the least is greater

I have a cousin whose name is Jared. He is the grandson of my great uncle Bill, so I guess that makes him a third cousin or something. When I was fourteen, Uncle Bill thought it would be good for him to get some real world experience, so he brought him to visit us on the farm.

Jared was a spoiled little brat.

His dad was the editor for the Dallas Times, in Dallas Texas, for a number of years, but they was laid off for one reason or another. In an effort to get back at the company, he began to purchase all the little local newspapers that surrounded Dallas-Fort Worth and combine them into a single company. Each newspaper had their own little local insert, which allowed them to retain the local flavour, while at the same time having all the clout and reporting power of a large newspaper firm.

Jared was his only son.

When he came to visit, my dad asked him, “So, Jared, what do you want to be when you grow up?”

He would answer, “A billionaire.”

“Well, how are you going to do that?”

“I don’t know. Maybe I’ll just ask a billion people for a dollar. Then I would be a billionaire.”

Jared had no concept of working for his money, of having to wait for the things he wanted. Really Jared had no concept of ordinary life. The house he grew up in was in one of the most wealthy areas of Dallas. Ross Pero, the Texas oil billionaire who ran for President a couple of times on his own dime, lived only a couple of blocks away. The driveways in his neighbourhood are made out of marble and granite instead of asphalt and gravel. He had his own wing in the house, with his own private living room, complete with a state of the art entertainment system. He even had a full time nanny, who was there to wait on his every need, and drive him wherever he wanted to go.

Jared expected the world to revolve around him.

This is how Jesus describes the “people of this generation.” A bunch of spoiled brats who want the world to revolve around them.

““To what then shall I compare the people of this generation, and what are they like? They are like children sitting in the marketplace and calling to one another, “ ‘We played the flute for you, and you did not dance; we sang a dirge, and you did not weep.’” (Luke 7:31-32, ESV)

In the gospels, the descriptor ‘people of this generation’ has a negative connotation. The people of this generation are those who are limited to earthly things.

The people of this generation are those in the crowd who refused to see the work that God was doing in Jesus. They are like little children.

The Greek word here is παιδίοις. This is the diminutive of παις, which means child. This word can refer to a very little child, an infant or a toddler, or it can be a term of endearment that a parent uses toward their child (my little girl/boy), or, and this seems the most likely given the context, it can be an insult meaning simple, slow, stupid.

“You are like a bunch of silly children who are hanging out in the marketplace trying to get another group of children to do what you want. One is trying to get everyone to dance and celebrate, pretending to be at a wedding or something. The other group is trying to get everyone to mourn, like they were at a funeral. All the while they were missing what was going on in the marketplace.

“It did not matter what sort of people God sent, you always had excuses for not listening. John came like a prophet and ate only locusts and wild honey. You rejected him because you assumed there must have been something wrong with him, something unstable. You assumed he was like a reed shaken in the wind; unpredictable, unbelievable, a bit crazy.

“Then I come, and I do not do these things, but instead spend time among the poor and the outcast. I share the lives of those who have been marginalised and ignored and you accuse me of being a glutton and a drunk.

“You always have an excuse to ignore God.”

We always have some kind of excuse to ignore God.

There is this song called Excuses which goes like this.

Excuses, Excuses you hear them everyday now the devil he’ll supply them if from church you stay away when people come to worship God, the devil always loses so to keep those folks away from church, he offers them excuses

Well in the summer it’s too hot in the winter it’s too cold in the springtime when the weather’s just right, you find some place else to go well it’s up to the mountains or down to the beach or to visit some old friend or just stay home and kinda relax and hope some of the kid folks start droppin’ in. Well those church benches; they’re too hard and that song leader’s way too loud well you know how nervous you get when you’re sittin’ in a great big crowd. Now the doctor told you to watch them crowds, they’ll set you back. But you go to that ol’ ball game ’cause they say it helps you to relax. Well a headache Sunday morning and a backache Sunday night but by work time Monday morning, you’re feeling quite all right. Well one of the children has a cold, pneumonia do you suppose? Why, the whole family has to stay home! (Just to blow that poor kid’s nose)

It is far too easy to provide excuses against the things that God is calling us to do, rather than to just do them. It is way easier to give a great big list of why we cannot talk about our faith to our neighbour than to do it. It is way easier to give fifty reasons why we should not help the homeless, than it is to buy them some food and let them camp in our backyard.

