Sermon preached by Rev. Margie Quinn on Sunday, July 5, 2026
Good morning. Did anybody else have to drug your dog last night? Woo! We made it.
For those of you who have been coming here since June, and I know exactly who you are and who hasn't been here, we have been journeying through the book of Genesis, talking about complicated families and how, other than my family, there are no perfect families. We've been talking about what it means to have sibling favoritism, what it means to have infertility, what it means to have loss, what it means to travel with your family. And this morning, we are now back in the Gospels. We're in the Gospel of Matthew. But we are not done with complicated family. We may never be done. So, if you are someone who likes to follow along with your Bible, today I'm going to be walking through the text a little bit more than I usually do, kind of passage by passage. So, if you want to grab a Bible and look at Matthew 11 with me, you're welcome to. If reading and listening at the same time is something that is hard for you, I totally get that, too.
My best friend is a priest down the street and I called her this week and said, "What are you preaching on?" And she said, "The beginning of Matthew 11 is actually my favorite scripture in the whole Bible." She said, "What I love about the beginning of Matthew 11 is that we find John the Baptist in prison." He's in prison for talking about and calling out Herod—Herod's exploitation and domination and intimidation over those that are the most stepped on, the most oppressed, the most silenced. Herod wants to silence John. So, he throws him in prison. John, the one who baptized Jesus, Jesus's first cousin, the one who leaped in the womb when he heard about this Messiah, this savior. John has been the one this whole time beckoning people, telling them, "The kingdom of heaven is near." Maybe you have a friend like John who talks with such intensity and urgency, calling out, "I'm a voice in the wilderness saying, 'Prepare the way of the Lord.'" And yet here he's starting to doubt that Jesus is really who he says he is. John, sitting in prison, calls out to the disciples, maybe behind bars, maybe through a letter, and says, "Can you go to my cousin, the Messiah, and can you ask him this?"
Are you really the one that we've been waiting for? Or is there another one? More specifically, he says, "Are you the one who is to come, or are we to wait for another?" The disciples scurry off to do what John asks them. And they get to Jesus and they say, "Hey, your cousin John has a question for you. Are you really the Messiah or are we waiting for somebody else?" Because John's in prison. Because things don't look like they've been changed much. Because we know you've been performing some miracles and healing people, but we still see people living on the streets. We still see people oppressed. We still see people who don't feel welcomed to church. So, are you really the one or are we going to wait for another? And Jesus says this to them. And I wonder if he says it with a little bit of exasperation at his cousin, because you get a little annoyed with your cousins sometimes.
He says, "What do you think I've been doing? Am I the one to come? The blind see. The deaf hear. The lame are healed. The poor are brought good news. The sick are cleansed. What more do you want from me, John? Am I the one to come? What more could I possibly do to show you that the kingdom of heaven is near and that those who have been unnoticed, untalked to, untouched, unseen—those are the folks that I am directly seeing?"
Who else are you waiting for? But we've got to remember that at this point, John, who is locked up, he thinks he's going to die in there. Where is this one who calls himself a savior? Is he going to save me? Now, there's fear and there's doubt even for the one who has, I think, been the most devout. And that's why my best friend loves this text, because even for those of us who are capital F, Faithful, we still got those moments. We look around and think, is Jesus really the one or are we waiting for another? Because things don't always seem like they are healed and transformed and that the kingdom of heaven actually is near. So Jesus responds with all of the things he has been doing. And then, I think in a moment where he is still feeling a little exasperated with his cousin, a little frustrated that people still wouldn't believe that he is the Messiah despite the life he has lived, he turns to the crowds and he says this. "Well then, what did you go out into the wilderness to see? A reed shaken by the winds? No. What did you go out to see? Did you go out to see someone wearing soft robes?"
