The Unpleasable Generation Text: Matthew 11:16-19
Introduction: The World's Rigged Game
We live in a world that is constitutionally incapable of being pleased with God. It is a world of petulant children, sitting in the marketplace, insisting that God play by their rules. They want a god, to be sure, but they want one they can manage. They want a god who will dance when they pipe a happy tune and mourn when they sing a sad one. They want a god who conforms to their expectations, who fits neatly into their categories, who doesn't disrupt their parties or challenge their pieties. In short, they want a god who is not God.
This is the very heart of the issue Jesus addresses in our text. He looks out at "this generation" and sees a spiritual sickness, a deep-seated rebellion that manifests itself as a perpetual, contradictory discontent. This is not a new problem, but it is a perennial one. Every generation that rejects the overtures of God does so in precisely the same way. They set up a game with rules that cannot be won. They create a "heads I win, tails you lose" scenario for the Almighty. If God sends a prophet of austere holiness, they dismiss him as a killjoy, a fanatic, a demoniac. If God sends His own Son, full of grace and truth, feasting with sinners, they dismiss Him as a libertine, a glutton, a friend of the rabble.
The world is a master of this kind of critique. It is the spirit of the age to find fault with God's methods, whatever they may be. The legalist is offended by grace, and the antinomian is offended by law. The ascetic is offended by feasting, and the hedonist is offended by fasting. But the problem is not with the messengers or the methods. The problem is with the heart that refuses to repent and believe. The problem is a generation that loves its sin more than it loves the Savior, and so it will invent any excuse, no matter how contradictory, to reject Him.
Jesus unmasks this game. He exposes the childish, churlish nature of unbelief. And in doing so, He shows us that the wisdom of God is not subject to the fickle opinions of the marketplace. God's wisdom is vindicated, not by popular vote, but by its results, by its fruit, by its children. This passage is a sharp rebuke to all who would stand in judgment over God, and a profound comfort to all who have been misunderstood and slandered for following Him.
The Text
"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’ 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, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
(Matthew 11:16-19 LSB)
The Petulant Pipers (v. 16-17)
Jesus begins with a diagnostic question and a devastatingly accurate parable.
"But to what shall I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces, who call out to the other children, and say, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.’" (Matthew 11:16-17)
Jesus is speaking about "this generation," by which He means His contemporaries, the people who were the eyewitnesses of the ministries of both John the Baptist and Himself. This is a generation uniquely without excuse. They have seen the fulfillment of all the prophets. The kingdom has come upon them. And how do they respond? Like spoiled children.
The marketplace was the center of public life, the place of commerce and social interaction. And here, Jesus sees a group of children who want to control the games. They try to initiate a game of "wedding," playing a happy tune on the flute, but their playmates refuse to dance. So they switch games. They try to initiate a game of "funeral," singing a mournful dirge, but their playmates refuse to mourn. The key here is to see who is complaining. It is the children who are trying to dictate the terms of the game. It is "this generation" who are the petulant pipers and the wailing whiners. They are the ones saying, "We set the agenda. We determine the appropriate mood. And you, John, and you, Jesus, are not playing along."
This is the posture of the unregenerate heart. It wants to be the one calling the tunes. It wants a religion that serves its own emotional and social preferences. If they are in a mood for celebration, they want a god who affirms their revelry. If they are in a mood for solemnity, they want a god who validates their somber piety. But God will not be managed. He initiates. He sets the terms. He sends His messengers with His message, in His timing, and man is called to respond, not to direct.
The world's complaint is that God is not predictable, not tame. He is not playing their game. They piped, and God did not dance to their tune. They wailed, and God did not mourn on their cue. This refusal to submit to the world's agenda is what generates the slander that follows.
The Impossible Standard (v. 18-19a)
Jesus now applies the parable with surgical precision, showing how "this generation" used two completely contradictory standards to reject two completely different messengers.
"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, ‘Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’" (Matthew 11:18-19a LSB)
First, consider John the Baptist. He was the dirge. He was the call to mourning. He was an ascetic, a Nazirite from birth, living in the wilderness, eating locusts and wild honey. His message was sharp, severe, and uncompromising: "Repent, for the kingdom of heaven is at hand!" He was the funeral song personified, calling Israel to mourn for its sins. And how did the children in the marketplace respond? Did they weep? No. They said, "He has a demon." They dismissed his radical holiness as demonic derangement. His intensity was too much. His separation from their comfortable, compromised world was an offense. They refused to mourn.
