I am looking ahead to Friday's readings for this week. The Matthean gospel lection is one I have written about a couple of times before, namely the one where Jesus describes this generation in terms of children who won't enter into the role-play games common for children preparing for adult roles in their society in Jesus' day. [['We played the flute for you, but you did not dance, we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.' ]] These lines are followed by Jesus'' description of the quality of faith he is finding on the ground, [[For John came neither eating nor drinking, and they said, 'He is possessed by a demon.' The Son of Man came eating and drinking and they said, 'Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.' But wisdom is vindicated by her works.]]
It seems that Matthew's Jesus is running into folks who are simply unwilling or unable to allow the God who is bigger than they are to enter their world and lives. That's not too surprising of course. To allow the God proclaimed by Jesus or witnessed to by JohnBap to enter into our own world, is to embrace the God who radically shakes the foundations and ultimately leaves nothing unchanged. We like our comfortable certainties (and some of us like our uncomfortable certainties --- so long as these are known quantities), but a God who is newness and futurity personified and who "makes all things new" can be a God we resist and even reject. Sometimes the really new frightens us, often we simply dislike it, but with the God of Jesus Christ we are asked to commit to newness and a future which stands in stark contrast to many of the values and truths we have embraced and comforted ourselves with.
So, Advent reminds us that God is doing something new. There was something new conceived in a young virgin and in her older kinswoman as well. There was something new embodied by Christ and made real in space and time through his life, death, and resurrection. And there is something new being conceived in our own lives as well to the extent we have also said "yes" to the promptings of the Holy Spirit of a God Who is bigger than anything we can conceive. If only we can let go of some of those comfortable (and uncomfortable) certainties we have carried into this season, Wisdom will indeed be vindicated by her works!
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