Did you go out to see a prophet? What did you go out to see? Someone who's dressed in soft robes is out living in royal palaces. That's not me. Someone who is so easily shaken by the winds of resistance and violence. That's not me. You said you went out to see a prophet and I gave you one. John the Baptist, my cousin who has prepared a way for me. Y'all remember him? He is Elijah. Scripture says he is prophetic. We have known he was going to come. He is here. What more do you want? Jesus is a little ticked off right now. And then he starts to wonder. He starts to get a little more ticked. "Let anyone with ears listen. I'm so sick of this generation." He says, "This generation is like children in the marketplace playing the flute, and you didn't dance. They are mourning and you didn't weep." Here's what I think he's saying here. I think he's saying it doesn't matter what kind of messengers God sends. No one wants to hear from prophets and teachers. No one is good enough for y'all. Because let's take John the Baptist for a second. John the Baptist is a pretty intense guy, right? He's too stern and demanding for them. He calls out people and calls them a brood of vipers. He's ascetic. He's eating locusts in the wilderness and honey. He's a little bit of a wild child. Maybe he's got that crazy hair that you've seen on your uncle at some point. He is urgent. He is on the go. He is shouting, "The kingdom of heaven is right under your nose if you would just stop to see it." And yet, what do they do? They call him demonic. And they call him deranged and they lock him up. Someone who takes to the streets with the bullhorn. Someone who is marching and advocating with the oppressed. They can't handle it. Well, then we have Jesus, who has a pretty different approach. Jesus who wants there to be even more wine at weddings. He wants the party to keep going. Jesus who's sharing meals with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus, who is rest for the weary, more of a pastoral approach, a one-on-one approach. And that's not even good enough for them, because they say he's eating and drinking with sinners and saints. He's a drunk. He's a glutton. So, we've got John, who's a little too serious for them. And they say, "Why won't you just dance when we play the flute, John? Lighten up." And then we've got Jesus, who's a little too joyful, who's a little too inclusive for them. And they say, "Why aren't you weeping and why aren't you grieving with us?" They are very, very different kinds of cousins. They couldn't be more different. And yet, neither of their approaches to sharing the gospel is enough for God's people.
One is too radical. One is too soft and pastoral. So I wonder, for me and you, what prophets or messengers or teachers are we thinking are too much or not enough? Would we ever really be satisfied with the way that someone is sharing the gospel? Feels like the bar is set so high for the people of God. And what's interesting is what happens next, something that Erica didn't read because it's not in the lectionary. For those of you who don't know, the lectionary is a three-year cycle of passages that most Protestants all over the world preach from Sunday to Sunday. So, you could be here in Nashville hearing Matthew 11, or—who's got a World Cup game today?—you could be in Mexico City and you might be hearing a different Margie preaching about Matthew 11. We are assigned these passages as part of the liturgical year so that me and Wesley aren't always choosing what we want to say based on how we're feeling, but that we examine scripture for that week and allow it to breathe life into this place. So the people who pick the passages sometimes leave things out of them, and it's important for us to literally read between the lines and wonder why certain things are included in the lectionary. So the next part of what Jesus says is not actually assigned for today. And I wonder if you can guess why.
He says, "I don't like what these cities are doing." He says, "Woe to you, for the deeds of power have been done in your cities, and you still don't repent and you still don't get it." Woe to you, Nashville. Woe to you, Smyrna. Woe to you, Murfreesboro. Who else I got in here? Call it out. Who did I miss? Woe to you, La Vergne. Anybody else? Woe to you, Mount Juliet. You don't get it. You don't get it. Things aren't okay. I am walking around your cities, sharing the good news of God, centering the voices that are the most unheard, and you aren't changing your ways. Woe to you, he says again and again and again. Why wasn't that included? I think sometimes it's hard for us to hear from a judgy Jesus. That sometimes Jesus's judgment might remind us of things we heard growing up in churches that hurt us. That Jesus's judgment makes us a little itchy and uncomfortable. But as one theologian said, the concept of judgment here is just people refusing to show mercy. The concept of judgment here is just people who don't show mercy. They don't show mercy to others. They don't show mercy to themselves. They don't spread mercy around society. Ain't no mercy in Mount Juliet. Ain't no mercy in La Vergne. Sorry, I forgot y'all. Why was that left out? So, as you can tell, Jesus is a little heated right now. He's heated that no message is good enough for them, whether it's John or Jesus. He's heated at the people for not getting it. He's heated at the cities who aren't transforming the systems and the ways of doing things based on what he is saying and doing. And you know, when you get really worked up at your child or your friend or your partner or a parent, and then you kind of go, let me stop myself. Let me pull back. And I love what Jesus does here. He's kind of been on this righteous tear, maybe channeling a little bit of his cousin. And then he stops and he breathes and he prays. How many of us stop and breathe and pray after we have gone on a little bit of a riff about mercy and judgment and righteousness? He stops and he breathes and he prays. And this is what he prays. He starts by thanking God. Not a bad idea. He thanks God for revealing God's wisdom. Not to the theologically educated, not to the master's degrees, not to the ones who have read their Bibles. He thanks God for the ones with whom wisdom has been hidden. Where wisdom has been revealed, he says, to the infants. And we might think of that as kids. And I think that's true, because we know children are wise beyond all get out. But he's also talking here in the Greek about spiritual infants. Maybe people who are new to faith, or maybe front porch people who tell a story of the gospel that's really accessible versus using these lofty words to impress. And if we ever do that, come on and call us out.