So God, in His wisdom, sends a different kind of messenger. He sends His Son. And Jesus is the flute song. He is the call to the wedding feast. He comes eating and drinking. He goes to parties. He turns water into wine, and not just any wine, but the best wine. He dines with the very people the religious establishment despised: tax collectors and sinners. He embodies the grace and joy of the kingdom. His message is, "The kingdom is here! The feast is ready! Come and celebrate!"
And how did the children in the marketplace respond to this? Did they dance? No. They leveled the opposite accusation. "Behold, a gluttonous man and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!" They took His grace and twisted it into licentiousness. They took His fellowship with the lost and called it compromise. They took the joy of the kingdom and slandered it as worldliness. They refused to dance.
Do you see the diabolical genius of it? The generation that condemned John for being too severe then condemned Jesus for being too gracious. They condemned the dirge for being too sad and the flute for being too happy. This is not a principled objection. This is the raw, naked rebellion of a heart that has already decided it will not submit. The issue was never the method. The issue was the message. Both John and Jesus called for repentance and faith, and "this generation" wanted neither. So they shot the messengers.
The Final Verdict (v. 19b)
Jesus concludes with a proverb that serves as the final court of appeal, the ultimate standard by which all things are judged.
"Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.” (Matthew 11:19b LSB)
The world may render its contradictory and self-serving verdicts, but there is a higher court. Divine wisdom, personified here, does not need the approval of the petulant children in the marketplace. Wisdom is not validated by popular opinion polls or by the religious establishment. Wisdom is vindicated, or justified, by her deeds, her works, her results. In Luke's gospel, the saying is, "Wisdom is vindicated by all her children" (Luke 7:35). The two amount to the same thing. The fruit proves the goodness of the tree.
What were the deeds of John's ministry? A nation was stirred to repentance. The way was prepared for the Lord. Multitudes confessed their sins and were baptized. These were the children of his wisdom, and they vindicated his ministry.
And what were the deeds of Jesus' ministry? The blind see, the lame walk, lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, and the good news is preached to the poor (Matt. 11:5). Lives were transformed. Sinners were forgiven. Tax collectors like Matthew and Zacchaeus were turned into disciples and philanthropists. Prostitutes wept at His feet in gratitude. These were the deeds, these were the children, that vindicated His wisdom. The slander of the Pharisees meant nothing in the face of a man born blind who could now see.
This is a foundational principle. You judge a ministry, a message, a man, not by the accusations of his enemies, but by the fruit he produces. Does it produce repentance? Does it produce transformed lives? Does it produce love for God and neighbor? Does it produce freedom from sin? The wisdom of God, embodied in the austere call of John and the gracious invitation of Jesus, produces righteous children. The foolishness of "this generation" produced only self-righteousness, slander, and ultimately, judgment.
Conclusion: Whose Tune Are You Dancing To?
The question this text puts to every one of us is this: who is piping the tune in your life? Are you, like the world, sitting in the marketplace, insisting that God conform to your expectations? Do you find yourself critiquing God's methods, offended by His severity one day and by His grace the next?
Many today are still playing this game. They reject the parts of the Bible that speak of judgment and hell because it is too much of a dirge. They want a God who only pipes happy tunes. Others reject the parts of the Bible that speak of grace, feasting, and Christian liberty, accusing those who enjoy God's good gifts of being worldly. They only want to hear the dirge. Both are children in the marketplace, refusing to respond to God on His terms.
The gospel comes to us as both a dirge and a flute song. It is a dirge because it tells us the truth about our sin. It calls us to mourn, to repent, to die to ourselves. We must come to the end of our own righteousness and grieve over our rebellion against a holy God. If you have never mourned for your sin, you have not heard the first note of the gospel's song.
But the gospel is also a flute song, a wedding invitation. It tells us that Christ has died for our sins, that we are forgiven, that we have been adopted as sons, and that an eternal feast awaits us. It calls us to dance, to rejoice, to celebrate the unsearchable riches of His grace. If your Christianity is only mourning, you have not yet heard the melody of redemption.
The children of wisdom are those who have learned to respond to both. They are those who have wept at the foot of the cross and who now dance in the joy of the resurrection. They have heard the dirge of the law and the flute of the gospel. They are not trying to get God to play their game. They have surrendered, and have learned the steps to His. And in their transformed lives, in their repentance and their joy, the wisdom of God is vindicated before a watching, and still very unpleasable, world.