Commentary 6-09-2024

What does the practice of fasting have to do with wineskins, new or old? Jesus’ discourse here seems like a very strange leap of logic. However, it has a very deep meaning. The practice of fasting, or any other religious practice, can become a mechanical and routine act, without thought or discernment. It’s done this way because it’s always been done this way, and it will continue to be done this way forever.

A new wineskin (or a leather wine bag) that receives new wine for a while becomes more elastic and expands with the gases from the alcohol and as the wine matures. But there comes a time when the wine has matured, and then the leather hardens and becomes rigid. And the same thing happens with the person who starts a new practice or adopts a religious rule. At first, they expand, in their spirit and understanding, but there comes a time when they may not remember why they started doing that and what the meaning is. And then they become rigid and hard and continue practicing mechanically and without meaning.

Today Jesus states that the circumstances in which the disciples found themselves did not advise the practice of fasting because they were celebrating, at a wedding, in the company of the bridegroom and the source of joy. It’s not that Jesus is tearing down tradition, but rather the lack of “expansion” that comes from discernment about circumstances and motivations. Jesus had said that he made all things new. And for those things to be new, we have to make sure that our leather, our wineskins, haven’t hardened. It’s about receiving the word of Christ, always old and always new, as unique for each circumstance, as something that will expand us instead of hardening us. The new wine, which is the message of Christ for our lives, must enter every morning into our wineskins, each day prepared, reasoned, motivated, and open and expansive instead of mechanized and routine. It may be the same old thing, but it will be new each time.