Wednesday in the 24th Week of Ordinary Time, September 18, 2024

Luke 7, 31-35

Jesus said to the crowds: “To what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’  For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

The events in this reading come after St. John the Baptist, from prison, has sent two messengers to the Lord Jesus with the question, “Are you the one who is to come or do we look for another?” (Luke 7, 20).  St. John was using this means to “lose” his disciples so that Jesus might gain them (cf. John 3, 30), just as before he had pointed Jesus out to Andrew and John the son of Zebedee with the words, “Behold the Lamb of God!” (John 1, 36).  That is, John did not want to say to his disciples: Do not follow me; follow him.  He simply laid out the truth and let his followers choose what they would do.

After the two messengers left, the Lord taught the crowd about John the Baptist, explaining that he was the one of whom Almighty God had spoken through the Prophet Malachi: “Behold, I send my messenger before you who shall prepare your way before you” (Malachi 3, 1).  Many of the Jews had thought that John was the Messiah: here, the Lord who performed miracles, which John never did (cf. John 10, 41), reveals him as his messenger to the people.  But the people, by and large, accepted neither the messenger nor the one whom he announced.

God had instructed the people to expect a great messenger who would prepare the way for the Savior who would come.  But how does a messenger to a town make himself known?  He cries out that he has come from the king and shows tokens from the king that confirm his identity.  That is, he gains the attention of the people and proves that he is not one of them but that he belongs to the king.  “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.”  Jesus is saying that the messenger is not supposed to speak or act like a citizen of the town: he comes from the court.  And he must distinguish himself in some way so that the citizens will pay attention to him: “John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine.”  Fasting and abstaining and otherwise living in a most primitive way, John marked himself out as a prophet — indeed, “there is not a greater prophet than John the Baptist” (Luke 7, 28).  And yet, the people said, “He is possessed by a demon”.  But a sign is not a sign if it looks like everything around it.  Then the one whom the Prophet John announced, who showed his power through miracles, “came eating and drinking”, and they responded that he was “a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.”

People will twist themselves into pretzels in order to justify their words and actions, and especially their failures to take action when it is obvious and necessary for action to be taken.  Almighty God, on the other hand, does likewise to show us what we are to do and in whom we must believe to be saved.  He all but walks us into a church and forces us to ask for baptism; he gives us precise instructions on how we are to live; he gives us a Church which guides us and makes it easy to receive grace and a share in God’s life.  And for so many it is not enough, and at the end of the world they will accuse him of not doing enough for them.  

In order to be saved we must give up our willfulness and our desire to control.  We look up and away from our self-absorbed pleasures to the life of service he has prepared for us so that we might make ourselves ready for eternal life.  But so many of us will not do the simplest of things we are told to do, even exchanging the rags we wear for a free wedding garment, in order to gain this life (cf. Matthew 22, 12).