Matthew 11: 16-19, 25-30
Franklin Roosevelt, the 32nd President of the United States from 1933-1945, said "This generation has a rendezvous with destiny." Really? What generation are we talking about?
For some it may be an easy answer, because it's always been a national pastime of older generations --- ragging on the younger generation and complaining about their lack of this, that or something or other. For example listen to this quote: "The children now love luxury; they have bad manners, contempt for authority; they show disrespect for elders and love chatter in place of exercise. Children are now tyrants, not the servants of their households. They no longer rise when elders enter the room. They contradict their parents, chatter before company, gobble up dainties at the table, cross their legs, and tyrannize their teachers." That quote is from the Athenian classical Greek Philosopher Socrates recorded by his student Plato from over 2400 years ago.
So complaints of others aside, which generation has a rendezvous with destiny? Is it not the generation between the Boomers and Generation X, those born in 1961, my generation --- the generation of President Barack Obama --- is it not our time? Or is another generation entirely?
Well as some of you know, the quote that I shared from Franklin Roosevelt is the opening to the 1998 book by former NBC news anchor Tom Brokaw, who comes flat-out and tells us who gets the nod as "The Greatest Generation." In the book by the same title, Brokaw argues that it is the young GI Generation that stormed the beaches of Normandy in World War II, that went to work in American factories, that farmed fence post to fence post, that had a garden in every yard, that saved scrap metal, lived with rationing, bought bonds to support the war effort -- that this is the greatest generation.
These are the ones, women and men, the living and the dead, who willingly gave their lives, who gave their limbs, to the enduring nightmare of real war --- World War II --- the war that saved the world from fascism, the war that protected the home of the brave, the land of the free so we might grow up in safety, democracy and prosperity.
But you know what, with all due respect on this 4th of July weekend, I believe that we need to be reminded that the GI generation is not the greatest generation.
Although Brokaw argues that the young generation of 20 to 30 year old of World War II not only won the War but also changed things. For example, Brokaw points out that women 's opportunities got started when Rosie the Riveter went to work 30 years before they thought of calling it "Women's Liberation." Women serving in military units in Iraq and Afghanistan are a direct and traceable result of women serving in the WAVES and WACS and the front-line nurses of WW II. Brokaw quotes a woman by the name of Margaret Ray Ringenberg saying, "My father said, 'I didn't get to serve and I don't have any boys, so I guess you'll have to do it'"(page 163). Margaret took her father's words to heart and went out to fly all sorts of aircraft. Ringenberg, Brokaw suggests, was typical of ordinary patriotic women of her day. The country was in trouble, there was a need, there was a job to do, and so the men and women stood up and did it. And when these boys and girls came home from the war, they were not necessarily eager to stay put -- having seen the world.
Nevertheless they are not the greatest generation.
Did you know or have you every realized that most congregations have a range of five generations. So which was, is or will be the greatest? Which generation stands out in distinction?
Actually, Brokaw's book aside, it's not that it's so difficult to answer, because it is a bad question. Not only is it a bad question it is the wrong question, because from a Christian point of view, the greatest generation is not people born between a given set of years, but the people re-born in any age, at any age. The question is not of generational greatness, but re-generational importance.
"To what shall I compare this generation?" asks Jesus in today's gospel. The problem with "this generation," Jesus says, is that they listen neither to John the Baptist nor to Jesus. On one hand, John's austere lifestyle led people to accuse him of having a demon; while on the other hand, Jesus' habit of eating and drinking with sinners earned him a bad reputation. So this generation, Jesus says, finds reason to take offense at both John and Jesus and thus to evade the call of both. They are like children in the marketplace who cannot decide whether they want to play wedding games or funeral games and end up playing neither. So Jesus, in utter frustration bemoans the stubbornness of their hearts "Woe" he says. It is not a word many of us in this generation would use; still, "woe" to that generation that tries to trivialize or make God irrelevant.
Nevertheless, there were some in that generation and every one that has followed, some that listened and heard. That means that it is not the GI Generation against Generation X; it is not Boomers against Builders or Millennial against all.
It is every person from every generation who submits to the constant regeneration of their lives by God's Holy Spirit. Who pick themselves up and try again. "Take my yoke upon you and learn from me; for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls. For my yoke is easy and my burden is light." Jesus responds to those of every generation who look around themselves and see that all is not right, that the world is ripe to hear the message of love, forgiveness and grace. For example, those who stand up and say the burdens of the poor are being ignored while the wealthy discuss tax breaks. That's the greatest generation. That's the generations of the past and the future and those here.
What is the yoke Jesus offers to each generation? As I said the average congregation has five generations. That means that we are the inter-generational church of God; marked not by the year of our birth or death, but by the anniversary of our Baptism, fed at this table, living out our faith in this corner of the world. Together we serve, strive, grieve, and die. To take his yoke upon oneself is to be yoked to the one in whom God's kingdom of justice, mercy, and compassion is breaking into this world, and to find the rest for which the soul longs.
So, to call one generation the greatest or the opposite that a particular generation is least of these, immediately diminishes all generations who preceded it and all generations who follow it. It distracts us from the Christian truth that, before the Presence of God, we are but one equal people, a single generation, a human generation yoked in Jesus Christ to be God's people yesterday, today and tomorrow. Amen.
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