He thanks God for sharing God's wisdom with the spiritual infants. How relieving is that, that we don't need to know how to pronounce everything in here? That we don't have to prove to ourselves or anyone else that we've got all the answers, that we know all the fancy jargon about the Christian faith, but that sometimes we might feel like these little kids with wonder in our eyes at what's happening here. And that's where wisdom is revealed. So he says, "Thank you, God, for revealing it to the least theologically sophisticated," those with, as Lance Pape says, the fewest illusions about their own power of understanding, who know how to receive Jesus in humility and so gain access to the one that he came to reveal.
And after praying, maybe he sits down. Maybe he sits down like he does right before the Sermon on the Mount. Maybe he gets at eye level with the little ones. He says, "Come to me, all of you who are weary and heavy burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me. For I'm gentle and I'm humble, and you will find rest for your souls. My yoke is easy and my burden is light." What I've learned about this passage this week from a lot of different writers is that he's actually not talking to me here. He's not talking to folks who are middle class or upper middle class who are just kind of stressed out. He is talking to those who are weary in their bodies. Those who have been stepped on. Those who are working right now because they can't get a break to go to church. Those who don't have the resources, the time, the money to take Sabbath. Those who have been burdened by systems that forget them, that deport them, that dehumanize them, that ignore them. He has just called out cities who are not getting it right and then looked at the ones who are so burdened, whose bodies are quite literally weary, and says, "I will give you rest." Imagine,
imagine driving around, walking around, and everyone you see who looks tired, who seems cranky, who isn't giving you grace—imagine that Jesus comes to them and says, "I've got you. Rest in me."
Because what I love about the next passage is that then he gets in trouble for doing stuff on the Sabbath. So, that's a little foreshadowing for those of you who haven't read Matthew 12.
I love what he says: "Learn from me." And here, he's not talking about being a stern teacher. Has anybody ever had a stern teacher? Someone who holds you to such a high expectation that you're always a little bit nervous you're in trouble. He says, "Learn from me." And here he means this. He doesn't say read further or mull over some theological ideas, but incarnate and embody for yourselves a kingdom of God that we know you're doing by the way you're talking and the way you're acting. That's what I mean by learn from me. I mean imitate me. I mean follow me. I mean come to me and see what I'm up to. What I'm up to is an easy yoke, an easy burden, a light, gentle, and humble spirit.
What does it look like to really believe that when we come to Jesus, some of the burdens that we carry really could be lifted a little bit? What does it look like to hear these words and feel convicted that maybe it's our responsibility to lift those burdens for others—when we do Room in the Inn, when we offer grants to those who are providing easy yoke for those in our community?
So that's our passage. That's Matthew 11 for us. It begins with a man in prison. Begins with a man who has done everything right and wonders, "How am I here? Am I gonna die? Are you really the Messiah like I have been saying my whole ministry? Or are we waiting on someone else?" It begins with Jesus trying to convince his own cousin, the one who baptized him, "Look at what I've done. How could you still not believe?"
And it goes on to a man who says, "No message, no messenger is going to be good enough for y'all." Whether you want to dance or whether you want to mourn, whether you want a prophet that's out in the streets or whether you want a pastor that simply sits around tables and shares meals with fishermen and the people collecting your tax forms. And then he calls out cities, a part that we don't want to read, makes us a little bit uncomfy, before praying and before providing rest. What a complicated and a little bit chaotic arc all in one chapter.
So I wonder who you feel like you are in this story today. Are you sitting next to John the Baptist in doubt, suffering, looking around and wondering? Is Jesus among us? Doesn't always feel like it. Are you Jesus in this story, who says, "I am doing as much as I can. How do you not see it?" Are you the people in the marketplace expecting too much?
Are you someone who looks around at your city and says, "Woe to you. What are we doing? How do we not get it?" Are you a person of prayer who is giving thanks to God this week that God shows up among the kids, God shows up among the people with a spiritual faith that feels a little bit like an infant? Or do you need rest? Are you weary as you sit in that pew? Or are you the one providing it?
One chapter in Matthew has so much to say to us today about cousins and complicated family, about prophets and pastors. But this text doesn't happen in a royal palace. This text doesn't happen with somebody wearing soft robes that are made of velvet and are fancy. This text is happening to two men doing their best to speak out to us in all kinds of ways just to say: if we look close, and it might be right under our nose, the kingdom of heaven is here. It is near. It is for those who feel burdened. If we can believe it.
Amen.