Scripture: Mark 2:18-22
Structure:
- Introduction
- Fasting v feasting
- Fixed v flexible
- Ritual v renewal
- Conclusion
Introduction:
Good morning everyone.
Some things in life are both/and, while other things are either/or. Some things go together and other things don’t.
For example: bread and butter, love and marriage, worship and sacrifice, breathing and singing, creativity and mess. These sorts of things are both/and, they go together.
Then there are those things which are either/or, things that should never really be put together.
Like ice-cream and vegemite, drinking and driving, children and violence, fasting and feasting, love and apathy. These sorts of things are either/or, they don’t go together.
Today marks the second week of the annual Tranzsend prayer and self-denial campaign. Tranzsend is the sending and resourcing arm of the New Zealand Baptist missionary society. Next week, on the 28 March, we plan to collect a special offering to support the work of New Zealand Baptist missionaries.
Please turn with me to Mark chapter 2, verse 18, page 47 near the back of your pew Bibles. For the three Sundays of the self-denial campaign we plan to look at different aspects of Jesus’ mission from the gospel of Mark. Last Sunday we heard about 24 hours in Jesus’ mission, from Mark 1, where Jesus spent a day communicating and caring for people as well as communing with God.
In this morning’s passage we read about the newness Jesus brings. The new way of Jesus is an either/or thing (not both/and). The newness Jesus brings cannot be mixed with the old ways. From Mark 2, verse 18, we read…
18 On one occasion the followers of John the Baptist and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came to Jesus and asked him, “Why is it that the disciples of John the Baptist and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but yours do not?”
19 Jesus answered, “Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to go without food? Of course not! As long as the bridegroom is with them, they will not do that. 20 But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
21 “No one uses a piece of new cloth to patch up an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear off some of the old cloth, making an even bigger hole. 22 Nor does anyone pour new wine into used wineskins, because the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”
May the Spirit of Jesus illuminate God’s word for us.
Mark chapter 2 deals with a series of controversies and criticisms Jesus faced as he went about his mission. At the beginning of chapter 2 Jesus is criticized for forgiving a man’s sins. Then he calls Levi (a tax collector) to be one of his disciples and is criticized for eating with sinners and outcasts. In today’s reading Jesus’ disciples get some flack for not fasting. And in the verses that follow Jesus’ disciples are criticized for plucking a handful of grain on the Sabbath.
Clearly Jesus’ approach to life and mission was different to that of his contemporaries. Jesus’ way did not fit with the traditional approach of that time. Jesus’ response is not to criticize the old traditional way. Rather, Jesus defends his disciples by affirming the new way.
In the passage we just read, Jesus offers three parables or metaphors to make the point that his new way cannot be mixed with the old way. You don’t mix sadness with a wedding. You don’t patch an old garment with new cloth and you don’t put new wine into old wineskins. Each of these things is either/or.
This is not to say that the old should be done away with completely. It just doesn’t work to mix the two, that’s all.
Fasting v feasting:
We have had three weddings in the church so far this year. Weddings are a time for joy. In fact, the person who officiates at a wedding is called a marriage celebrant, from the word celebration. That’s because a wedding ceremony is a celebration of love and commitment and family.
Even though the first meal after a couple are married is usually dinner, it is called a breakfast because a wedding marks a new beginning, a new day and indeed a new covenant.
In the first of our three metaphors today, Jesus responds to the question of why his disciples do not fast. To fast, in this context, means to go without food. The Jewish Law only required people to fast one day in a year, on the day of atonement. [1] But over the centuries some of those who were more zealous or strict had volunteered to fast two days a week, on Mondays and Thursdays. This kind of fast was not for 24 hours, it was just during the daytime.
The purpose of their fast was to express mourning over Israel’s sins and grief over the fact that the longed for salvation of Israel (predicted by the prophets) had not appeared. [2] The fasts were a protest, a call to repentance.
“The Pharisees had assumed that the way to hasten and prepare for the coming of the new age was through stricter adherence to the Old Covenant. They did not seem to see that the coming of the new age was a gift of God’s grace.” [3]
In verse 19 Jesus says: “Do you expect the guests at a wedding party to go without food? Of course not! As long as the bridegroom is with them, they will not do that.”
In this little parable Jesus refers to himself as the bridegroom and his disciples as the guests. Jesus’ coming, his work on earth, is like a wedding in that it celebrates God’s love. It marks the beginning of something new, a new day, a new family and a new covenant. In and through Jesus, the promise of salvation (predicted by the prophets) is fulfilled.
Jesus’ appearance was cause for celebration, not cause for sadness. Feasting was a more appropriate response to Jesus’ coming than fasting. The meals the disciples enjoyed with Jesus were like a foreshadowing of the future heavenly banquet.
We might not think anything of it and perhaps it went over the heads of Jesus’ questioners at the time, but it was quite a thing for Jesus to refer to himself as ‘the bridegroom’. This is a title used of the Lord God (Yahweh) in the Hebrew Scriptures. Jesus was aligning himself very closely with God here.
