NOTES for Mat 12:38-42

How frightening freedom is... Responsibility inevitably follows it. Free choice is our problem, our headache. Even choosing yogurt in a supermarket is unbearably difficult for us because, if we choose wrongly, we alone will be to blame, and we are afraid of being at fault. So, sometimes even subconsciously, we seek a lack of freedom, decisions forced upon us, proofs, and signs—like the scribes and Pharisees in Matthew's Gospel.

But refusing the freedom to choose is also a decision, and one for which we must answer. Refusing to see the signs of God's action in our lives and demanding ever more proof leave us in the wrong before God even when compared with repentant pagans.