Luke 7: 31-35
Jesus said to the crowds:
“To what then will I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another,
‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance;
we wailed, and you did not weep.’
For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon’; the Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look, a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Nevertheless, wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Truth Over Judgment
Skimming, swiping, scrolling—every day we make snap judgments about what is worth our time or what something is about. We have conversations and presume the end of someone’s sentences. We see a MAGA hat, and we assume. We see a Black Lives Matter sign, and we assume. Although it’s human to take intellectual and emotional short cuts based on past experience, Luke chides the “people of this generation” for doing just that (and doing it inconsistently). He tells the people: John the Baptist came and because he didn’t eat and drink you said he was a demon. Then Jesus came and because he did eat and drink you said he was “a drunkard, a friend of tax collections and sinners!” Luke’s frustration with their pigeon-holing is palpable.
Look at your day today and ask yourself: Where was I not open to the truth because I took the shorter path of judgment?
—Christine Brunkhorst, a graduate of Santa Clara University and Marquette University, is a teacher, writer, and a Twin Cities Ignatian Associate living in Minneapolis.
Prayer
You are the way, the truth, the life
Without the way there is no going
Without the truth there is no knowing
Without the life there is no growing
Show us the way, that we may go
Teach us the truth that we may know
Grant us the life, that we my grow
Eternally.
—Fr. Theodore Tracy, SJ, based on a quote from Thomas à Kempis
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