“We played pipes for you,

and you wouldn’t dance;

we sang dirges,

and you wouldn’t cry.” 

“For John the Baptist comes, not eating bread, not drinking wine and you say, ‘He is possessed.’ The Son of Man comes, eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ Yet Wisdom has been proved right by her children.”

How often do I do the same as those that Jesus observes in his own day: I see something and I am critical almost immediately, rather than reflecting and pausing – thus avoiding the making of a knee-jerk reaction. For instance, I can meet a foreigner with a different coloured skin, and immediately think: “Be careful, Jonathan, he or she may be after something”, when, in practice, I could find a ‘diamond’ inside him, or her. Sometimes, a difficulty comes our way, and we can see only the tragedy of the situation, rather than the ‘silver lining’ that every challenge (‘cloud’) brings. Our High School fire has been like that; it has caused great anxiety for many of the parents, students and teachers, never mind to those who are responsible for finding reasonable accommodation, for the continuing education of our pupils. The Head Teacher is adamant: this must not be made an excuse by anyone – teacher or pupil – for not doing well in the exams that some will take next year. All are invited to take up the challenge, pull together in order to do well, to focus very strongly and, God willing, it will draw the best out of everybody. Examination results may even be better than expected. God has allowed this to happen, and now it is up to all of us involved to respond, and be positive. I was touched that a recent winner of the 500 Club, a parishioner, has donated the £100 winnings to the School Disaster Fund; moreover, two Anglican vicar friends have sent a total of £350 to the same fund, ‘out of the blue’! What good will and goodness has come out of disaster!

Jesus, in this episode, is pointing out, in practice without naming it, how we look at things from below, not from above. We do not have the ‘pure eye’ to see: “Your eye is the lamp of your body. When your eyes are healthy, your whole body also is full of light. But when they are unhealthy, your body also is full of darkness. See to it, then, that the light within you is not darkness.” (Lk 11: 34) The ‘high-up’ people of Jesus’ time criticised both John the Baptist, and Jesus; in this, they were unable to see the goodness, the salvation, the freedom, the presence of God they wanted to share.

Last week, I read a meditation by an Italian Missionary, a person I’ve known a long time, and he has thrown light for me on all of this. His meditation is called “Throw away your own life”:

“When Peter declared to Jesus that he was the Messiah he didn’t expect Jesus’ response: ‘You have spoken well! Be aware though that I will finish up on the cross’. Peter was utterly shocked.

Some Greeks wanted to see Jesus. Jesus also told them that he ‘would be lifted up on the cross’. We don’t know how the Greeks reacted. We know our own view on the matter. Like that of Peter?

For Jesus, the cross is the hour of his glory, the fullness of revelation, of salvation which will be completed when there is unity. He uses the image of the grain of wheat that will bear ‘much fruit’. If it does not die ‘it remains alone’. It must be destroyed to multiply, if not it remains just a grain of wheat.

Jesus is not inventing anything: he is simply explaining how he lives from all time with the Father and the Holy Spirit. The three are the model community precisely because each one ‘dies’ in the other out of love. This is their ‘glory’, they do what nobody else manages to do, they square the circle; they are three and they are one. They throw away their life and they rediscover all of it, completely fulfilled.

Jesus invites us to do the same; ‘Anyone who loves their life will lose it, while anyone who hates their life in this world will keep it for eternal life’ (John 12, 25). It seems absurd. We could do an experiment. Life is like a flower that God has placed in your hand. If we want to defend that life at all costs for ourselves, we could close our hands on it and it will remain in our fist and all the petals will be ruined. It we take a risk and leave our hand open, everyone can enjoy the flower which will remain intact also for us.

‘And I, when I am lifted up from the earth, will draw all people to myself’.” 

That meditation throws light on the childish selfishness of those in the Gospel who could see no more, but only criticise St. John the Baptist, and Jesus, though they behaved in opposite ways. We all have a tendency to do the same, if the ‘eye’ of our heart is not pure.

The famous 15^th Century icon of the Holy Trinity – Andrei Rublev  

Father Jonathan