NOTES for Luk 7:31-35

The words of Jesus, addressed by Him to the Pharisees listening to Him, briefly and precisely describe the real reasons His listeners rejected both Jesus Himself and His testimony. Their meaning is simple: "wisdom" is justified by her children, that is, by those who invented this wisdom, as well as by those who support and defend it, relying on it and building their worldview on it. The Savior compares such "wise men" to children playing in the street, whose game consists of guessing what melody will sound next: a cheerful one or a sad one. The one who guessed won, and the one who guessed wrong lost.

It is completely obvious that such games had no relation to music as a high art. And the "wisdom" of the Pharisees who were always objecting to Jesus, judging by the example He gave, had no more relation to wisdom than the children's games He mentioned had to musical art. A serious, thoughtful search for truth often leads to mistakes, and not everyone who meets Jesus can easily see the Messiah in Him. But in this case there was no search at all. There was only a game of words, of quotations from the Torah and from theological writings widespread in rabbinic circles at that time.

The game was by no means harmless: the Pharisees arguing with Jesus were not playing it for the sake of intellectual exercise, but in order to preserve intact their native and familiar worldview, so that the religiosity so dear to them would not collapse. They needed "wisdom" so as not to accept what was unacceptable to their theological concepts. And they were ready to accept Jesus only on their own terms, if He agreed to correspond to their ideas about what the Messiah should be and what He should do.

They were also ready to enter the Kingdom, but on their own terms. Jesus, as can be seen, refuses them this with complete decisiveness. Not because there is no place for religion in the Kingdom, but because, when entering the Kingdom, one will have to change, to become another, new person. To do what many leaders of the Pharisaic movement feared so much. They feared it so much that they preferred to refuse the Kingdom, if only they could remain as they were.

This passage from the Gospel of Luke usually requires explanation. To whom does Jesus compare “the people of this generation”? Whom does He mean in verse 32? Perhaps He is referring to a children’s game familiar to His listeners. Children love games of this kind, which contradict ordinary logic and thereby show that they have mastered that logic. “Do not say yes or no; do not name black or white...” Absurdities and tall tales delight children. The object of this game, apparently, is to agree with nothing. It is a perfectly amusing children’s game. But when adults begin playing such games, it is no longer innocent. It means that people are pursuing some interest of their own, that they disagree with something not because it is untrue but because it is disadvantageous to them. They are then closed to God and His message. For this message from God—“wisdom” in verse 35—to be accepted as true, or “justified,” people must be free of prejudice, await the message, seek it, and be “her children.”

Our whole trouble is that we cling too tightly to our imperfect knowledge of the world. We get used to something ordinary, and everything that does not fit within those bounds is perceived by us as false, unnecessary, or even outrageous. We get used to the idea that if cheerful songs are played, people sing, and if sad ones are played, they weep. We have some set of standard reactions to the world, and often we reject everything beyond that. But the Lord will never fit into any of our mental schemes or any of our habitual reactions. He is living, and He depends on nothing in this world; on the contrary, everything in this world depends on Him.

Let us pay attention to the expression "wisdom is justified by all her children." Questions often arise about these words. They seem strange to us, because wisdom, as something higher and self-sufficient, would appear to need no justifications. Here there is a purely linguistic subtlety. We all remember well the words of prayer: "Blessed are You, O Lord; teach me Your justifications," taken into worship from Psalm 118. The word "justification" here certainly does not have the meaning most common in modern Russian, the removal of guilt from oneself, which everyone understands. Its sense is rather truth or righteousness: teach me Your truth. Likewise, the Gospel text should be understood rather as saying that in the children of wisdom, that is, in people who live according to the laws of divine wisdom, according to the laws of Holy Scripture, God's truth reaches its fullness.

In the Gospel of Luke, we will read more than once about the various miracles performed by Jesus Christ. The time has come for the Evangelist to explain to the reader why he includes all these stories in his book. The mystery is revealed when Jesus, answering the Baptist's disciples, quotes the prophecies of Isaiah (Isa. 35:5-6; 61:1-2), which foretold the Day of the Lord and the coming of God's messianic Kingdom. The blind and the lame of this Kingdom are the people whom Jesus healed, but not only them: they are also those whose hearts gained sight, whose spirits were healed, and who saw their calling and the purpose of their lives. It is no accident that the Lord contrasts them with the Pharisees and lawyers who did not wish to gain sight or be healed, who were unable to respond to the Gospel or understand the message of the Baptist and Jesus about the approaching Kingdom. The meaning of the messianic miracles therefore extends to the lives of those who were never lame and had always seen well—to the readers of the Gospel, ancient and modern.

Today's reading touches on a very important theme connected with the ministry and witness not only of John the Baptist, but also of Jesus Himself. For Jesus it is completely beyond doubt that what many of those who came to John did not see was true: he was the greatest of all the prophets who had ever preached to the people of God (v. 28). Meanwhile, the very people who do not accept John are those who considered themselves the messianic remnant of which the prophets had spoken: the Pharisees and the teachers of the Torah ("scribes") (v. 30). In today's passage we see how Jesus explains this rejection. He compares those who reject John to children offended by their peers who refuse to play according to the rules they have set (v. 32). That is why they are satisfied neither with John's strict asceticism nor with Jesus' accessibility and openness (vv. 33-34).

Jesus expresses the essence of the problem in one phrase: wisdom is justified by her children (v. 35). For a better understanding of this phrase, it is important to keep in mind that among the Jews the concept of wisdom had long been associated not so much with theory and abstract knowledge as with practice. At first it referred to the practical skills of one craft or another, later to the practice of human relationships so necessary for rulers, judges, and statesmen, and after the Babylonian exile wisdom also came to be connected with the practice of following the Torah, which likewise required a certain skill, one that in a sense could be called the skill of righteous living.

Jesus has in mind another skill and another practice: the practice of the theological disputes so beloved by learned rabbis and simply educated believers. In the Gospel era such disputes were a favorite occupation and pastime of many inhabitants of Jerusalem. And it happened that for many of them, as one can see, these disputes turned into an end in themselves. The question was no longer how, by reading Scripture, to understand God's will through it, but what other interpretations of what had been read could be invented.

Of course, such intellectual exercises are harmless enough in themselves, and at times they can even be useful. But if one becomes too absorbed in them, they sometimes lead away from reality. All such exercises are always conditional to some degree. And if a person trains himself to see the world exclusively through the prism of theological concepts, even ones based on Scripture, it is very easy not to see behind them God and the One whom He sends into the world. All the more so because accepting Christ will require giving up many concepts. Naturally, one would like the real Messiah to correspond to them, so that nothing would have to be given up. But there is no correspondence, and then a choice has to be made. For someone, his own wisdom may turn out to be more important than the Kingdom. And even God can do nothing about that: such is the price of human freedom.

Why does John, who himself bore witness to Jesus and saw the Spirit descending upon Him, suddenly send his disciples to Him with such a question? Perhaps he wants to strengthen his disciples' faith? Or perhaps in prison he himself was passing through the final trials of faith?

In any case, this question is extraordinarily important for us: “Art Thou He that should come?” We are called not merely to “believe” but to take a very decisive step—to take up the cross and follow Him. To do so, we must be certain that this is indeed He.

Jesus answers in the words of a messianic prophecy: let John's disciples judge by the works He performs. It seems that nothing else is left for us either: to look at what He does in our lives and in the lives of people we know, and to draw the right conclusions.