It is far too easy to dismiss the work that other people are doing as wrong because they may not have the same theology as us.

Sometimes we find it easier to pass off the amazing things that God is doing, simply because we do not want to hear the call of God to join in his work.

“For John the Baptist has come eating no bread and drinking no wine, and you say, ‘He has a demon.’ The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, ‘Look at him! A glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!’ Yet wisdom is justified by all her children.” (Luke 7:33-35, ESV)

Yet wisdom is proved right by all her children. The word that we translate “proved right” is the Greek verb δικαιόω; this word more literally means “justified”. When Paul talks about us being “justified” by God through Christ’s blood, he uses this word δικαιόω. We are declared righteous, or recognised as righteous by God.

So wisdom, God’s wisdom, this female personification of God’s dealing with the world, is justified, is declared righteous, is recognised as right through its effects.

God’s dealing with the world is shown to be right by the kind of work it performs.

This word is also used in verse 29.

“When all the people heard this, and the tax collectors too, they declared God just,” they declared God righteous, they recognised that God’s ways are right, they δικαιόω God.

All the people, even the tax collectors, these people who had followed John, who had been baptised by John, who had turned from their old ways. They had received this baptism of repentance leading to holiness, to new life. They had turned from their old ways and were looking to seek God. They had listened to John’s identification of Jesus as the Christ, as the Messiah, and now, after hearing Jesus’s words about John recognise that God’s ways are right.

“I tell you, among those born of women none is greater than John. Yet the one who is least in the kingdom of God is greater than he.”” (Luke 7:28, ESV)

Jesus says that John the Baptist is the greatest person who was born of women, which includes pretty much everyone. John is the epitome of what God was doing up to this point. John is greater than Isaiah, he is greater than Jeremiah, his is greater than Malachi, he is greater than Moses. He is greater than Abraham.

Greater than everyone who has ever come. John is the greatest prophet because John was at the end of the Old Testament era, the Old Covenant era, and now in Jesus the New Covenant has come. In Jesus the Spirit will be poured out on the church. All of the prophecies pointing forward to God coming to dwell among his people, these are fulfilled in Jesus Christ.

And John stands at the end of that long line of expectation and can see the promises coming to fulfilment in Christ. John had the privilege of standing on the brink of the new kingdom and pointing to the coming Messiah.

Among those born of women, none is greater than John, but the least in the kingdom of God is greater than he; is more privileged than he.

Even though John was greater, was more privileged than all those who had gone before him. Even though he was greater than Elijah, or Isaiah, or Moses, or even Abraham.

Every single person who believes in Jesus Christ as Lord and Saviour is greater than he, is more privileged than John.

Because every single believer in Jesus Christ is not only born of a woman, but is also born of the Spirit.

And so this is the greatness of the kingdom, that we are not only born of humankind, but we are reborn of the Spirit. We are being renewed in the image of God. It’s not just that we have Jesus as this great spiritual and moral guide, a guru of sorts.

In following Christ we are renewed and the Spirit is poured out in our lives. We have the promise of new birth. Jesus has promised us new life in the Spirit. This new life that comes when the Spirit is poured out upon us as it was poured out on the disciples at Penetecost.

When we receive the sacrifice of Jesus Christ as standing in our stead. When we realise that when we are baptised we are baptised into Christ’s death and resurrection. When we claim those promises as our own the Spirit works in us and begins to change and shape us into something new.

It changes us from spoiled brats who thinks the world revolves around them, into people who are intimately engaged and connected with what God is doing in the world.

So when the ladies give up their Saturday mornings to show love to the girls who live down town. To give them breakfast and simply show them that people care about them. They show that they are engaged with what God is doing in the world.

When we go to the prison every week to share the gospel with those men who are there. Just talking and listening to them, showing them that they are not forgotten. He is connected with what God is doing in the world.

When we think of how we can use our position of influence; whether than be owning a business, or looking after your children, or keeping a house, or working for someone else. When we think about a way to help others see and feel the love of God in this world, we are being intimately connected with what God is doing.

When we stop trying to get others to do what we want them to do, and when we start to show the world that we see God at work in and among them then we are engaging with what God is doing in this world.