Homily Preached by Sister Cecelia
October 18, 2020
Holy Wisdom Church
This morning, Saint Paul wrote to the church in Corinth that he felt so unbearably crushed that he was despairing of life. Paul realized he could not handle his afflictions, nor can we, without relying on God’s help. “My yoke is easy and my burden is light” was a quote we heard a few weeks ago. While the reflections that Sunday were all quite meaningful and helpful, I also thought of a saying I often remembered when life was bringing me much more than I could bear. It was that God never gives us more than we can handle. God never gives us more than we can handle when we trust that God is helping us. Our reliance on God and the prayers of the whole body of Christ enable us to carry whatever yoke is coming upon us, rather than relying on just our own strength.
The gospel this morning comes after the miracle of Jesus healing the paralytic who was lowered through the roof by his faith-filled friends. The people who witnessed the healing, and heard Jesus forgiving the man his sins as if he were God, were filled with amazement. No doubt the crowds would have told the tax collector, Levi, about it. When Jesus told Levi to follow him, Levi had every reason to rejoice that the wonder-worker had called him. He then gave a great banquet to celebrate and invited all his friends, as well as others like the Pharisees. These holy ones looked down on the friends of Levi, and they also questioned Jesus’ other followers who did not fast as the Pharisees thought they should.
Jesus defended his followers and compared life to a wedding feast. The first reading this morning from Isaiah tells us that the hand of God rested on the mountain where God had prepared a feast of rich food and wine for his people. Joy is a Christian characteristic when we trust that God is helping us. Far too many people think that Christianity compels us to do all the things we do not want to do and stops us from doing what gives us joy. Jesus was very much aware of the cross he was carrying, and of his approaching suffering and ignominious death, but knew the joy of the awareness of God.
Jesus was warning the Pharisees and us not to be rigid like old wineskins. Jesus was condemning the shut mind and pleading that we not reject new ideas. The Holy Spirit is always leading us into new truth. At times it is not even new truth but rather opening our minds to the truth that has always been. Think of Galileo condemned by the church for teaching that the earth moved around the sun. Think of Joseph Lister, who had to fight for using antiseptic techniques during surgical operations. The list of resistance to new truths is almost endless. Why be so afraid of the new? Let us take care and never shirk the adventure of thought.
The Pharisees’ trouble was that the whole religious outlook of Jesus was so startlingly new, they simply could not adjust to it. That seems to be the meaning of the phrase that the old wine is better. We have a tendency to prefer the old that we know rather than the new. Facing the new can be a fear-filled burden, but remember Jesus’ words: His yoke is easy and his burden light when we trust in our God. When the new wine matures, it will be better than the old.
