Against the Wind
There's a tendency to measure the church by attendance numbers, but John the Baptist never played that game. As a young lawyer, I learned something about truth and love from a scared client in a courthouse hallway. A reflection on Matthew 11:7-15.
Matthew 11:7-15
Phrases that spoke to me today:
• a reed shaken by the wind?
• among those born of women there has arisen no one greater than John the Baptist
• the one who is least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he
• he who has ears to hear, let him hear
Applying the Word to My Life:
There is a pull to measure the church the way we measure most things - by the numbers. Full pews on Sunday means we're doing well; empty ones mean something's wrong. John never played by that measure. Jesus asks the crowd what they went into the wilderness expecting - a reed shaken by the wind, bending whichever way public opinion blew? John wasn't that. He said what was true, not what was popular, and he wasn't trying to hurt anyone by saying it. He just wouldn't bend.
That's the obligation that falls on the rest of us too. Speaking the truth is part of what love actually requires - not the comfortable kind of love that just tells people what they want to hear, because that can leave someone in real danger without them even knowing it. But truth without love isn't the answer either; that's not conviction, that's just being brutal and calling it honesty. Christianity asks for both at once, truth and love wound together, and it's harder to hold than either one alone.
I learned that early, defending some of my first criminal cases. I remember a client who'd just come out of a hearing where the judge was furious and things had gone badly. I'd been appointed from the bench, and I took them out into the hallway. They were scared. I told them the truth - that this probably wasn't going to end perfectly, that the odds weren't in their favor - but I also told them they wouldn't go through any of it alone, that I'd walk every step with them, that they'd know what was coming before it came, and that in the end their story would actually get heard. I watched them take a breath and relax, right there in that hallway. The truth didn't scare them. What scared them was thinking no one was standing with them while they heard it.
Jesus says among those born of women, none is greater than John - and then, in the same breath, that the least in the kingdom of heaven is greater than he. That's not a demotion of John. It's a redefinition of greatness itself - not stature, not a following, not being right and popular at the same time, but faithfulness to the truth, held together with love, wherever it's needed. You don't have to stand in a courtroom hallway or preach in the wilderness to live that out. It looks like telling a friend something true they need to hear, not to win an argument or prove you're right, but because you care about them enough to say it - and then staying close enough afterward that they know they aren't facing it alone.
My Response for Today:
Today I'll tell someone something true they need to hear, and make sure they know I'm not going anywhere while they hear it.