Just no pleasin'
- Gary Fritsch
- Sep 16
- 2 min read
I think perhaps we encounter it most often with children around meals. Would you like some of this? NO. Would you like something else? NO. Are you telling me you're not hungry? NO. So you want something to eat? NO. I could go on and on. But I think we also know that it's not just kids. Sometimes we get stuck in a mode (or a mood) where nothing will please us. Sometimes we can attach that to a particular person or thing. Nothing THEY do or say will be satisfactory. This is where Jesus finds Himself in today's Gospel - and He quietly challenges them to consider that they are being a bit obstinate.
It made me wonder, what is it that makes us act this way? In some cases, I think often we are confronted with a number of options that fail to satisfy us. Now the real question is: "why do they fail to satisfy us?" If we are honest, we will probably find that some of the options that we are being asked to consider expose an area of our thinking that we know deep down to be flawed.
To return to the food example, I can be offered a number of fine choices, but I have some particular thing in mind (and it's not the healthy meal). I am struggling with the deeper desire for comfort food, or sweets and my intellect which tells me that those things are not good for me. Our hearts know that something exists that will be completely satisfying, both intellectually (no guilt) and physically (mmmm...). To jump out of the food example, let's consider young people and their faith.
For those who have grown up in a Christian home, they know that a promiscuous, party lifestyle is not good for them (physically or spiritually), but as they wander off to college, these things can become very attractive to them. While they are engaged in these things, they will often reject religion or even God, because they can't have it both ways, can they? Or can they?
This is where Jesus, if you consider all of His teachings, offers something different. We think we need to be free of all of our bad habits and sinning before we come to Him. He tells us: come now! Share with me your struggles, invite me into your sin - I know exactly what it feels like because I have borne ALL OF THE SIN OF THE WORLD. Through this, He can build in us a trust that He has something better, something more complete in store for us. He has a menu item that is sweet and comforting and won't make us fat. This item might be in the next world for us, but He will give us a taste of it here.
Allow Jesus to please you with what He offers. A life with Him lacks nothing.
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