As we open our lesson today, we see a conflict brewing. Actually there are two conflicts. Let's label them "the fast" and "the past." Let's deal first of all with the fast.
When our lesson opens, the Pharisees and even the disciples of John the Baptist are fasting. Jesus and his disciples are not. To the casual spectator it might appear that Jesus is not paying proper tribute to his faith. Other religious people are fasting. He refuses. What gives with him anyway?
We need to know that Jesus practiced fasting. However, the law of Moses required only one day of the calendar year as a fast day. You and I know this day as Yom Kippur--the Day of Atonement.
The Pharisees, in order to show their neighbors how zealous they were--and to demonstrate their piety--observed many more days of fasting than the Scripture required. They wanted people to notice how religious they were. Instead of fasting being a discipline rising out of a heart of love for God, it had become a symbol of self-righteousness.
This is a good time--this last Sunday before the beginning of Lent--for us to deal with the discipline of fasting. Certainly the report last fall that detailed the increasing girth of the American people ought to lead us to consider this ancient practice of self-denial.
However, a fast is not a diet. The purpose of a fast is to interrupt the dull routines of everyday life in order to sharpen our awareness of the Eternal. The purpose of fasting is to put us in touch with what matters most in life--the love and grace of God. Fasting is not meant to baptize God's people in lemon juice and make us sour-saints. This is one reason Jesus taught in the "Sermon on the Mount" that our fasting was not to be seen by others--but done in secret. Fasting is not done to impress others--but to incarnate God's love in our lives in a deeper way. There are some good reasons a person might choose to fast:
1. Self-denial: a way to govern our appetites and allow the spiritual dimension to have first place in our lives. It is a good way to get focused--to get our priorities in order.
2. To seek God's will in a very important decision in our lives. Fasting allows us to minimize distractions--to silence all other voices except God's.
3. Our doctor may order us to fast before a test or exam.
4. To experience the hunger and starvation of needy people and to commit ourselves and our resources to be part of the solution--not the problem. Please note: This doesn't mean that, after the fast is over, we need to feel guilty if we enjoy a delicious meal at a nice restaurant. Fasting is often done in preparation for a feast.
One of the great heresies of the Christian faith is that Christians ought not laugh and enjoy life. Actually the converse is true. We should enjoy life more than anybody else because we have the Source of Joy which holds up in all circumstances, climates, and conditions. We serve a living Lord--not a dead Law.
The Pharisees were acting as if life were a funeral; Jesus saw life as a wedding. Jesus said to them, "The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day." (NRSV)
When Christ is present, life is a wedding, not a funeral. Nobody fasts at a wedding. We might fast before a wedding or even after a wedding--when all the bills come in and you don't have money to buy food and drink--but not the wedding day itself. A wedding is a time for a glad-some heart--not one of crying and gnashing of teeth.
The purpose of fasting is to increase our joy, not to diminish it. It is to bring God's Presence into our lives. It was the Pharisees' approach to faith, life, and fasting that was wrong--not these experiences themselves. When you come out of an experience of worship and fasting, you should love God more--not less. You should have received a blessing and an insight--not a burden and a scowl. The Pharisees were men of intense religiosity, but they had replaced a consciousness of the presence of the living God with an adherence to the unnecessary rigors of an exaggerated Law.
An old Doonesbury comic strip column portrays a most picturesque expression of the conflict taking place here in verses 18-22 and in verses 23-28 of chapter 2.
I want you to picture in your mind a typical white New England Church nestled near a forest and lake. The sign reads: Little Church Of Walden.
Inside the church in the fellowship room the long-haired, bearded pastor, wearing a clerical collar is briefing his congregation on the events of the week ahead. Reading from his clipboard, he begins by stating, "This Monday, of course, we have a lecture on nutrition from Kate Moss' personal chef . . ." He continues, "Tuesday and Thursday will be our regular 12-Step nights . . ."
At this point, one of the parishioners breaks in, "Pastor, would that be drugs or sex addiction?" The pastor responds, "Drugs. Sex Addiction we've cut down to nine steps. That's on Friday at 6:30 P.M.--right after organic co-gardening . . ." The next frame catches him saying, "Also, a special treat--Saturday night will be aerobic male-bonding night! So bring your sneaks! Any questions?" To this, a parishioner queries, "Yes, is there a church service?" The pastor responds, "Canceled. There was a conflict with self-esteem workshop."
