I, the LORD, your God,
teach you what is for your good,
and lead you on the way you should go.
We need the Lord to teach us and to lead us. He commands only that which is for our good. He insists only on the way that will lead to our flourishing.
If you would hearken to my commandments,
your prosperity would be like a river,
and your vindication like the waves of the sea;
We may wonder why we need a positive law revealed to us. Isn't it really just over-complicating things we know we should do? We know we should be kind and just. Isn't that just a part of being human that transcends bounds of culture and religion?
We need the law of the Lord because we have a fairly impressive capacity for self-deception. We can take good premises like justice and kindness and twist them to justify selfishness and pride. We will still insist that we are kind of just. But we may not perceive that we only act justly or kindly when it is the most convenient for us.
‘We played the flute for you, but you did not dance,
we sang a dirge but you did not mourn.’
God reveals to us that some of things in which we take delight are indulged disproportionately. Sometimes we need to be led by John away from eating and drinking in order to be opened to the Messiah. At other times we are so insistent on our own sorrow that we refuse to be open to the good things, both physical and spiritual. We need the Son of Man to show us when to feast because, oddly, are flesh doesn't always want to do so when we most need it.
While we could theoretically know the truth by natural law it "would only be known by a few, and that after a long time, and with the admixture of many errors." (see Summa Theologiae Part 1 Question 1). We see from this parable of Jesus that we often let our mood determine what truth we are willing to receive. We tend to let our emotions steer the boat of our lives. This is why having a Church that preaches the truth in season and out of season (see Second Timothy 4:2) is so important.
“We do not really want a religion that is right where we are right. What we want is a religion that is right where we are wrong. We do not want, as the newspapers say, a church that will move with the world. We want a church that will move the world.”
- GK Chesterton
In what way is the flute being played for us today? In what ways are we being called to dance but standing alone off in a corner? What gifts and good works is God unable to unleash through us because we are not in the mood?
In what way is a dirge coming to us from God? This dirge is a different sort of music than worldly sorrow. Worldly sorrow is sorrow at the hopelessness of a perceived life without God. But Godly sorrow leads to repentance (see Second Corinthians 7:10). It involves the mourning of things worldly to which we have been too attached. But it opens space in us and calls out to God to fill that openness. It is a brokenness that reaches out for healing rather than pretending we are OK are forcing ourselves to dance.
The ways of God are not our ways (see Isaiah 55:8). But they are meant to become our ways. Jesus himself befriends us and teaches us this wisdom which at first seems so foreign but which is "vindicated by her works."
He is like a tree
planted near running water,
That yields its fruit in due season,
and whose leaves never fade.
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