The truth about God

Luke 5:1-6:11.
A long passage. Read the whole thing here on bible.com. It concludes with this story:

On another Sabbath day, a man with a deformed right hand was in the synagogue while Jesus was teaching. The teachers of religious law and the Pharisees watched Jesus closely. If he healed the man’s hand, they planned to accuse him of working on the Sabbath.

But Jesus knew their thoughts. He said to the man with the deformed hand, “Come and stand in front of everyone.” So the man came forward. Then Jesus said to his critics, “I have a question for you. Does the law permit good deeds on the Sabbath, or is it a day for doing evil? Is this a day to save life or to destroy it?”

He looked around at them one by one and then said to the man, “Hold out your hand.” So the man held out his hand, and it was restored! At this, the enemies of Jesus were wild with rage and began to discuss what to do with him.

A wrong picture of God
Jesus came preaching a message about the Kingdom of God. This chapter and a half in Luke’s gospel records that sermon in action. It shows a radical departure from the “accepted wisdom” about God and how we should relate to him. The “accepted wisdom” of the time was the model of interaction with God that the Pharisees preached. It involved a complex set of rules that needed to be followed to the last letter. Any breach risked punishment, often severe. For, in their minds, the error of one might lead to the anger of God towards the whole community.

That was the picture of God that people had in those days: an angry, spiteful God watching our every move just waiting to find fault in order to punish us. As if that was what he wanted to do. The Pharisees had taken on themselves the task of enforcing the law, to keep God’s wrath at bay. It all came from their picture of God.

However, when Jesus came along he said and did things that showed that the Pharisees understanding of God – which was the generally accepted view of the time – was completely wrong. They had somehow got the wrong message and painted the wrong picture. Jesus came to show them – the Pharisees, the people of Israel, and everyone, both then and now, the truth about God.

And the essence of that truth is simply this: God reaches out to people because he loves them. The religion of the Pharisees, which was the religion that the Jews knew and loved, was a religion of people reaching out to God, to try to get his love and acceptance. They were a people desperate for affirmation, a people desperate to be treasured and nurtured by their heavenly Father, a people just like us.

But the God that had been presented to them was one that seemed often distant, disdainful and disinterested. The process of getting to him was complicated and difficult and easy to mess up. The Pharisees loved their religion, with its complex rules and regulations. They studied it and interpreted it and did everything they could to apply it to people’s lives. I don’t believe that Pharisees were intrinsically bad people, any more than you or I. They were victims of their own misunderstanding of the nature and character of God. The sad thing is that they were so unwilling to even consider the possibility that what they believed so strongly could be wrong. But aren’t we all a bit like that?

One thing is clear, when Jesus came along and began to challenge a lot of the Pharisees’ teaching, they were not happy. They felt threatened. They questioned his teaching and his motives. And they couldn’t but help be jealous of his popularity and growing influence.

New wine
This passage in Luke’s gospel reveals why Jesus was becoming so popular, and why the Pharisees felt so put out. He was introducing a whole new way of thinking about God, and he introduced it not by just teaching a new philosophy but by showing a new way. He called it “new wine,” and spoke of the old religion as “old wineskins.” Not very flattering really. And he was quite open about saying that when new wine is put in old wineskins that the old containers don’t cope well with it.

The difference between the two ways of interacting with God is staggering really. There is a fundamental change: the old religion was about trying to reach God. The new wine was about God breaking into our lives and surprising us with all kinds of unexpected blessings. Just take a look at the passage and see:

There was the fishing episode. Jesus pushed into Simon’s life and transformed it, then invited him to an ongoing friendship, where Simon could become an integral part in God’s agenda for the world. Jesus wanted Simon to be part of his band.

Then there was the leper. A man everyone avoided, yet Jesus responded to his simple cry for help and restored him to be the man God had always wanted him to be. He gave him a fresh start.

Then there was the paralysed man, struggling with guilt. Jesus forgave him, released him from the burden of anxiety about whatever it was that was weighing him down. Gave him freedom from guilt. And healed him to boot.

Then there was Levi, a man who was in so deep in sin and corruption that he thought there was no way out. He was rich but he was not happy. He had a lot of so called friends, but he was lonely and sad. He knew how to celebrate, but his parties were empty and superficial. Jesus gave him a new start too, and then celebrated his change of direction with all Levi’s old friends.

Celebrating God’s closeness
Jesus taught that partying was as much a part of the new order as fasting. That God was as happy to be celebrated in a banquet as he was to be the subject of religious devotion. That the hallmark of the new way was the presence of God with his people, rather than endless exercises to span the huge chasm between them. That celebrating that presence, that closeness, was what life should be all about.

People before principles
The Sabbath was traditionally a day set apart for God. No work was to be done. Doing any work would risk incurring the wrath of God. At least that’s the way the Pharisees understood it. They spent long hours debating what should be regarded as work, and what was permissible on a day of rest. The keyword was fear – anxiety lest a rule be broken and God be angry.

