Trong bài Tin Mừng hôm nay, Chúa Giêsu lên tiếng chống lại những việc làm xấu xa và sự ngoan cố của các nhà lãnh đạo người Do Thái. Sự ngoan cố là một phần của sự kiêu ngạo. Vì ngoan cố khăng khăng làm theo ý riêng của mình. Ngoan cố không thể chấp nhận những sự thật trong thực tế, vì sự kiêu hãnh làm chúng ta nghĩ rằng chúng ta phải thông minh hơn người và những kế hoạch của chúng ta bao giờ cũng tốt và cũng đúng hơn bất cứ những kế hoạch nào của người khác. Sự ngoan cố làm chúng ta đi ngược lại chân lý và sự thật. Hãy tự hỏi: đã có bao nhiều lỗi lầm mà chúng ta đã chưa sửa đổi? Và đã bao lần chúng ta đã được nhắc nhở? Nhiều khi thay vì biết ơn những lời nhắc nhở của người khác, có lẽ chúng ta đã không vui và còn tỏ ra có thái độ hay cố tìm cho mình những lời bào chữa.
Chúa Kitô mời gọi chúng ta sống trong một cuộc sống thánh thiện để chúng ta có thể đạt được sự hoàn hảo một cách dễ dàng hơn. Chúa Kitô đã so sánh những người Do thái sống trong thời đại của Ngài cũng giống như những đứa trẻ lang thang chơi ngoài phố hay có tâm trạng thay. Người ta đã đôi xử với Chúa Kitô theo cách như vậy. Họ cho rằng Gioan Tẩy Giả là quá khắt khe. Tuy nhiên, họ phản đối về Chúa Kitô, và các môn đệ là những người phá chay tịnh, và thậm chí còn làm việc, chữa lành người đau bệnh trong ngày Sa-bát. Họ muốn bệnh tật của họ được chữa lánh, nhưng họ cũng khư khư quá nghiêm ngặt của ngày Sa-bát, thậm chí họ quý trọng cái luật của họ nhiều hơn là họ muốn Chúa ban phát tình yêu và cứu chữa cho mọi người.
The people treated Christ in such a way. They claimed that John the Baptist was too strict. Yet they protested about Christ who did not fast with his disciples and who even cured on the Sabbath. They wanted cures but they also wanted the overly strict observance of the Sabbath even more than they wanted the cure.
Perhaps many of us are like them. We refuse advice and spiritual help. We fail to listen seriously and then complain because we are corrected. If there is no correction, we say we are neglected or that no one cares about us. We need to be honest enough and sincere to do all that God points out to us, even if he tells us his will through other people.
“‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’ 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.” Luke 7:32–35
Ecclesiastes 3 is a very popular reading for funerals. It says, “There is an appointed time for everything, and a time for every affair under the heavens. A time to give birth, and a time to die; a time to plant, and a time to uproot the plant…A time to weep, and a time to laugh; a time to mourn, and a time to dance.” This reading is consoling to those who are mourning at a funeral because life is filled with many different emotions and experiences. When those at a funeral think about their loved one, they will recall both the good times and the bad, the sorrows and the joys. Doing so helps remind them that even though the funeral is a time of sorrow, joys will follow in the future. This is the natural rhythm of life.
In our Gospel today, Jesus challenged those who failed to have the proper human response at the right time. “We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.” The image of playing a flute and singing a dirge and the subsequent failure to dance and weep reveals a certain disconnect that many people had to John the Baptist and to Jesus Himself during their ministries. In commenting upon this passage, Saint Augustine says that John the Baptist’s preaching was like a dirge that called people to the “weeping” of repentance. However, when he preached, there were many who failed to respond with the appropriate repentance. When Jesus came, He preached and gave witness to the new life of grace that He came to bestow. Though some listened and responded to Him, there were many who did not. Jesus’ message was like the music of the flute that was to inspire people to “dance.” But many failed to respond with the joy that they were invited to experience and live through His transforming message and grace.
There is, indeed, an appointed time for everything and for every affair under Heaven. The mission we have been given is to be attentive to that which God is speaking to us at each and every moment of our lives. At times we must “weep” by looking at our sins honestly, experience the horror of those sins, and passionately reject them. At other times we will “dance” when God invites us into His consoling grace and asks us to see clearly His merciful love. At those moments we are invited to be deeply grateful and to express that gratitude with our whole souls.
Reflect, today, upon the calling you have been given to live in a well-ordered way. Do so by considering how attentive you are to the people around you. Does the attentiveness of your charity help you to see the hurt within the hearts of those who are suffering? Are you compelled to offer them a compassionate ear and merciful heart? When others are experiencing the joys of life, are you able to share that joy with them? Can you do so fully, without jealousy or envy of any kind? When God inspires you to some act of conversion and bestows some grace, do you listen and promptly obey, responding in the most appropriate way? Our souls must become sensitive to the promptings of grace and must respond accordingly. Seek to have a well-ordered soul so that you will live and experience the life that God places before you each day in accord with His perfect will.
Lord, Your soul was perfectly ordered, always responding to the will of the Father with perfection. You were firm when love demanded it, courageous in the face of hardship, merciful to the repentant sinner, and joyful at the conversion of all. Please help me to always be attentive to the promptings of Your grace and to always respond to You in the way I am called. Jesus, I trust in You.
