Monday of the Second Week in Ordinary Time
Years ago when I read the Gospel, I often found myself getting frustrated. Why don’t those Pharisees and the other people who encounter Jesus get it? Why don’t they just listen to him and change their lives? Do they not know who they are talking to? Oddly enough, as I grow older I find myself identifying with them in their resistance to Jesus. I understand why they did not want to change in the way Jesus demanded. The weaknesses and temptations of being human are always there and the challenge of following Jesus is formidable. And I find myself resisting him. Intellectualizing or rationalizing no longer works. It’s as though being on this journey of discipleship is the problem; not being able to just stay at one place for a while causes anxiety and uncertainty. On the other hand, resisting Jesus causes considerable discomfort as well. It can seem like a ‘no win’ situation.
In today’s passage from the Gospel of Mark, Jesus challenges the people’s tradition of fasting and, in a very real way, the basic foundation of their present way of life. They find it difficult to understand why John the Baptist and his followers conform to the rules of fasting while Jesus and his disciples do not. Jesus’ response, though cryptic, is meant to challenge them in two ways. “Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?” Who is this person Jesus? Then, “no one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak.” What is he telling us about the way we are living our lives? Only one thing is certain: everything is changed. Not only does following Jesus change a few traditions, but it leads to constant change in me. I am no longer be able depend on obeying rules and regulations for security. I am asked to abandon my life to the person of Jesus. And it is in the context of that relationship I discover the only true security in my life. Still, I find I walk this road in fits and starts; I say ‘yes’ and then I resist. It seems the biggest challenge is not what I do, but rather what I allow him to do with me.
I know cannot stay the same if I am to follow Jesus. Just as Mark says, “new wine is poured into new wineskins”, I must always be changing—becoming a new vessel so that I have the capacity to receive what the Father wishes to bestow on me through Jesus: a new life, a new mission, and a new heart. I am not what I used to be nor can I pretend to be as I once was. When I resist—when I dare try and remain as I am, I find no peace. It takes energy and work and persistence to say ‘no’ to the Christ who has saved me at the cost of his very life. Why do I not realize this? Yes, discipleship is hard. Yes, I will work hard every day of my life. Yes, there seems no rest for those who follow him. But there is peace and there is hope and there is freedom and there is love.
I pray this day that God will grant me the willingness to take a step out of the comfort of ‘sameness’ I cling to in my life everyday—to trust him to fashion me into a new vessel. I hope for the grace to resist him less. And I pray I will cling less to the way I have been and lean more into the way Jesus wishes for me.
--Gail Lyman