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Mark 2: 18-22
John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” 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. “No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.”
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In the passage preceding today’s Gospel, Jesus is criticised for sharing the table with tax collectors and sinners (Mark 2.13-17). In tomorrow’s Gospel, we will hear how Jesus and his disciples are accused of behaving unlawfully on the Sabbath as they pluck heads of grain while they make their way through the fields (Mark 2.23-28). The sticking point in today’s Gospel is fasting.
The people who approach Jesus are almost pitting John’s disciples and the Pharisees against the disciples of Jesus. They cannot understand why Jesus’ disciples do not practise this ancient tradition and demand an explication. Much like a child who is losing at a boardgame might moan ‘that’s not fair!’ and try to claim that you need to roll the exact number to win the game, the people want to know why Jesus and his followers seem to be exempt from the rules.
Jesus replies with a parable, or rather three, pointing them towards the Truth. He wants them to realise that his disciples have not simply forgotten or are too hungry to fast, but that they cannot fast, since they find themselves at a wedding banquet. He wants them to realise that he is the Bridegroom at the head of this feast.
Coupled with the imagery of the wineskins in the final lines of the Gospel, the miracle of Jesus transforming water into the finest wine at the Wedding Feast at Cana (John 2.1-12) also springs to mind. In changing water into wine, Jesus takes the role of the Bridegroom who would traditionally provide the wine, thus fulfilling Isaiah’s prophecies that the Messiah will preside at a great and abundant wedding banquet when he comes. Jesus is the Bridegroom, and his disciples - the Church, us - are the Bride. When we consider this carefully, we uncover a dynamic and unique identity to be lived out by each member of the Church.
In the last phrases of the Gospel, Jesus seems to be pointing out the obvious; new wine requires fresh wineskins. Putting new wine into old wineskins both breaks the skins and loses the wine. Jesus is not necessarily saying that old cloaks, old wineskins, or the practice of fasting, are inherently bad (Jesus fasts for forty days and nights in the desert), but rather that one cannot simply continue in old ways and continue to impose them or force them to fit when faced with something so radically new.
As we step into the third week of January, perhaps our hopeful New Year’s Resolutions are fading away and we find ourselves slipping back into our old habits and patterns of thought. Perhaps we can read this Gospel as a call to action to change those parts of our lives which are like old cloaks and old wineskins; parts of our lives which don’t quite fit or are holding us back from living as faithful members of our Church, the Bride of Christ.