Luke 7:18-35

Luke 7:18-35

The sooner we realize there is no pleasing people, the sooner we will be useful for the kingdom of God. John the Baptist’s life and ministry are at their end. He is having the sort of crisis many of us will face asking, “Did I spend this life right?” If Jesus is the Messiah then being in prison and about to die is acceptable, but if Jesus is not the Messiah John's whole life was misdirected. If John was, as Jesus said, the greatest of all those born of women and he had doubts and struggles then my having doubts and struggles from time to time need not wreck my faith.

John was rejected by the religious elite as being a madman. He lived in the wild places and ate off the land. Odd behavior, which by the way, was copied by truly demonically possessed men. Herod and the politically powerful also rejected him. Everyone felt Herod’s marriage was a disgrace, but only John said anything about it. Pleasing people was not high on John's priority list. While John was rejected as being too austere, Jesus was rejected as not being austere enough. Jesus feasted and drank and kept company with disreputable people. During His whole life there was always someone that was not pleased with Jesus.

Most people have a narrow window of approval. If we imagine humility as the color spectrum most people only approve of a very small part of that spectrum, the part in which they inhabit. Our options are to try to please everyone (which is utterly impossible) or find a small niche and select that place as where we will spend our energy. This is, by the way, what many churches have typically done. The third option is to not really care about pleasing men. Love them all, but only care that we please the Father. “In this wisdom is vindicated by all her children.”

“Lord, help me care about Your opinion above all others. Amen”