1 Cor 12:31-13:13 / Lk 7:31-35
Many schools now do testing for kindergarten candidates to determine whether they are ready yet for the program. If they’re not, the school recommends to the parents that the child be given “the gift of time,” that is, allowed to mature a little more so that the child can succeed when he or she finally begins the program. It works well.
One often wishes that a year off, or even five or ten, would bring some folks to readiness to face a serious issue or to hear something that needs to be heard. It’s frustrating to watch and wait year after year with such folks, and usually to observe no perceptible movement. What frustration Jesus must have felt so often. All he wanted to do was to help make people’s lives better, and all he got in return in too many cases was blind, irrelevant criticism. As today’s gospel says, they rejected John the Baptist and then later rejected Jesus because he wasn’t more like John!
Such folks inhabit every one of our lives, and we can give them too much power over us and over our happiness. Jesus’ advice is that after we’ve done our best, we should simply give those folks to the Lord. Continue to give the gift of your good example, but relax and commend them to the Lord. The moment of readiness may come far in the future, and when it does, your goodness will have played its part.
