I would venture that the thematic connection of these last two readings is of general humility, such that one is driven to seek the Lord, anyway. Where Jesus says at the end of Matthew 11, "Come to me,
all you who are weary and burdened, and I will give you rest. Take my yoke upon you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble in heart, and you will find rest for your souls" (NIV), we must trust in that to the end, in spite of every storm that may come at us. Over the years I couldn't help but come to think that even the most seemingly shallow, callous, and boorish among our fellow humans, are too actually seeking something beyond themselves, but may not even be self-aware of the fact enough to admit it, but they just know, somewhere in a small part of their hearts, that something in life is wrong or missing, and they want to find it. They want to make things
right, but they just don't know how and where to go ... yet. Perhaps, one day, they shall find that peace and fulfillment in Jesus Christ, too. Some humans - and I say this with genuine reflection and no personal judgment upon anyone else - just may not see what we believers have seen yet. But one day, perhaps we all will. May the Lord make it so. Where everyone will find the one, true, ultimate Source of peace, to right all of the wrongs that exist within all of us.
I never before made heads or tails of this earlier passage, either, at 11:16-24, where Jesus says,
"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
"`We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon.'
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."' But wisdom is proved right by her actions."
Then Jesus began to denounce the cities in which most of his miracles had been performed, because they did not repent.
"Woe to you, Korazin! Woe to you, Bethsaida! If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Tyre and Sidon, they would have repented long ago in sackcloth and ashes.
But I tell you, it will be more bearable for Tyre and Sidon on the day of judgment than for you.
And you, Capernaum, will you be lifted up to the skies? No, you will go down to the depths. If the miracles that were performed in you had been performed in Sodom, it would have remained to this day.
But I tell you that it will be more bearable for Sodom on the day of judgment than for you."
And now I wonder if this was an indictment against those who exhibited and have the spirit of the exact opposite of the kind of humility that I mentioned earlier.
Where He said,
"To what can I compare this generation? They are like children sitting in the marketplaces and calling out to others:
"`We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not mourn.'
For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they say, `He has a demon.'
The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and they say, `Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and "sinners."' But wisdom is proved right by her actions", I wonder if Jesus was saying that such folk as these are the type who are determined to see evil in every action of those humans who are different than them, outside of their box, their circle, their world, even if said actions are opposed to one another (for example, here John came "neither eating nor drinking", and then Jesus came doing just that, and yet some people still apparently saw both men as doing evil in some way), and at least one of them is obviously an action of pure good. There were people like the Pharisees, after all, who refused to see even the fundamental good in Jesus' miracles of healing that He'd already performed for many by this point in the gospel according to Matthew. No, instead, they believed that somehow, some way this Man was up to no good (some even said to themselves that He was harnessing the power of demons! How absurd!), and certainly that there was no way He could be the prophesied Son of God come to save mankind. And really, that must be the strongest and most vile form of pride, to be determined to see absolutely no form of Good no matter what.
