When they heard him, all the people, including the tax-gatherers, praised God, for they had accepted John's Baptism. But the Pharisees and lawyers, by refusing his baptism, had rejected God's purpose for themselves.
"How can I describe the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace, shouting to each other:
'We piped for you and you would not dance.
We wept and wailed, and you would not mourn.'
"For John came, neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you said, 'He is possessed!' I came eating and drinking, and you say, 'Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax-gatherers and sinners!' And yet God's wisdom is manifest in all her children."
4 comments:
Wasn't sure how to paraphrase this... I think it's something people understand despite the words, which don't quite fit into English well enough to be verbally understood.
So "these people" (and most people) find God's wisdom just a little bit off-putting. Hard to pin down exactly why that is... or why it's the same wisdom, whether in Jesus or John or "[put your favorite guru here]")
Maybe the language of commerce.
We have a vending machine relationship with truth/Truth. So long as truth comes out of the Vending Machine as the product we want. We're at risk after we've invested (dropped a few coins into the Machine) and we want assurances that the product -truth- will justify our investment.
Hmmmm, though sayest ~We want 'the truth that is' to turn out to be 'the truth we want'?
So, confronted with 'truth that isn't quite what we'd hoped' we start thinking about 'What's wrong with the messenger?'?
Something I've indeed observed-- in others.
How to ensure not doing that?...
Another thing... which I emphatically do not understand:
It seemeth that the sentiments being attributed to 'this generation' are, in fact, what God would normally say about 'this generation'! He sent John, living an ascetic life in the wilderness, but people objected. He sent Jesus, a bit of a Pooh-type, and people objected to that too. And continued to do everything but what they called for!
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And also (a word for Larry) we have here a hint of something rather Blakeish, about what God having different rules for people of differing natures. So far as there is such a thing... But there was Arthur Waskow's quote from an ancient rabbi: 'When Caesar puts his image on a thousand coins, they all come out the same. But when God puts His image on a thousand people, they're all different.'
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