The other thing that is a bit shocking are Jesus’ words in verse 20…
But the day will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
Normally the wedding guests leave when the party is over and the groom gets on with married life. But in this scenario the groom is taken away from the wedding celebration by force. There is a strong hint of violence here. Jesus is anticipating his arrest, suffering and death.
The point with the wedding parable is that Jesus’ coming is a time for feasting, not fasting. It is a time for gladness, not sadness. A time for celebration, not mourning. So the disciples’ behaviour is entirely appropriate to the occasion. In fact, it would be rude and offensive if Jesus’ disciples did fast while he was still with them.
After having answered the question about fasting, Jesus then goes on to tell two more parables which address the bigger issue of the relationship between Jewish ceremonial practice and the arrival of the kingdom of God. [4]
Fixed or flexible:
If you have ever had a flat battery in your car, then you may have used jumper leads to get your car going again. The trick with jumper leads is to match the positive terminal on the donor battery to the positive terminal on the receiving battery.
Likewise, the negative terminal on one battery needs to be matched to the negative terminal on the other battery. So you match like to like. Positive to positive and negative to negative. Don’t get your wires crossed or sparks will fly.
In verse 21 Jesus says: “No one uses a piece of new cloth to patch up an old coat, because the new patch will shrink and tear off some of the old cloth, making an even bigger hole.
The old coat would have done its shrinking but the new cloth still had flexibility in it. Why waste new cloth on an old coat? Just as you do with jumper leads and car batteries, match like with like. Old to old. New to new.
I have here in my hand a rubber band. In its relaxed state it is about 6 or 7 cm’s long. How far do you think I can stretch this rubber band? Anyone want to take a punt?
Who thinks 10 centimeters?
What about 20 centimeters?
Any takers for 30 centimeters or more?
Well, let’s find out. Don’t try this at home by the way.
[Stretch the rubber band as far as it will go]
That stretched probably about 35 centimeters I reckon.
In verse 22 Jesus gives another pithy little parable which is related to the one before it. Jesus says: “Nor does anyone pour new wine into used wineskins, because the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins will be ruined. Instead, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.”
The wineskin parable needs a bit of explanation. Back in the day people did not store their wine in glass bottles. They stored it in leather animal skins that had been sewn together. You had to put new wine into new wineskins because the new wine gave off gas as it fermented and the gas caused the wineskin to stretch and expand.
If the wineskin was old, it had already stretched and had no give left in it, like our rubber band at full extension. New wine which was still fermenting would burst the old wine skin and both would be ruined. New wine needed a fresh skin which was supple and flexible and still had some stretch in it.
In both the parable of the cloth and the wineskin, the old coat and the old wineskin are fixed, while the new cloth and the new wineskin are flexible.
The new wine and new cloth that Jesus brings require a certain flexibility or elasticity of mind.
To translate this into the context of the first century, Jesus was basically saying: the old things of the Jewish ceremonial law (things like animal sacrifice, clean and unclean foods and male circumcision), no longer fitted with the new covenant and the new day that Jesus was ushering in.
Jesus was doing something new which could not be patched on to the old traditions. If we attempt to put the new wine of Jesus’ teaching into the old wineskin of Jewish ceremonial law, it just won’t work.
This is not to imply that Jesus came to do away with the law. No. Jesus came to fulfill the law of Moses. So, if the baby is the moral law and the bath water is the ceremonial law, then we don’t throw the baby out with the bath water. We still need to obey God’s moral law.
Faith is still what saves and God still looks for faithfulness. But the new wine of righteousness that Jesus calls for is greater than the old righteousness of the law.
If you were here a couple of weeks ago you might remember the story of Rosalie Macgeorge, New Zealand’s first Baptist missionary. I imagine it took some real flexibility and elasticity of mind for the church of the 1880’s to send a woman as a missionary from New Zealand to India.
Indeed, Rosalie herself stretched things on occasion by refusing a salary and by publicly saying, at a missionary conference of Baptists in Bengal, that if a missionary was convinced of trying a new method from the others, she should be allowed to move to a branch station and do so.
Christian missionaries can never afford to be too rigid or fixed in their ways. Missionaries are often required to be flexible and adapt to the changing environment they find themselves in.
Ritual v renewal:
So far this morning we have talked about the either/or dichotomy between fasting and feasting, and between being fixed and being flexible. Today’s Scripture reading also touches on the relationship between ritual and renewal.
Ritual and renewal is not always a hard and fast dichotomy. It is not necessarily either/or. Ritual often provides a helpful transition to renewal.
Rituals tend to be external, physical type things like fasting. Giving up something during Lent can be helpful to your faith. It can help you to identify with Jesus and his suffering. But when Easter Sunday comes and Lent finishes you can stop the ritual of fasting.
Communion is another ritual for Christians. Communion helps to reminds us of Jesus’ presence. But when the Kingdom of God is realised in its fullness there won’t be the need for the ritual of communion because we will have the reality of Jesus’ presence.
