Reading 1, Isaiah 48:17-19

17 Thus says the Lord, your redeemer, the Holy One of Israel: I am the Lord your God and teach you for your own good, I lead you in the way you ought to go.

18 If only you had listened to my commandments! Your prosperity would have been like a river and your saving justice like the waves of the sea.

19 Your descendants would have been numbered like the sand, your offspring as many as its grains. Their name would never be cancelled or blotted out from my presence

 Gospel, Matthew 11:16-19

16 ‘What comparison can I find for this generation? It is like children shouting to each other as they sit in the market place:

17 We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance; we sang dirges, and you wouldn’t be mourners.

18 ‘For John came, neither eating nor drinking, and they say, “He is possessed.”

19 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 justified by her deeds.’

 Certain kinds of protestant theology drove a wedge between the law (commandments) and grace (the gospel.) The biblical truth is that the Gospel, the Good News, includes commandments, for example “to love the Lord our God with all our strength, and our neighbour as ourselves.” The gospel shows us that God is love, so we know that God’s commandments are part of God’s love for us: they are not arbitrary, but are for our good. Isaiah, speaking for God, asks the people to see that living by God’s commandments would have given them “prosperity,” a bad translation of the Hebrew “shalom” meaning “peace, well-being, happiness”; and “saving justice,” that is, an uplifting and compassionate fairness in their communal life. The prophet’s poetry, “like a river, like the waves of the sea” communicates the beauty of these gifts of obedience.  

Jesus was pointing to the differences between John’s witness and his own: John, as the one calling people to repentance, emphasised harsh discipline; Jesus, as the one bringing in the kingdom of God, emphasised friendship and celebration. God’s wisdom is expressed differently in different circumstances, but it is the one wisdom.

 Those who complained about John’s rigour also complained about Jesus’ sociability. Jesus likens them to children who don’t want to play weddings and then refuse to play funerals. God’s wisdom is justified in her works, that is, by what she produces: the lives of John, Jesus, and their disciples. Another set of Greek manuscripts have the word “children” in place of “works”. The meaning is the same. Sophia, the Greek word for wisdom, is personified as a woman in the Old Testament book of Proverbs (See Proverbs 8), which is the reason Jesus says, “her deeds/ her children.” Probably Jesus thought of God’s Wisdom is female. By Jesus’ time there had grown up a large “wisdom literature” including the Biblical books of Job, Psalms, Proverbs and Ecclesiastes, Ruth and Jonah, as well as other non-biblical writings. A characteristic of the tradition is its focus on the “wise man” and the “foolish man.” Jesus used this tradition in his teaching, especially in his parables.

"Wisdom is justified by her works"

 When Jesus says, “Come to me,” he speaks not only as saviour but also as divine wisdom. Many churches have lost this dimension of faith and are incapacitated when trying to translate faith into personal and social ethics.

                                                                                                               We should work hard to recover it.