Truth is, some people are never satisfied – with anyone or anything. They either have too high an expectation, or an unrealistic expectation, or mostly, a deep inner need to feel perfect about themselves by finding fault with you – no matter what! The only time that they are ever happy is when you’re not. And that is what validates their superiority over you. It is their attempt to control and manipulate through emotional abuse.

This is how the Pharisees lived and this is how Jesus put it:

“To what then shall 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 sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’

For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7:31-35).

Jesus said that some people can’t ever be satisfied. If you play a happy song for them, they do not respond appropriately and dance. If you sing a sad song for them, they do not respond appropriately and weep. No matter what you say or do, they never join in but only stubbornly and scornfully stand at a distance, giving you another failing grade. They are unappeasable. And for Jesus, this was his proof:

John the Baptist was under a Nazarite vow and lived an ascetic life, depriving himself of normal pleasures. He did not manicure himself and he lived in a desert, ate like a wild animal robbing honey from bee hives, ate locusts (crunch crunch), and did not drink wine. The Pharisees looked at all this self-depriving and pursuit of solitary time with the Lord as demonic – they said that John the Baptist was demon possessed and therefore rejected his message “repent for the Messiah is coming.”

Jesus on the other hand, came on the scene like a normal Joe. He dressed and took care of himself like most people do, he ate regular food and drank wine. He did nothing out of the ordinary as he healed and proclaimed that the Kingdom of God had arrived in him. But the Pharisees again started the name-calling, and tagged Jesus as a glutton, an over-eater of food, and a drunkard, an over-drinker of wine. True, if Jesus had eaten too much food he would be a glutton, and if he drank too much wine he would be a drunkard. But neither accusation was true, but only fabrications to reject him.

No matter what, no kind of living from those sent by God satisfied the Pharisees, except their own. Truths said in love never pleased the religious elites and cultural gatekeepers of society. The Pharisees were the self-appointed gurus who perched themselves over society, with smugness telling everyone else how to live, calling people names, and threatening others with punishment if they speak out against their established, hypocritical dictatorship. And therefore,

As a Christian, no matter what truthful thing you say with the most loving and respectful attitude and tone, you still will be called a homophobe, a bigot, a man-hater, a freak of nature, a worthless piece of human excrement. You will be threatened, ostracized, fined, fired, demoted, flunked, and kicked out. But with God’s grace and power of the Holy Spirit to guide your path, stay the course, do not retaliate, do good to those who mistreat and persecute you, and you will see that in the end, that “wisdom is justified by your children.” Meaning, the offspring and produce of living a wise life in Christ will prove in the end to have been the right path. And those who nit-picked you apart for every single fraction and discounted your very life as worthless, will in the end face Jesus himself – and then he will have the last word.

As for me, I will keep hanging around the untouchables of society like Jesus did, to tell them of a joyful life in Christ with sins forgiven. While others reject, some will accept. Some people will always be disappointed with you, like they were with Jesus. But others will hear the gospel as the good news that it really is. They will love Jesus with all their heart, just as the discredited woman did as she wept with joy at Jesus’ feet, while Simon the Pharisee continued on his path of self-destruction (Luke 7:36-50).