Jesus came eating and drinking!

Luke 7:31-35

Jesus said: “What can I say about such men?” Jesus asked. “With what shall I compare them? They are like a group of children who complain to their friends, ‘You don’t like it if we play “wedding” and you don’t like it if we play “funeral”!’ For John the Baptist used to go without food and never took a drop of liquor all his life, and you said, ‘He must be crazy!’ But I eat my food and drink my wine, and you say, ‘What a glutton Jesus is! And he drinks! And has the lowest sort of friends!’ But I am sure you can always justify your inconsistencies.”

Food for thought!

Jesus very rarely comments on the defamation his enemies made about him. Today, however, he tells us one of the defamations and accusations his enemies made against him: "What a glutton Jesus is! And he drinks! And has the lowest sort of friends!" So why does Jesus tell us what they told him?

To tell us that if the message is unwelcome, nothing that the messenger can say or do will be right; that if some people dislike you, nothing you do pleases them; that always there will be people who dislike us and everything we do, good or not. Enemies know how to twist the good we do to something evil. Jesus came eating and drinking (which is fine) and they twisted it to: "What a glutton Jesus is! And he drinks! And has the lowest sort of friends!"

They did the same with John the Baptist. He "used to go without food and never took a drop of liquor all his life" (which is fine) and they called him crazy. Next time someone twists around your good acts or words, remember that they did likewise to Jesus and John the Baptist. Remember what St. Peter reminds us about Jesus: "When he was insulted, he did not retaliate. When he suffered, he did not threaten. It was his habit to commit the matter to the one who judges fairly." (1 Peter 2:23)

Before we go, let us note something good about Jesus: he feasted, eating food a drinking wine. Don't be ashamed of eating and drinking because whatever Jesus did his servants can do, in the same spirit and in the same manner. That is why Jesus told and tells us everyday: ‘Do this in remembrance of Me.’

He blessed infancy when he lay an infant in his mother’s arms; he blessed childhood when, as a boy, he was obedient to his parents; he hallowed youth during all those years of quiet seclusion and unnoticed service in Nazareth; He blessed every part of human life and experience by bearing it. Love is consecrated because le loved; tears are sacred because he wept; life is worship, or may be made so, because he passed through it; and death itself is ennobled and sanctified because he has died.

"Therefore, whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do everything for the glory of God." (1 Corinthians 10:31)