February 26, 2006 At Saint Mark Church in Norman, OK
Hosea 2:16-17,21-22 + 2 Corinthians 3:1-6 + Mark 2:18-22
This is about fasting, not about wine skins old and new; and by using the image and the words “wedding feast”, the controversy heats up; because to the people of his time, that image had direct reference to the messiah.
As we assemble here at the threshold of Lent, this is a great Gospel to proclaim.
Written by Mark in the earliest days of the church’s struggle with Judaism, it reflects what has happened as the Good News which Jesus proclaims brings a rift, a tear in the fabric of old Israel as the community of the resurrection struggles to identify itself as rooted in yet now apart from Judaism. That early church had to center on the new way of Jesus now including tax collectors, sinners, the poor, the outcast, the sick, and otherwise marginalized in the messiah’s nuptial wedding banquet. This inclusiveness pushed them away from the exclusive community encouraged by the Pharisees, scribes and chief priests. This inclusiveness remains a challenge for us today both as a people who are still today excluded if we live clearly with Gospel values, and as a people who sometimes to our shame do the excluding.
What prompted this controversial discussion was that already (it is only the second chapter of Mark’s Gospel) Jesus has
- disturbed a synagogue service by casting out an unclean spirit,
- been in touch with outcast lepers,
- and sin-filled paralytics, and then if all that wasn’t bad enough,
- he has just come from dinner at a tax collector’s!
The people in charge do not like this behavior. It calls into question their own behavior, and with it, their prestige and respect. There is clearly something new here and it does not have much offer them.
The Good News proclaimed by Jesus is still new even though we know the stories that convey it. The consequences of the Good News are the same for us as they were for the Scribes and Pharisees, the marginalized, the lame, the lepers and those considered unclean. Those people we consider unfit, unclean, lazy, and crazy are headed to the front of the line when it comes to the Kingdom of God.
What must distinguish us from the Scribes and the Pharisees is that we can recognize that God is nearer than we think. Through the words and works of Jesus, we can learn that the poorest, the weakest, lowliest are God’s chosen ones.
We can also learn that God cares, that God sees, that God hear and answers prayers. From the Good News, we can also learn new things about our world:
that it is God’s gift and we are its stewards and caretakers. We can learn that we have no right to any of it, and it isn’t ours to consume and waste. We can learn from Jesus what those Scribes and Pharisees just couldn’t get: that salvation is not a reward of the scrupulous observance of rules and laws, but it is God’s gift to sinners who receive that gift by faith. Those unyieldingly rigid scribes, Pharisees and chief priests had it wrong. Only humility and gratitude, service and sacrifice put us into the company of saints. The forty days to come are our time to remember these things; to get it right, to soften our hearts, to seek forgiveness and give it, to remember that we are stewards and caretakers, to consume less because we take too much of everything, and waste nothing because it isn’t ours to discard.
Most of us will be back here on Wednesday. In fact, there will be more on Wednesday for Ashes than there are today: an odd fact that raises a lot of questions among those of us who are here. Even more strange is that last year 1,274 people were here on Ash Wednesday. 625 were here forty days later for Holy Thursday and even Less on Good Friday. What’s wrong with this picture, I have asked myself. What’s the point of starting Lent if you don’t know how it ends? Are burned palms more important than the Blessed Sacrament and the Passion and Cross on Good Friday? It might be worth thinking about that before you get you get here on Wednesday and stay home during the Triduum. It is time to begin the journey that will lead us to the wedding feast and the coming of the Bride Groom – and so we shall fast until the feast begins on
Holy Thursday April 13.