This is exactly what is happening in our lesson today. The law and all of its traditions had replaced God as the central focus of worship. An older bishop used to say to young pastors, "I don't care how many skills you master in this life--but I do care who is the Master of your soul." Our relationship with Christ is more important than our adherence to a set of religious practices. And thus Jesus and the Pharisees are in conflict over the fast. But there is another conflict reflected in the rest of our lesson. It is a conflict over "the past."
Jesus uses two helpful images here. I like the way Biblical scholar Eugene
H. Peterson expresses it in his translation of the Bible, The Message. Jesus said, "No one cuts up a fine silk scarf to patch old work clothes--you want fabrics that match. And you don't put your freshly made wine into cracked bottles."
The religious people of Jesus' time were passionately attached to things as they were. The Law to them was God's last and final word--and to add one word or subtract one word was a deadly sin. A new idea was not so much a mistake as a sin. That spirit is by no means dead in the church, by the way. Very often when a new idea or new program is suggested to a congregation today there comes forth a chorus of the Seven Last Words of the Church, "We Never Did It That Way Before." What Jesus was saying is that there comes a time when mere patching is a folly! In a time of rapid change mere patching may no longer be enough. There are times when we are called to the adventure of the new.
We know that both the old and the traditional--as well as the new and innovative--have their place. We need balance. Jesus certainly respected and honored the past. Jesus went to the teaching of the Old Testament prophet Joel
2:13 to help people understand the proper attitude and purpose of fasting. Here, the prophet instructed the people that they were to rend their hearts, not their garments.
Jesus honored his people's past. However, there were things in the past that needed to be let go. Just as the ancient patriarch Abraham was willing to go to a new country, so there are times when God is leading people into new insights and traditions. The law and the traditions are important, but what is most important is our experience of the living God. As someone has said, "Faith is a day-by-day process in which GOD will show us what to do moment-by-moment." Sometimes we need to let go of the past in order to claim the present and the future.
William Easum in his book Dancing with Dinosaurs tells about a woman who owned the finest winery in all the land. "Everything about the winery was superb. The fertile land yielded some of the finest grapes to be found. The large wooden vats that nurtured the crushed grapes until maturity produced the world's most exquisite wine. For more than two centuries people came from all over the world to visit the winery and drink the famous wine.
"One day the wine developed a bitter taste. No one could explain why. Nothing had changed. The wine was still made exactly as it had been made the last two centuries. Winery visitors and customers began to decline. In desperation, the woman hired consultants from all over the world to discover the reason for the wine's sudden bitter taste. After days of study, each expert arrived with the same diagnosis--the vats had outlived their usefulness. They were old and sour with no way of being cleaned or restored. The consultants concluded that the woman's only option was to replace the old vats.
"She was outraged. The beautiful vats had been in her family longer than she had. To the woman, family traditions were more important than the decline of her winery. She made desperate attempts to improve her wine. She tried different fertilizers, changed the acidity of the ground, designed new labels on the bottles, and even hired a new overseer of the grapes. But she continued to put the wine in the old wooden vats. And the finest grapes in the world continued to produce bitter wine.
"The number of the winery's visitors and customers continued to diminish until the day arrived when no one came to taste or buy the wine. The only remaining customers were the faithful members of the family for whom family traditions were more important than making satisfying wine.
"The owner of the winery knew why the grapes were making bitter wine. She had all the knowledge she needed to restore her winery to its former glory. But she lacked the courage to use the knowledge at her disposal to make the changes necessary to produce satisfying wine like she had for years before. Family traditions ran too deep to replace the vats. In time the world famous vineyards fell into ruin, and only the family members continued to drink the wine."*
In this little parable, William Easum is describing many churches. We can be so wedded to the past that we miss God's call to serve the present. Two conflicts: "the fast" and "the past." The important thing is that we keep alive a fresh experience of the living God.
* (Nashville: Abingdon Press, 1993), pp. 11-12.