1. Judging John and Jesus: In the Gospel, Jesus points out how people criticize both him and his predecessor, John the Baptist. It is a reminder of how quickly we judge someone, label them, and dismiss them. Jesus doesn’t say directly, “Stop judging me for eating with people you deem as public sinners. I’m trying to win them over and bring them from a life of sin to a life of divine grace and virtue.” Instead, Jesus uses his preferred method of teaching, parables and comparisons. He calls to mind the image of children sitting in the marketplace, inviting each other to either dance for joy or weep with sorrow. Jesus compares John the Baptist to a child in the marketplace, who invites the other children to weep by singing a funeral dirge to them. This accords with John’s message of conversion and the invitation to be baptized in the Jordan River while confessing one’s sins. Jesus compares himself to a child who invites the other children to dance by playing the flute. This accords with Jesus’ words and actions, such as attending wedding feasts and dining in the homes of public sinners like Matthew the tax collector. He points out the hypocrisy of the people, who claimed that John, because of his strange way of life, was possessed by a demon, and who claimed that Jesus, because he associated with tax collectors and sinners, is a lover of the good life and a drunkard and glutton.
Opening Prayer: Lord God, open my ears to hear the songs of repentance and joy. Teach me to be sorrowful for my sins and to rejoice in your gracious mercy. Guide me to weep and mourn at the appropriate times and to dance and shout for joy.
1. Two Different Groups of Children: Jesus compares the people of his generation to two different groups of children. The first group accuses the second of not dancing or celebrating; the second accuses the first of not weeping and mourning. John the Baptist, who fasted and refrained from wine, was the one who sang the funeral dirge and called the people to confess their sins and repent at the Jordan River. Jesus points out that there were some people who responded negatively to John’s call to repentance and accused him of being possessed by a demon. Jesus, on the other hand, is the bridegroom, who provided the new wine of salvation. He said that his disciples would not fast until he was taken away. He played the flute and called the people to dance and rejoice. Some, like the Pharisees, responded negatively to Jesus’ call to enter the wedding feast and accused him of being a glutton, a drunkard, and a man who dined with sinners.
2. Refusing to Listen: Jesus did not just call the people to rejoice. Like his cousin John, he called the people to repentance. Jesus even told the people to sell everything, take up their Cross, and follow him on the way to Jerusalem. At the same time, he also taught them that this is the way of love that leads to the true joy of the wedding feast. The generation that opposes both the call to repentance and the call to enter the wedding feast is an evil generation. It was a generation that refused to listen to John and Jesus, the children of wisdom. They turned away from wisdom, embraced foolishness, and neither repented from their sin nor enjoyed the joy of God’s grace.
3. The Excellence of Love: Those who repent and follow Jesus strive to love. In the First Reading, Paul calls this the more excellent way. Above all things – the gift of tongues, the gift of prophecy, the gifts of understanding and knowledge, and the gift of faith – is love. Here, love means a wholly benevolent, disinterested love. “If the other kinds [of love] can be tainted with selfishness, this kind is loving just for the sake of loving, not seeking any reward or return of the love except in the measure it benefits the other. In the New Testament it is used primarily for God’s love for us, which, shown in Jesus’ self-gift on the cross is ‘poured into our hearts through the Holy Spirit which has been given to us’ (Rom 5:5)” (Montague, First Corinthians, 221). Love suffers patiently and is merciful. As well, love is kind and desires good things for others. When we love, we imitate God who is kind and merciful. Love does not fail, for it remains forever. Here, in this life, gifts like tongues and prophecy pass away and come and go. In this life, our knowledge is only partial and fragmentary. In this life, we live by faith and see things indistinctly as in a mirror. In the next life, we will see God clearly, face to face. Faith gives way to vision, hope gives way to the joy and delight of eternal beatitude, and our union of love is brought to its perfection and fullness.
Conversing with Christ: Lord Jesus, bring me along the way of wisdom, the way of love, and the way of joy. Grant me your Spirit so that I may see all things in a divine light, do all things urged by divine charity, and spread the joy of divine life in you.
We can test ourselves on what Paul wrote: Do we act out of love? Have we forgiven offensive people or remarks? Have we been kind at home to the family? Have we been grateful to and loving of God?
John the Baptist lived a simple and hard life. He ate only bread and abstained from wine. Yet, his message of repentance was rejected. Jesus mixed with the poor and marginalized. He ate and drank with them. He too was rejected. It seems as though nothing pleased the Jewish leaders, the “men of this generation”. They found one set of excuses to reject John, and an opposite set of excuses to reject Jesus. They thought themselves wise enough to know the truth.
As such, they were not willing to open themselves to God’s action of salvation which was taking place in their midst through the message of John, and then through Jesus. Like stubborn children, the Jewish leaders were not willing to cooperate in any way with God’s action. In doing so, they closed themselves to the truth, and to the One who is himself the Truth. They failed to repent and as a result, did not become “children of wisdom”.
Often, in our own faith journey, we too can become like stubborn children. We may be aware that we have certain shortcomings and need to experience conversion. However, we are constantly giving excuses. We blame God, others and circumstances for our own sins, and as a result, remain closed to the call of Christ to repentance. Truly, God’s action of salvation is taking place daily in our lives. He calls us to repentance and transformation. Do we listen and obey? Or do we think we know better?
Lord, help me to be open to Your truth.
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