Meet the Parents

Sharing our love for Jesus with the world

07/06/2021

Mt 9:32-38 A demoniac who could not speak was brought to Jesus, and when the demon was driven out the mute man spoke. The crowds were amazed and said, “Nothing like this has ever been seen in Israel.” But the Pharisees said,“He drives out demons by the prince of demons.” Jesus went around to all the towns and villages, teaching in their synagogues, proclaiming the Gospel of the Kingdom, and curing every disease and illness. At the sight of the crowds, his heart was moved with pity for them because they were troubled and abandoned, like sheep without a shepherd. Then he said to his disciples, “The harvest is abundant but the laborers are few; so ask the master of the harvest to send out laborers for his harvest.”

I find it very hard – if not impossible – to convince people about the truth of Christianity. Have you found that hard also? It feels like trying to tell someone about "falling in love" but that other person has never himself fallen in love. Someone in love sees everything (including himself) differently, that is, through rose-colored glasses. Love makes the whole world look, well, lovely. Sometimes we go so far as to say “love is blind” because it actually causes you NOT to see something, like defects or deficiencies in the one you love.

Maybe that is why page after page of the New Testament talks about love. The inspired authors are not trying to convince us about the truth of Christianity. Rather, they are inviting us to fall in love with Jesus Christ. Each New Testament writer is saying, in his own unique way, let me tell you about this Person named Jesus, with whom I am madly in love.

And I hope once you get to know him, you will fall helpless in love with him, too. The authors, therefore, are like the young girl who brings her boyfriend home for the first time to meet her parents. She hopes they will love him almost as much as she loves him. Every Christian trying to tell the world about Christ finds himself or herself in the position of that young girl.

This perspective may help make sense of today’s gospel and Jesus’ miracles, and why people respond so differently. A mute man possessed by a demon is brought to Jesus, who miraculously expels the demon and restores the man to full health. Now notice the reaction of the crowds versus that of the Pharisees. The crowds are amazed and start to fall in love with Jesus. The Pharisees say skeptically: “He drives out demons by the prince of demons.”

The Pharisees were like the father who had just met his daughter’s boyfriend, and could see nothing good about him. I am reminded of that song by Rodney Atkins, where the father says: ‘Now y’all run along and have some fun / I’ll see you when you get back, / Bet I’ll be up all night / Still cleaning this gun.” In the case of Jesus, though, the Pharisees actually used their “gun” and crucified him. And Jesus willingly died for his girlfriend, his Bride, the Church.

In other words, the gospel of Matthew, indeed all the 27 New Testament books, are not interested in convincing us about the truth of Christianity. Rather, they are trying to tell us about Jesus, whom they love passionately, with the hope that we too will fall hopelessly in love with him.

My friends, the modern world has heard all the arguments for the case of Christianity, and they have not been convinced. If we tell them about miracles, they scoff in our face with scientific certainty that miracles cannot happen and they are only illusions for the gullible. If we present the historical record, they retort we have doctored and distorted the original documents. If we argue from the Bible and stack up Scripture quotations as high as the Empire State Building, they can come up with other Scriptures that veer in the opposite vein.

And so it goes for the arguments from reason, and from nature, and from beauty and so forth. The modern world – and perhaps not a few people in our own families – have heard the case for Christianity and they are left unconvinced. They stand in the position of that that skeptical father who is thoroughly unimpressed with his daughter’s boyfriend.

So, what recourse remains for us? We should do what that daughter does, and what all the New Testament writers do: we become shy, and we smile sheepishly, and we stammer, and we struggle to tell others about this Someone we love. And even more importantly, we tell them about how much he loves us.

I realize this may not be the most persuasive path to convince the world about Christianity. But that is not what we are supposed to do. Christianity is not in the first place a question about truth; it is a matter of love. Truth comes second. Therefore, Christianity only requires one thing from us, namely, that we ourselves fall in love with Jesus.

Praised be Jesus Christ!