![]() We all run the risk of belittling the messengers that God sends us or making light of the various ways that God might be trying to communicate with us. In spite of that, they found a way of dismissing both John and Jesus they belittled both. Yet, God was drawing near to them in the two very different ministries of John the Baptist and Jesus. As we might say, there was no pleasing them. They remind Jesus of children he sees in the marketplace who refuse to join in either the funeral games or the party games of other children. They regard John as possessed because of his ascetic way of life and they consider Jesus a glutton, a drunkard and a friend of undesirables because of his more celebratory lifestyle. In the gospel reading Jesus complains that his contemporaries see nothing good in either himself or in John the Baptist. What matters is that we be attentive and responsive to his many comings to us in the course of our lives. In the imagery of the gospel reading, sometimes he comes to us in the joyful playing of pipes, sometimes in the mournful playing of dirges. We invite him to come in whatever way he chooses. When we pray, ‘Come, Lord Jesus’, we don’t specify the particular way that the Lord should come to us. Advent is a season when we try to grow in our openness to the many ways that the Lord is present to us. The gospel reading calls on us to be open to the Lord’s presence, even when the Lord comes to us in ways that don’t quite fit our expectations. We find fault with everyone and fail to see what is of God there. We can all get into that frame of mind there is no pleasing us. In other words, there was no pleasing Jesus’ contemporaries. The asceticism of John make people think of him as possessed the more celebratory tone of Jesus’ ministry made them right Jesus off as a friend of sinners and undesirables. In this morning’s gospel reading, the behaviour of children in the market place reminds him of his adult contemporaries, who responded neither to the preaching of John the Baptist nor the preaching of Jesus. The gospels suggest that Jesus was very observant of life around him. Each day we can ask the Lord to help us to become attuned to that deep music of the Spirit so that our lives can play the song of the kingdom of God in our world today. The music of the Spirit that is playing deep within us cannot find adequate expression in words. Saint Paul in his letter to the Romans declares that ‘the Spirit helps us in our weakness’ and ‘intercedes with sighs too deep for words’. ![]() This music of the Spirit plays from deep within our hearts. The risen Lord continues to play the music of the Spirit today and we are invited to dance to his music, to allow our lives to move to the rhythm of the Spirit. They are deaf to the music of the Spirit that his presence plays and that finds expression in his words and deeds. When this piper plays, very few follow him. He identifies with children in the market square who announce, ‘We played the pipes for you, and you wouldn’t dance’. In today’s gospel reading, Jesus compares himself to a piper whose music invites people to dance. We can all name some piece of music, be it classical or pop or rock or country and western, that speaks to us and touches us in places the spoken or written word fails to do. ![]() ![]() The last movement of Mahler’s ninth symphony does that for me. I know how the music will sound because I have heard it so often, but I also know that it will move me over and over again, as if I was hearing it for the first time. I have a number of favourite pieces of music that I often return to. A piece of music can move us in our depths. We all recognize that music can speak to us more powerfully than words alone. ![]()
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