Friday, December 9, 2011

Matthew 11:16-19

Wisdom is vindicated by her works.

So, today's gospel was Jesus telling us a story about the same kind of conundrum I have been having. If you lock yourself away to keep yourself pure, everyone says that bad and crazy. If you go and live and eat and drink and be among people, then you can't possibly be sincere in your faith.

And the way to cut through all of that crap - wisdom is vindicated by her works. Look past it. Ignore it. You see good in what you do. You know. You know when someone is a good person by their works. You don't have to sift through a laundry list of their personal habits, of their belief system, for their Views. If they do good to those around them, you know.

You know a tree by its fruit. Wisdom is vindicated by her works.

Jesus talks about children in a marketplace who wouldn't dance for the wild flute music and wouldn't mourn in a dirge. Who wouldn't be a part of their communities, who wouldn't respond in the natural human ways of living your life or acknowledge the pain of death. Who wouldn't slow down and deal with their emotions. People who couldn't stand joy or sorrow.

I read in a book today: you know a true call to a vocation because it always contains a renunciation. A call to religious life is a renunciation of a married life, as a married life is a renunciation of a holy singleness. A call to a mission is a renunciation of an ordinary life, and a call to a more ordinary life is a renunciation of a singular purpose.

But I wonder if you do have to choose. Do you have to decide if you will be John the Baptist fasting in the desert or Jesus eating with the sinners? Is that even a proper comparison? Do you have to renounce the ways of the flesh to live a life fully for the spirit or renounce the blessed but lonely path of a wholly spiritual life to live in the world around you?

Or are we, once again, being asked to find a way to be both? In the world but not of the world?

And because I'm a genu-ine Shakespeare scholar, I wander if Claudius's tactless speech is a kind of parody of this, "With mirth in funeral and with dirge in marriage."

Are we supposed to hold to both or indulge both in their time? Does there come a point where we have to choose?

Both can be good, wisdom is vindicated by her works. So perhaps all this wondering is useless. After all, if wisdom is vindicated by her works, that's the thing to concentrate on. See where they lead. After all, that's the bit we know.