When I was around three years old the army assigned my dad to Korea for about eighteen months. During that time my mom, sister, and I lived in my mom’s hometown. Shortly after Dad came home I was – to use Jesus’ imagery in today’s gospel (Matthew 11:16-19, 25-30) – acting like one of those kids who wouldn’t dance when the music was played and wouldn’t mourn when the dirge was sung. I was sitting on the sidelines of life. I don’t remember that happening but I’ve heard the story from my parents enough times that it feels like I remember it. 

“There’s nothing to do,” I whined. I was bored. My parents made suggestions but nothing satisfied. Nothing interested me. “Do you want to play outside?” “No.” “Go get your coloring book.” “No.” “How about your cars and trucks?” “No.” Every suggestion was met with a no.

Finally, my dad said, “You know, Mike, the kids in Korea didn’t have any of the games and toys you do but I saw them playing with sticks and they were having fun.” At that point, as Mom and Dad tell the story, I burst into tears and said, “But I don’t have a stick.”

Go ahead and laugh but I bet you know what that’s like. Haven’t you spent time looking for the stick that would fulfill, satisfy, make you happy, give your life meaning and purpose? I have, and not just as a four year old. Sometimes I still do. Over the years I’ve looked for the stick in my work, relationships, studying and reading another book, getting ordained, being successful, seeking approval, meeting expectations. Where have you looked for the stick? What is the stick for you today?

I wonder if that’s why the children in today’s gospel will neither dance nor mourn. They don’t want to be happy but they don’t want to be sad either. They’ve said, “No.” They’re looking for a stick. And they’re missing the life before them.

We might think their story and my story are just more examples of spoiled kids, fickle kids, kids who can’t make up their mind and commit to something. But I think it’s more than that. I think it’s a story about having “a dislocated heart”* and that happens in every generation. It’s a story about people who have become disconnected from one another, from themselves, from life, from God.

The dislocated heart is always looking for the answer, the stick, and usually looking in the wrong places. For much of my life I thought if I could find the stick, if I could just get the answer, I would have what I wanted. Maybe you’ve thought that too. Then you find the stick and realize it’s not the stick you were looking for. Haven’t there been times when you finally got what you wanted or achieved what you worked so hard for only to discover that it did not satisfy or fulfill? It wasn’t the stick you thought it was. It wasn’t the right size, the right shape, the right wood. I think the problem is that we feel the stirring within us but we confuse it with and settle for the stick.

More often than not looking for the stick has kept me stuck. I usually didn’t find the stick. Instead, I became a stick in the mud. So have the children in today’s gospel. It’s not really about the stick. It’s about the stirring.

What if the stick is not an answer to be found, but a question to be followed? What if Jesus is stirring up some questions for us? What if Jesus is saying to us, “You don’t want to dance and your don’t want to mourn. So tell me, what really matters to you?” It’s a question for every generation, for you, and for me. 

He isn’t asking about the ordinary everyday matters and concerns of life. He’s asking about the deeper concerns, the ultimate concerns.

• What really matters most to you today? 
• What is stirring your life today?
• What is moving you to get up from your chair and dance?
• What is moving you to tears and breaking your heart?

Whatever your answers to those questions might be they are the music in your life and the song being sung. They are stirring up something within you. And they’re asking for a response. 

Haven’t there been times when you heard music and then noticed your foot tapping the floor or your hips beginning to sway? Haven’t there been times when you heard a song or one popped into your head and the next thing you know you are singing or humming along? That’s the kind of stirring I’m talking about. It invites and woos us. It wants our participation. Let me give you a couple of examples.

Yesterday at the consecration of David G. Read as our next bishop he was asked, “Are you persuaded that God has called you to the office of bishop?” (Book of Common Prayer, 517) That’s a question about the stirring. It’s so important that it’s the very first question asked of the bishop-elect. The Church is asking, “Do you feel the stirring and is that why you are here today?” And he said, “I am so persuaded.” He affirmed the stirring in his life. And it’s his ongoing response to the stirring that will allow him to pastor, guide, and love us. I hope he never settles for just holding the crozier (that’s a fancy church word for a bishop’s stick). I hope we never settle for just holding the stick.

There is a group of people in this parish who are sharing, discussing, and discovering what it means to age. They are not looking for a fountain of youth, that’s just another illusory stick. They are feeling the stirring of wisdom, experience, and insight that come with aging and beginning to respond to the stirring. I can’t wait to see the gifts they share with us. I wonder how they might stir up our lives.

There is no magic stick that fixes or fulfills, but there is always a stirring waiting to come to fruition. There is for Bishop Read, for the wise elders of this parish, for you, and for me.

There also was a stirring for the children in today’s gospel but for whatever reasons they would not or could not feel it and they said, “Let’s sit this one out.” Let’s you and me not do that. Let’s not sit this one out.

What is stirring deep within you today? What really matters most to you? And what are you doing about it?

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Image Credit: “Toddler playing with a stick” by Ivan Radic is licensed under CC BY 2.0.
* Caputo, What to Believe? Twelve Brief Lessons in Radical Theology, 159.