Devotions
Rev Gav
Dissatisfied
Matthew 11.11-19
“Truly I tell you, among those born of women no one has arisen greater than John the Baptist, yet the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. From the days of John the Baptist until now, the kingdom of heaven has suffered violence, and violent people take it by force. For all the Prophets and the Law prophesied until John came, and if you are willing to accept it, he is Elijah who is to come. Let anyone with ears listen!
“But to what will I compare this generation? It is like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not mourn.’
“For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is vindicated by her deeds.”
Reflect
If you’re like me, then today’s Bible Reading raises lots of questions! The first of which is, “How can the the least in the kingdom of heaven be greater than John the Baptist?”
The answer is not that we are greater in the sense of our strength of character, personal holiness, or social status — i.e. things we do in our own strength – but that we are ‘greater’ because of what God has done for us in and through Jesus Christ. Through Christ we are deemed children of God in a way that John the Baptist could never have conceived.
The second question is, what was Jesus doing comparing the current generation to children sitting in the marketplaces and calling to one another, “We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we wailed, and you did not mourn.”?
This was a metaphor for what Jesus was about to go on to describe. In other words, in the same way that one group of children played two different games and the other group joined in with neither, the people were neither satisfied with John the Baptist nor Jesus. John came straight-laced, neither eating nor drinking, and they refused to accept him, and Jesus other came both eating and drinking and they also refused to accept him!
Some people are never satisfied, right?
This week I was chatting to a guy who used the trope, “I don’t agree with organised religion!” I suggested (gently) that it is good to be organised when feeding the hungry, housing the homeless, and caring for the poor and marginalised! The truth is that he would not be satisfied if my Christianity was unorganised nor if it was organised. His statement was simply an excuse that belied a deeper feeling or reason for his ‘unbelief’.
Whether or not someone accepts Christ is not our responsibility. Rejection is never easy, however, our job is simply to love and to keep on loving — to proclaim that Jesus Christ is our Lord and be living witnesses, through acts of loving service.
Therefore, don’t worry if you feel like a bit of an outsider, or that you are rejected at home or at work because of your ‘religion’. You are in good company, because they first rejected both John and Jesus.
Photo by Alex 0101 on Unsplash
Pray
Holy God
Help me stay
true to the course,
continue to worship you,
and follow you with all my
heart, soul, mind, and strength.
Though others may mock me
and not understand me,
help me to keep loving them
with a God-given love —
a love that comes from you.
This day and forever.
and then