A Few Words On "The Word"

February 26, 2006
The Eighth Sunday in Ordinary Time

Mark 2: 18-22

Rad

No doubt about him-Jesus is radical. He turns life upside down, inside out. He doesn't fit the picture of what people were expecting in a religious person, a teacher, a leader. For one thing, he's too happy. Everybody knows that religion is all about gloom and doom, right? For another thing, he pigs out. Everybody knows that religion means you can't/don't/shouldn't actually enjoy anything, especially anything so base as food and eating.

The pig-out thing-the first part of this week's gospel-runs throughout the four gospels. So much so that one of the things that leads the good and upright leaders of Jerusalem to have Jesus killed later is their astonished complaint, "This one eats and drinks with sinners!"

What's so rad about Jesus is that he sees life as a wedding reception, a party celebrating the fact that God loves human beings like newlyweds love each other. This is the "new wine" that cannot be put in the "old wineskins." In Jesus' day, wine was kept in leather bag-like containers. New wine-still fermenting, fizzy and explosive-would often time burst the seems of the used-too-much containers, soaked as they would have been in old, stale booze.

You're the new wine, the new cloth. The old coat, the old wineskin are the old ways of thinking about yourself, seeing yourself, seeing only the faults and the failings. Jesus is inviting you to be radical, too. Pour yourself into a new attitude, a new way of living, your wedding (or prom) clothes! Every day is a wedding; every hour is as great as the prom.



Reflection Question

What is the new attitude, and one new way of acting, that you can pour yourself into this week?

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