TRANSLATION MATTHEW 11:2

Now John, while in prison, had heard of what Jesus was doing, so he sent him a question through his pupils, “Are you the One who is to come, or are we wating for another?” In reply Jesus said,”Go and tell John what you are hearing and seeing: the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are made clean, the deaf hear, the dead are raised to life and the poor are given the joyful news. And how happy is the one who is not scandalized by me!

As they were leaving, Jesus began to speak about John to the crowd, “What did you go out to the desert to see? A reed shaken by the wind? But what did you go out to see? A man dressed in delicate clothing? Surely those who wear delicate clothes are in the palaces of kings! But what did you go out to see? A prophet. Yes, I tell you, more than a prophet! For this the one of whom it is written,

See, I am sending my messenger before your face, who will prepare the road ahead of you.

Amen, I tell you, no one has risen up greater than John the Dipper amongst those born of woman; yet the smallest in the Rule of Heaven is greater than him! From the time of John the Dipper until now the Rule of Heaven has been subjected to violence, and violent people grab hold of it. For all the prophets and the law continued prophesying until John appeared. And – if you are willing to accept it- He is Elijah, who was to come! Listen, if you have ears!

To what shall I liken this generation? They are like children sitting in the town squares shouting out to one another,

We piped for you but you didn’t dance; we sang dirges for you but you didn’t weep!

For John came neither eating nor drinking and you said, He has a demon. Then the Son of Man came both eating and drinking and you said, Look at this, a glutton and a drunk, a pal of tax-collectors and sinners! But Wisdom is proven right by her deeds.

This material is also found in Luke, and we can assume it comes from a source common to both writers. Its rhetoric is individual enough to let us imagine it comes from Jesus himself, but we should remember that at the very least Jesus’ words were translated into Greek. Still, what we are given sounds like a person’s voice, skilfully addressing a crowd.

Praise of John the Dipper is one aim of the material; the other is the question of the relative greatness of Jesus and John; and this is accomplished by distinguishing between human greatness and the arrival of God’s Rule, which makes human greatness irrelevant. In this perspective, John is a messenger preparing for the ministry of Jesus. The biblical quotation reflects Isaiah 28, 35 and 61, and is doubtless provided from traditional sources. Any remaining pupils of the Dipper are being encouraged to turn to Jesus.

The sentence about the Rule being subject to violence seems to me to refer to Herod’s treatment of John, and possibly to the jihad of the zealots, which Jesus rejected. The language of God’s Rule could be adopted by anyone in the volatile political situation of Judaea. In such circumstances even Elijah, (=John) returning to announce the Messiah, could be seized and killed.

A lesser issue is the reaction of the Jewish religious leaders to both John and Jesus. They won’t play at either weddings or funerals, meaning they rejected John’s severity and then rejected Jesus’ inclusivity. There is down-to-earth wit in this characterisation.

Luke’s version of the last sentence has, “by her children,” which may be more original than Matthew’s “by her deeds”. Wise people (children of wisdom) know how to deal with trivial criticisms.

The sense if a voice is so strong here, that interpreters must make a choice:

1. The tradition used by Matthew and Luke was very conservative and preserved some of the words (albeit translated!) of Jesus

OR

2. The tradition used was very creative, that is, at a kind of Homeric level, inventing passionate speech to body out the received version of events in Jesus’ ministry. Perhaps the magical realism I have been attributing to Matthew belongs to the Jesus tradition as such?

Perhaps this choice can be assisted by looking at the main import of the passage: John is declared hunanly great but totally outstrippped in greatness by the smallest in the Rule of God. Scholars who like neat solutions tell us that we are dealing with two eras in the history of human salvation; before Christ and after, that is, an era in which the Law and the prophets prepare for God’s salvation and the era when it arrives which will last until the Day of Judgement. Like many neat solutions, this is an elegant nonsense which pays no attention to available facts.

Other scholars have unearthed the facts of the growth of the traditions incorporated in the gospels. They note the evidence in the letters of Paul, written long before the gospels, that the two eras of God’s grace are that of Israel and now, that of the Gentiles. They also note that Paul has nothing to say about John the Dipper. They suggest, that as the tradition of Jesus grew, through the life of the Jesus assemblies, from the memories of leaders and members, the vital contribution of story -tellers and of Christian prophets, it had to be adapted to meet the needs of these assemblies. It seems likely that the memory of John the Dipper was maintained by groups of his pupils. The question about the relative status of these two leaders was likely to have been asked. Many scholars suggest that all the material about John in the Gospels is influenced, and to an extent, created, by the Christian answer to this question. Jesus is incomparably greater because he is the prophesied Messiah and bringer of God’s Rule.

Subsequent story- telling about Jesus and Nohn had to start from this conclusion. How would Jesus’ superiority be presented without denigration of the martyred prophet? This analysis clearly supports the second alternative above.

But the tradition shared by Matthew and Luke doesn’t just declare the superiority of Jesus, it has Jesus himself declare it. The creators of the tradition along with the gospel writers wanted their readers to imagine Jesus saying these words. The tradition gave them these words so we can think of them as honed by different storytellers. But can I imagine Jesus saying them? More or less. First of all, they are memorable; secondly, they are generous in appreciation of a great contemporary; and thirdly, they say something so odd about the surpassing greatness of those who belong to God’s Rule, that they may offer an insight into the faith of Jesus: that God in his/ her crazy love for the world will not bring about her Rule by force but only by persuasion, and that this persuasion must be mediated by by someone who communicates God’s love, and that being a willing partner in this mandprocess is the greatest joy a human being can know. My words here are not good enough. I am suggesting that Jesus’ words about John express his joy in being the bearer of God’s persuasive love. As the gospel story develops we will also see Jesus’ sorrow as this same persuasive God asks him carry his love to cruel and powerful people. Meanwhile Jesus’ eating and drinking is an expression of his joy.