As preached by Brother Luke
Holy Wisdom Church
In the name of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit.
How often do I get in my own way? I'm not just thinking about tripping over my own feet, which I do. But rather letting my preconceived ideas and notions inhibit my ability to be open to new ideas and ways of thinking and doing things. I don't think I'm alone in this. Sometimes we may be prisoners of our own habits. In our current circumstances here at the monastery where we have moved into our guest house while the cloister is being renovated, I have come to realize just how much of my life was governed by rigid patterns of habitual behavior that are now disrupted leaving me often frustrated at how much longer it takes me to do anything. My autopilot crashed! And I am frequently pining for a return to the old ways and dreaming about how much better life will be when I can return to my old patterns of behavior in my old routines and in my old spaces. I think a big surprise awaits me when this project is completed!
This morning's scripture lessons should alert us to the reality that the past is past and new ways will impose themselves on us, with or without our approval. What is Jesus trying to tell us by dining with tax collectors and sinners, the outcasts of his day? For the Pharisees of his day the problem was not just eating with tax collectors and sinners, but eating AT ALL was looked on with suspicion if one is viewed as a prophet. Shouldn't they be fasting, like John the Baptist and his followers? But Jesus reminds the critics that these aren't the usual circumstances!
And what about those tax collectors? Today people may view the IRS with disdain and distrust and may see the whole process as theft, but if you work for the IRS you most likely are not ostracized by society. Some may not like how the government uses "your tax dollars" but it is not a foreign occupier with local agents.
Jesus comes to these marginalized members of his society as the doctor for those who need a doctor. But the medicine he provides may not be the elixir his critics have in mind. He does not shun them, avoid them or dismiss them. He is not telling them how wrong or bad they are. Instead, the medicine he brings is the reminder that God loves his creation, all of it and everyone in it. And bringing God's love to those marginalized by society is a central feature of the Good News.
Wrapping our minds around a new reality is the difficult part. Later in the passage Luke relates the examples of old wine bursting new wine skins and new cloth patching old garments only to tear away from the garment. Jesus was challenging societal conventions and offering an alternative that emphasized God's love. Old paradigms no longer apply if we really understand God's true nature. So this new understanding burst the old wine skins and tore away from the old cloth of society. New wine needs new wine skins and old cloth needs to be replaced with new cloth. A new understanding of God brings with it a new way to approach the marginalized in society, with love and understanding, not fear and rejection.
Isaiah tells us that "God has wiped away the tears from every cheek...taken his peoples shame away... [so] rejoice since he has saved us." And Paul reminds us "to trust not in ourselves but in God."
And to take an example from last summer, this is exactly what Archbishop Elpidophoros of the Greek Archdiocese of North America did when he baptized the children of a same-sex couple in Greece not far from Athens. He put pastoral needs ahead of cultural sensitivities and societal conventions that too often hinder God's work rather than enable it. We want to stay in our comfort zone. Christ never stayed in his society's comfort zone. He constantly broke away from it just as the new cloth broke away from the old.
One might think that monastic life is as far removed from this paradigm as any life style could possibly be, but in fact it is just the opposite. It demands the very same thing of us. When we enter this life we must face the fact that we are entering into a completely new way of living, being and thinking. No matter how much our inner urgings may want us to simply continue to live our old life in a new location, that is not possible. We can't fit our old way of living into this life any more than people 2000 years ago could put new wine into old wine skins. The old wine skins will fail. And this teaching of Jesus is not just for monastics, it is for all of us.
Glory be to Jesus Christ
