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Real, Day 19

by David Joynt on March 28, 2019


LUKE 7:31-32 |  “To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not weep.’

Some people are impossible to please! One of the best arguments for authenticity rather than conformity is that people are hard to satisfy no matter how much you strive to please them. Some folks won’t dance or mourn; they won’t be moved by warning or encouragement. Judgement does not scare them and joy does not attract them. Sometimes sophistication can blunt our responses. Sometimes time or stress can drain our emotions. Things that should move us to tears or generate celebration are treated as non-events. We become emotionally dead or numb. God appeals to us in many ways and through many emotions, but we have the responsibility to respond.

Can you dance?

Can you mourn?

Are you numb or responsive?

 

About the Author
David Joynt

Dave Joynt began his service as a pastor at Valley Presbyterian Church in Paradise Valley, Arizona in September 2014. This meant a move away from the Northeast, where he has a long history, growing up in Bethlehem, Pennsylvania and then serving congregations in Delaware and New Jersey for a total of 23 years.

Dave was nurtured in a great church in Bethlehem where his parents, Anne and Carey, served as elders. He graduated in classics from Lehigh University where his Father taught, and then from Oxford, where he met his wife Julia. Ordained in 1988, he completed a Ph.D. from Princeton Theological Seminary in 1993.

He and Julia have a son, Tristan, and a daughter, Madeleine.

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