"What Comparison Can I Use For The People?"

"And JESUS said, 'What comparison can I use for the people?  What are they like?  They are like children sitting in the marketplace, about whom their companions complain, 'We piped you a tune and you wouldn't dance; we sang funeral songs and you wouldn't cry.'

Remember John: he didn't eat bread or drink wine, and you said, 'He has an evil spirit.'  Next, came the Son of Man, eating and drinking; and you say, 'Look, a glutton for food and wine, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.'  But the children of Wisdom always recognize her work.'" - Luke 7:31-35 

(They are like children sitting...  They do everything at the wrong time; they reproach John for his austerity and JESUS for HIS lack of austerity.  There is no "one" way of serving GOD; there is no "one" model of holiness, "one" style of Christian life.  GOD acts in thousands of ways throughout history, encouraging at a given time what HE will censure later in another milieu.  The extreme asceticism of hermits in the desert or that of the ancient Irish monks has been a richness for Christianity.  Modern Christianity that appears more human may look easier to follow but the demands of the cross are always there.  JESUS went further than John but HE needed John: the Gospel is heard with pleasure but is not taken seriously as long as repentance and sacrifice are brushed aside.  Perhaps the renewal of our faith today is waiting for prophets and for movements that dare to question a culture and a society that has become sterile.)

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