Commentary on the Gospel of
Around these chapters of the gospel according to Luke, many religious people go to Jesus to ask him difficult questions. In the passage of today, are the crowds whoshoot: “The disciples of John fast often and say long prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why is it that your disciples eat and drink?” (Lk 5:33).
This question doesn’t look for a clarification about a new manner of living the religion. These words hide a judgement, a fear, and a religious conception. The judgement: this new group around Jesus is blasphemous; is not practising the commandments of the Jewish Law; is not as good as John’s movement or as the Pharisees’ group. The fear: the feeling that appears when something new arises and shows the established people that their rules are not always as firm as they think, that their inflexible positions about what they can or cannot do, are only a protection and an obstacle between them and life; between them and God. The religious conception: that which is based precisely in protecting the believer from fear, providing him with answer for every question, with rules and precepts for every situation. In this case, the religion becomes moral and the judgement of God doesn’t need discernment, because it is only a sum in a yes/no questions test.
Jesus answers the question with a tale, speaks about a new time that it is coming, restores spirituality as the centre of religion, and changes a black-and-white moral for a moral that requires, essentially, being with Him.
The Church, and every one of us, always needs to learn from Jesus; to discover what the judgements, fears and conceptions are, that are hidden behind every question; to forget its judge’s role and to tell the people good tales, which teach them how to live, how to discern and how to love. Many questions don’t need responses, but tales...
