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Jesus saw children in the marketplace playing a familiar game. Some pretended to play a wedding. They played the flute. Nobody danced.
Then they changed the game. They pretended to hold a funeral. They wailed. Nobody cried.
Jesus said, “That is what this generation is like.”
Jesus often did that. He saw the birds of the air and taught us the truth about God’s care.
This time, he saw children playing and taught us the truth about this generation.
What did Jesus see in his generation?
I DON’T CARE!
That was what Jesus saw. Not ignorance but indifference. They simply did not care about what God was doing.
God sent John the Baptist to awaken them and Jesus to save them. But they didn’t care what God was doing.
Instead of welcoming John the Baptist, they dismissed him, saying, he was weird. As Simon said last week, he was living in the desert, eating locusts. His fashion sense was weird. He wore clothes made of camel’s hair.
They dismissed Jesus, saying, he was a friend of sinners. He was eating and drinking with sinners. He was a glutton and a drunkard, they said.
They didn’t care what God wanted to do through these people. They dismissed them, criticizing their lifestyles.
Despite God’s persistent attempts to reach them, they refused to open their hearts. They dismissed God. They didn’t bother to seek God.
There is a poignant Hasidic parable.
There was a grandson of a rabbi. One day he came to the grandfather, crying. The grandfather asked, “What’s wrong?”
He said, we were playing hide and seek and nobody came to look for me. They all went home.
The Rabbi wept and replied: “God hides Himself, but no one comes looking for Him.”
That was what Jesus’ generation was like. That is what this generation is like.
We live in a culture marked by apathy. Many people no longer care deeply about God, about others, or even about the truth.
People have become disconnected. They cannot feel what others feel. They cannot feel what God feels.
Feeling what God feels? That is a foreign concept to many people. How can you feel God?
But when you look at the Old Testament, you see prophets feeling what God felt.
The prophets did not simply speak God’s words. They felt God. They felt God’s anger, God’s disappointment, God’s joy, and God’s sadness.
People often call Jeremiah the “weeping prophet.” He felt God’s sorrow. Moses felt God’s anger.
And they expressed that. That’s what the books of the prophets are.
They felt God.
Jesus Himself felt life more deeply than anyone who has ever lived.
He rejoiced at a wedding. He wept at the tomb of Lazarus. He was moved with compassion for the crowds. He wept over Jerusalem. He felt the pain of sinners. On the cross He cried, “My God, my God, why have you forsaken me?”
Jesus was fully alive because He was completely open to God and completely open to people.
Apathy is a feeling of not feeling. That’s what many people experience. Numbness.
The real spirituality is to feel our life. True spirituality is to restore our feeling. It is to feel what God feels. To feel what is going on in myself. To feel what others feel.
As St. Paul said,
Rejoice with those who rejoice; mourn with those who mourn. (Romans 12:15)
I said at the retreat, when you receive the Holy Spirit, everything comes alive. Your feelings come alive. Even the feeling of pain comes alive. Of course, the feeling of joy also comes alive.
There was a season in my life when I became emotionally numb. I could perform weddings, but I could not feel the joy. I could conduct funerals, but I could not feel the grief. That frightened me. I realized something inside me had gone silent.
Interestingly, the children’s play Jesus quoted was the game of wedding and funeral.
I see people are very smart. They know how to solve complex problems.
And yet, they don’t know how to feel. They don’t understand the depth of what others feel.
We have become experts at information, but beginners in compassion. We know how to calculate, but we have forgotten how to weep.
We have become smarter than ever. But not wiser. We know more. Yet we feel less.
Jesus, at the end, said this.
But wisdom is proved right by her deeds. (Matthew 11:19)
Wisdom is recognized by the fruit it produces. We are smart, but we don’t feel anything. When you have true wisdom, you will understand the depth of how others feel.
Life is not just about how to solve problems. Life is about how you feel your life.
When you start feeling your life, your life comes alive. Your joy becomes real joy. Your empathy becomes real. Others feel your genuine care.
It’s not just what you say, but you feel for the person you care about.
Ultimately, you even feel what God feels.
We have created our own prison and we lock ourselves up in that prison. We don’t open the door for anyone. We don’t want to be hurt. Nobody cares and why should I care? I just have to take care of myself.
That is not how Jesus wants us to live.
That’s why he gave us the only commandment. It is an antidote to the poison that ruined people’s hearts.
Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind. Love your neighbor as yourself. (Matthew 22:37-39)
These are not two commandments, but one. Love is engaging with people and engaging with God. Love is to feel what others feel and to feel what God feels.
This generation may say, “I don’t care.” But followers of Christ cannot live that way.
Open your heart to Christ. Open your heart to your neighbor. Open your heart to life itself. Then you will discover real joy, real compassion, and real communion with God.
Open your heart and let Jesus come in.
Jesus said,
Here I am! I stand at the door and knock. If anyone hears my voice and opens the door, I will come in and eat with that person, and they with me. (Revelation 3:20)
Open your heart and engage with your life. Engage with others and engage with God. Your life will become full.
Joy becomes real. Compassion becomes real. God becomes real. And you become fully alive.
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