THE WORD
1 Tim 3: 14–16 / Lk 7: 31–35
Jesus said to the crowds: “Then to what shall I compare the people of this generation? What are they like? They are like children who sit in the marketplace and call to one another, ‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance. We sang a dirge, but you did not weep.’
For John the Baptist came neither eating food nor drinking wine, and you said, ‘He is possessed by a demon.’ The Son of Man came eating and drinking and you said, ‘Look, he is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.’ But wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”
IN OTHER WORDS
“To make believe” is “to pretend”, “to make things up” in the sense of “imagining and believing” that things set up or created are real even if they are not. It is usually just a game, not originally meant to be malicious, or to deceive others. It is fun when it lasts, when everyone involved knows it is a game. Sometimes we play kings and queens, princes and princesses, or we pretend we are paupers; we imagine we live in castles and we don costumes and play our parts. If we pretend we are at a party and have music and dancing, then those in the game are expected to dance. If we imagine we are at a funeral, then we play at crying and wailing. But everything is just pretense, only “make-believe.” The game is spoiled, however, when people no longer play as they should or as expected.
In Your youth, dear Jesus, You must have played games like these. How else could You have come up with what You said today, when You noted that the people listening to You did not seem to know what they really wanted. They complained about John the Baptist and his ways, on the one hand, and they criticized You, on the other hand. Either way, they were not attending to what they were supposed to do in life.
Sometimes, dear Lord, I am like those people in Your time. I do not know what I really want. Or, I know but I want everything without having to give up something. And so I do not move, I do not make a choice. How do the business pundits have it? Paralysis by Analysis. I weigh so many things, consider so many angles to a situation, but then I do not want to take any risk. So I am reduced to inaction. I paralyze myself by analyzing ad infinitum. This, I know, cannot really be, should not really be. Life is about making choices. It is about taking this road rather than another, and accepting whatever comes along that road, rather than forever longing and imagining what might have been or what could have been in the road that had not been taken.
There’s a lovely poem by Robert Frost about precisely this, titled The Road Not Taken. I’ll look it up later. In the meantime, Lord Jesus, please help me decide on important matters today, to be bold and take risks, especially to take You as my Lord and Master. Today and Forever.
- Roderick C. Salazar, SVD (CKMS, QC)
The Word in other words 2015
An annual project of Logos Publications, The WORD in Other Words Bible Diary contains daily scripture readings and reflections written by priest, brothers, and sisters of the three congregations founded by St. Arnold Janssen (the SVD, SSpS, and SSpSAP). It hopes to serve as a daily companion to readers who continually seek the correlation of the Word of God and human experience.