Jesus stepped right over this understanding of the Sabbath and showed by his actions that the Pharisees had misunderstood the point. That they had misunderstood God. Jesus was more concerned for his friends than the rules. They were hungry. He gave them something to eat, regardless of the fact that his actions in doing so could be interpreted as breaking the law. He showed us that God is more concerned for us and our needs than he is for the law. He is a God, first and foremost, of compassion. He sees our needs and wants to meet them. He may do that in unconventional ways.

Even healing was regarded by the Pharisees as being inappropriate on a day of rest. It was better, in their system of belief, to pass by a suffering or disabled person than to risk God’s anger by helping that person. They didn’t realise that God was more angry about passing by the needy person than by breaking these man made rules. Jesus once again showed them the true heart of God, a heart of concern, of compassion, of mercy and of grace.

A strange reaction
When I read about the ideas that Jesus was presenting and demonstrating, I get excited. This is the kind of God that I can be proud of, that I can talk about, share with others. This is a God that I want to celebrate, to praise, to worship. This is the kind of God that I can trust to take control of my life. What’s more, the vision of the kingdom that Jesus presents is the kind of world I long to see, a world of involvement with people, compassion and mercy, of never giving up on people, of reconciliation between people and God, of people and people.

The extraordinary thing to me is that there were people – the enemies of Jesus – who did not like this picture at all, they could not embrace such a vision of God or his kingdom. Not only did they not like it, they were “wild with rage” at Jesus, as Luke’s account records.

There are still people like that, people who get angry with Jesus, who do not like the picture he paints of God and his kingdom. But as for me, I know which way I want to follow – the way of Jesus.

Mixing the old and the new

Luke 5:36-39 NLT
Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment.

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”

I’ve always found this saying of Jesus a bit hard to get a grip on. What was Jesus trying to say really? He had just been talking about the place of fasting in the lives of his followers. Now he starts speaking of the old and the new. But what is old and what is new?

Could it be that fasting represents the old way of relating to God whereas celebration represents the new? The old is about religious observances whereas the new is about relationship with God through Jesus.

“Either or,” or “both and”?

So what does Jesus mean when he says we should not mix the old and the new? Is he actually saying they cannot be mixed, or should not be mixed? Or is he just making an observation about the difficulties of mixing them?

He has just said that a time will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them when they will fast, but isn’t that to practice the old when they should be practicing the new? Are our lives to contain “either or,” or “both and.” Is he saying that both are good, but there is a time for one, and another time for the other? A time when celebration is the right thing to experience and another when religious observance will form the shape of our interaction with God? Are they chronologically separate, but both legitimate?

When Jesus says that no one seems to want the new wine, I hear him saying that people naturally tend toward the old system of religious observances, rather than the new style of relationship and celebration. But is this simply an observation about human nature or is it a value judgement? Is the new better than the old? Is one meant to replace the other?

And for us later disciples of Jesus there is an even more relevant question: If the “new” really is about relationship with Jesus, how do we practice it now that he has departed from the earth in bodily form? How do we relate to Jesus, a person we cannot see or touch, in this time when Jesus dwells with us in his Spirit rather than his body, as he did with the disciples?

Spiritual relating

Relating is about presence – spending time together – but it is also about communication – speaking and listening, laughing and wondering. How do I do that on a spiritual level? When the “bridegroom” is absent, religious disciplines are easier than “celebration.” They give us something concrete to do. How do you celebrate, how do you “eat and drink,” with the Holy Spirit? Under the circumstances, I understand that some people prefer “religion” (“the old is just fine,” they say”) to relationship (the new wine), just because it is easier, even if the latter is more exciting and ultimately satisfying.

Living with the old and the new

It is hard to answer these questions, and perhaps wrong to try to draw too many conclusions. Perhaps Jesus is just making some simple observations for us to ponder: first, that the old and the new don’t mix well, second, that the old is damaged but cannot be effectively “patched” with the new, third, that when the new is used to try to fix the old that the new is “ruined,” and fourth, that people prefer the old to the new, prefer to stick with what they know than to try new things. There is much to think about here.

What can we conclude from Jesus’ words? It is not clear cut. But there are a few things I have learnt from thinking about what he says. First, there is still a place for fasting, which represents religion, the old traditions. I should not judge those for whom liturgy and ritual are part of their interaction with God. Liturgy and tradition are things that I can engage in too, without feeling that I am betraying the new ways that Jesus introduces.

Second, that I can enter into the joy of celebration, eat and drink with Jesus and others who know and love him, and that knowing a God is not just about religious observance but can look a lot more like a party, or a wedding feast at times.

Third, that I should not condemn the new. This is something that I have often seen in my life as a Christian: judgement and condemnation from the traditionalists for any new move of God. But I have equally seen judgement and condemnation in the opposite direction, from those experiencing renewal and revival toward those who are still living in their tried and tested traditions and rituals. This too is something that is wrong.

Remaining open

Finally, I need to live in both realities, recognizing the tension that exists between them. I need to know when is the right time to celebrate, and when is the time to fast. And even as I continue in my traditions and habits of relating to God, I need to be open to new moves of his Spirit, constantly seeking to understand and experience the personal relationship that God offers between my spirit and his.