
As Elisabeth Johnson writes at Working Preacher, “The problem with this generation, Jesus says, is that they listen neither to John nor to Jesus. John’s austere lifestyle led people to accuse him of having a demon, while Jesus’ habit of eating and drinking with sinners earned him a bad reputation (11:18-19). This generation finds reason to take offense at both John and Jesus and thus to evade the call of both.”
Ah, how little things have changed.
Some people are never satisfied, are they?
I swear this dissatisfaction comes from all sides. When the Church advocates for publicly funded support for the poor and marginalized, we get told to stay in our lane and stay out of politics. But then when the Church organizes to provide meals and shelter for the poor and marginalized, we get told we’re creating a public nuisance by having all these poor and marginalized people about.
The social services of the first century were nothing to aspire to, but at least the reality of poor people was accepted. In the twenty-first century, we have a bad habit of closing off spaces to the poor, in the curious belief that somehow if we can’t see them, they don’t exist, and we don’t have to worry about them, support them, or assist them any more.
Never satisfied.
A few weeks ago someone who goes by Pastor Brandon online posted a cartoon in which two figures hold this conversation: “Why don’t you preach more on sin?” “Okay, tell me your sin and I’ll try to preach a sermon on it.” “No, I mean, why don’t you preach on…” “Is that your sin?” “No.” “Well, why would you want to hear a sermon on someone else’s sin?”
That goes to the heart of it, doesn’t it? Each and every one of us, if we’re challenged by some element of the Good News, by some aspect of prophetic summons, by some vision that requires us to change, well. That’s when we start to discount the messenger. Or to rework the message. If we’re Christians, we can’t say that Jesus didn’t mean what he said. But we’re pretty good at changing the meaning of what he said.
To this day, I’m astonished that Christians in political power, from the first Christian Roman emperors to members of the United States Congress, draw a dividing line between the expectations of individuals and the expectations of civil authorities, as if a government run by Christians can start wars of conquest like the Crusades, commit savagery against designated heretics or Jews, or just simply refuse to aid the poor whose poverty has been exaggerated by the acts of other Christians. Did Jesus seek glory through power? Did Jesus gather wealth to himself? Did Jesus call for war and revolution?
No. But later Christians did. Contemporary Christians do. And they keep saying it’s consistent with the words of Jesus.
I started by saying that there’s no reason to be fully satisfied with the nation, and that we need to work for its improvement. I also say that there’s no reason to be fully satisfied with the Church. It has always needed improvement – witness the aggravated letters of Paul – and, so far as I can tell, always will.
Because at the heart of it all is the human talent for finding ways around the clear teaching of John and Jesus and those who echoed them well: we have work to do, obligations to fulfill. It may be a yoke that does not injure, but it is still a yoke and we have to pull. We pull in the presence of Jesus, who encourages, guides, and strengthens us, who saves our spirits and gives rest to our souls.
Amen.
by Eric Anderson
Watch the Recorded Sermon
Pastor Eric prepares a written manuscript, but he does make changes while preaching, so the sermon as recorded is not an exact match to the sermon as written.
Photo by Basile Morin – Own work, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=64696618.