Children in the marketplace

Luk 7:31-35  “To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like?  (32)  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 sang a funeral song, and you did not weep.’  (33)  For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’  (34)  The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’  (35)  Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.”

John the Baptist lived a deprived life for the sake bringing God's message to the people. He made the people uncomfortable. The crowds thought it wasn't right for someone who proclaimed the message of God to refuse to partake of the bounty that God has provided in this world. Why would he eat grasshoppers when God has given us the gift of bread? Surely he must be misguided in the way he lives and in the way he attempts to lead the people. Thus said the crowds.

Jesus partook of the lifestyle of the common man, eating with them, drinking with them, for the sake of bringing God's message to the people. He made the people uncomfortable. The crowds thought it wasn't right for someone who proclaimed the message of God to be so engaged with everyday activities. Why does he spend so much time eating and drinking with the common man, when he could be praying in the temple? Surely he must be misguided in the way he lives and in the way he attempts to lead the people. Thus said the crowds.

To John the Baptist, the people would say, "Geez... cheer up John, things aren't really as bad as you make them out to be!" These are the children crying out: "we played the flute for you and you did not dance!"

To Jesus, the people would say, "While you are out there living it up we are being put to death left and right by the Romans, don't you care?" These are the children crying out: "we sang a funeral song and you did not weep!"

Notice, these aren't two different groups of "children", it is the same group, the same type that at one moment seeks to have John join in their pleasures, in the next moment are expecting Jesus to refrain from them. When someone refuses to celebrate with the world, the world calls them a downer, when someone refuses to mourn with the world, the world calls them cold-hearted. Why is this? Because this is what "life" is to the world, life is all about being tossed about on the waves of life's sea, surging with all it's joys, and ebbing with all its sorrows. After all, we are all in this together... right?

Life is not about the comings and goings of pleasure and pain. We who focus on these things, who let these things occupy our minds and allow them to steer our course through this world are far from wisdom. We are steeped in what the book of Ecclesiastes calls "vanity" or useless pursuits. We seek and celebrate our pleasures and spend all our time doing so and talking about them with others... that is, if we are not consumed with our own sorrows and spending our time wallowing in them and talking with others about them. John the Baptist and Jesus both said, "It's time to move on, life isn't all about you. God is at work in this world, and God is good. Seek God and everything else will get sorted out along the way."

We waste our lifetimes in this fickle flip-flopping because that is all we have ever learned to do. We do not know what to do with someone who does not participate with us in this flip-flopping.

The general principle is well laid out in an old Zen wisdom story:

Imagine what all those neighbours were doing with the rest of their time when they weren't knocking on that old farmer's door? Knocking on each other's doors! "Hey, did you hear about old man Chang... ya the guy with the horses... well, you wouldn't believe the HARD TIMES he's been having... etc... etc... etc... ...etc... etc. They barely stop talking about his hard times before someone comes knocking on their door: "Hey did you hear the GREAT NEWS about old man Chang?"... and then they talk about their own hard/good times in comparison with Chang, then they spend their time thinking about how hard/great a time Chang must be having (it keeps them up at night just thinking about it) then they talk about it some more as a community, and decide to go and share in his sorrows/joys face to face.

Maybe.

What was Chang doing with his time? He certainly wasn't crying in his milk or popping the champagne. Only Changs know what Changs do: how Changs think, how Changs get on with their days. Old Chang probably just got tired of crying in the fall when the leaves of his crops wilted, and equally tired of celebrating in the spring when the crops popped up from the ground. Whatever it is that he was spending his time/thought on, he must have found it superior to his old way of doing things.

One more story that I would like to add that ties this all in nicely with the story of Jesus and John:

Luxury and Simplicity

The sufi ancient Junaid taught by demonstration, through a method in which he actually lived the part which he was trying to illustrate. This is an example: Once he was found by a number of Seekers, sitting surrounded by every imaginable luxury. These people left his presence and sought the house of a most austere and ascetic holy man, whose surroundings were so plain that he had nothing but a mat and a jug of water. The spokesman of the Seekers said: ‘Your simple manners and austere environment are much more to our liking than the garish and shocking excesses of Junaid, who seems to have turned his back upon the Path of Truth.’ The ascetic heaved a great sigh and started to weep. ‘My dear friends, shallowly infected by the outward signs which beset man at every turn,’ he said, ‘know this, and cease to be unfortunates! The great Junaid is surrounded at this moment by luxury because he is impervious to luxury: and I am surrounded by simplicity because I am impervious to simplicity.’

That is a perfect reflection of the John/Jesus parallel. It's not about having or not having. It's not about establishing the correct method. The bottom line is this:

The seeker finds.

If the true seeker refrains from the pleasures of this world, they will find that the joy of God can come to them without the aid of these pleasures. If the true seeker partakes of the pleasures of this world, they will find that the joy of God can come to them in the midst of these pleasures. If a person is not a true seeker, it makes no difference whether they refrain or partake of worldly pleasures, they will not find God by either method.

If we too, while searching for fulfillment in life, become tired of dancing to the flute, or singing a mournful song... tired of mourning a runaway horse (or celebrating a stray one wandering into our yard), if we see like John the Baptist that: "Every mountain must be leveled off, and every valley filled up", maybe we too can grow to resemble Old Man Chang?