Jesus was
criticized because His disciples didn’t fast (Mark 2:18-22). It was a practice piously close to the hearts
of John’s disciples and the Pharisees.
It’s true that fasting is a helpful spiritual practice. It gets us to cut down on the amount or even
the quality of our food. The emphasis
doesn’t stop there. Rather it heightens
our awareness that "less food" can help us to become aware that we’ve
been gorging ourselves, pampering ourselves in many ways and failing to deal
with reality.
Reality
begins with self. Joy, happiness, and laughter
are good for all of us; weddings, birthdays, graduation, recuperation from
sickness, coming to grips with addictions, and so on. Jesus makes the point, “Can
wedding guests fast while the bride and bridegroom are with them?"
Rather, let the bigger picture of the wedding celebration teach us that
the love that’s seen in the couple is going to be the source of growth and
strength. This growth will come through
"…for better, for worse; for richer, for poorer; in health and in
sickness." Reality gives us the
whole picture: better & worse,
richer & poorer, health & sickness.
Each of us
has experiences that put us in touch with challenging people, situations and
things that reveal the worse, the poverty and sickness in our lives. It doesn’t help to use the old ways and means
to deal with them. Jesus’ image of
putting a new piece of cloth that hasn’t shrunk onto an old cloth is going to
bring trouble; in the first wash the new cloth is going to shrink. That could tear or cause an unsightly
crease. And then I love His example of
pouring new wine into old wineskins. It
isn’t going to work because the new wine will continue to ferment and burst the
old wineskin. No, He says, you need to
put new wine into new wineskins. The new
wineskins will stretch. Wouldn’t it be
a sight to see someone still wearing clothes that no longer fit? To refuse to accept this simple physical fact
becomes a serious problem when we cling to childhood values that don’t fit our
life today.
We must live
for today. There have to be those
joy-filled, happy, moments and times that help us to realize how fortunate and
blessed we are. And there are also those
pain-filled, challenging, in-your-face moments that tell us that just cloaking
them with externals isn’t going to work.
It’s our attitude, our reactions, our willingness to accept the new
insights, along with insights that we’ve refused to accept that are now calling
for a new wineskin. The old wineskin
isn’t going to work. The disciples of
John and the Pharisees were holding on very tightly to the practice of
fasting. Their wineskin was old. Their view of life, of holiness was
stunted. They needed to get a new
wineskin that could stretch with the input that Jesus was offering them.
This COVID-19
pause is preparing us for something new – are we open to the discovery; are we
open to living into new skins? Are we
willing to look within first, let God show us where we need to grow, what
‘outdated’ thoughts, biases, judgments, fears or hurts are causing us to
typically say “Why do you not…” what can we do to change the way we walk with
the other so that we can be open to the new, to live within both/and rather
than right/wrong? Do we recognize the
bridegroom in our midst and dare to celebrate rather than flagellate – what is
God asking of us today and this time when we prepare to emerge from the virus –
will we be better or worse? Who is our
Jesus? And what is He asking of us – individually and collectively?
My faith and
hope and love at this stage of my life are calling for me to let go of my
childhood wineskins. They can’t stretch
to receive the wonderful and challenging ways that my faith and hope and love
are hoping to grow in this year of 2021.
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