Not all rituals are religious though. Scanning QR codes has become something of a public health ritual for us over the past year. As long as COVID is a threat, we need to keep up the ritual of scanning QR codes. But one day, when we have immunity and COVID is no longer a threat, we will hopefully be able to do away with the ritual of scanning.
Rituals serve a good purpose for a period of time but they are not an end in themselves. Rituals point to a reality beyond themselves, the reality of renewal.
Last year our national leader, Charles and some others came up with this descriptor of the Baptist churches of New Zealand…
“We are a collective of faith communities bringing gospel renewal to people and places within our local neighbourhoods.”
This statement describes who we are and what we are about. The part in the middle there, about bringing gospel renewal to people and places, seems to be a pretty good description of Jesus’ mission.
Gospel is a word that simply means ‘good news’. The gospel also refers to the first four books of the New Testament (Matthew, Mark, Luke & John) which tell of Jesus’ earthly mission.
When we read the gospels we get a picture of Jesus bringing the good news of renewal to people and places wherever he went. Jesus came to make all things new. Gospel renewal happens in all sorts of ways, through Jesus’ work of healing and setting free people free and forgiveness and restorative justice and so on.
There is a wonderful scene in the movie Forrest Gump, where a young Forrest is running away from some bullies. The doctor had prescribed special braces (or calipers) for Forrest’s legs. These braces were helpful for a while. They made his legs and back stronger. But there came a point when they actually got in the way.
In the scene from the movie, Forrest is making slow progress in the leg braces, trying to get away from his tormentors. It was an either/or scenario. Either, Forrest kept the leg braces on and got overtaken and beaten up. Or, he got rid of the braces and outran the kids chasing him.
As Forrest stretches out his legs and begins to run faster, the steel braces fall apart and Forrest is running free. (‘Run Forrest, run’.) Forrest doesn’t need the braces after that.
The rituals of the Jewish ceremonial law, like fasting and animal sacrifice and observing special holy days and only eating kosher food, were like Forrest’s braces on the legs of Israel. They were necessary for a time. They provided strength and support. But there came a point in God’s plan of salvation when they got in the way. Jesus’ coming brought renewal so that his disciples could run free.
In Acts 10 we read how God gave the apostle Peter a vision of all kinds of ritually unclean foods with a voice from heaven saying, ‘Get up Peter; kill and eat.’ At first Peter resisted the idea. ‘Certainly not Lord! I have never eaten anything ritually unclean or defiled.’ But Peter received this vision three times.
Then some men came knocking, asking Peter to come with them to the home of a Gentile called Cornelius. Normally Jews would not eat with Gentiles because it made them ceremonially unclean and they couldn’t participate in worship. But the vision he received unshackled Peter from the leg braces of ceremonial ritual, so he was free to preach the good news about Jesus to the Gentiles.
Sometimes the work of mission requires us to move beyond our set rituals in order to find and bring renewal. It’s not that rituals are bad. They are good up to a point. But, if Jesus is going to use us to bring gospel renewal, we need to have some flexibility.
Now when I say, we need some flexibility, I am talking about backbone flexibility, as opposed to being a jelly fish or a brick wall. In the process of bringing gospel renewal there are some things we should not compromise on. We can be flexible with rituals up to a point but moral stuff is not negotiable.
The gospel renewal that Jesus brings is a renewal of the heart. A renewal from the inside out. Jesus’ new way is less concerned with the externals of relating with God and more concerned with one’s heart attitude to God and neighbour.
Or to put it other terms, with Jesus’ new way, character is more important than ritual. Quality of relationship is more important than the number of activities or programmes we are involved in.
God longs for a heart that celebrates his presence by responding to him and caring for others. [5] That’s the kind of gospel renewal that Jesus brings. It is the sort of work our Tranzsend missionaries are involved in and it is the sort of work that Jesus calls the local church to be involved in too.
Conclusion:
One last thing to say. Gospel renewal, and in particular the renewal of the human heart, is often a long and painful experience. We need to trust ourselves to God’s Spirit and we need to have grace for ourselves in the process.
May the Spirit of Jesus help us to walk in freedom and in righteousness.
Questions for discussion or reflection:
What stands out for you in reading this Scripture and/or in listening to the sermon? Why do you think this stood out to you?
- What is the main point of Jesus’ three metaphors (or parables) in Mark 2:18-22?
- Why does Jesus use the image of a wedding feast to describe his coming and mission? (What does this image show us about Jesus’ mission?)
- What do the twin parables of the cloth and wineskins show us about the relationship between Jesus’ new way and the old ways of the Jewish ceremonial law?
- Discuss / reflect on the relationship between ritual and renewal. What rituals do you practice? Are these helpful to you? When is it better for ritual to give way to renewal?
- What might ‘gospel renewal’ look like in your life, in your home and in your neighbourhood?
[1] Leviticus 16:29
[2] Refer Larry Hurtado’s commentary on Mark, pages 45-46.
[3] Refer Ben Witherington III’s commentary on Mark, page 127.
[4] Refer Donald English’s commentary on Mark, page 71.
[5] Refer Darrell Bock, NIVAC on Mark, page 173.
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