Matthew 9:14-17

14 Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 Jesus answered, “How can the guests of the bridegroom mourn while he is with them? The time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; then they will fast. 16 “No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse. 17 Neither do people pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”

Reflections:
​There will always be resistance to change. But change is an unchangeable phenomenon in life. Jesus was a change maker and he had his tension and challenges with the beliefs which were static and out fashioned. Resistance to change is resistance to God himself because such agents they don’t feel God is in control of life. They narrow the world in their perspective and fail to realize that God’s plans and purpose has a meaning in the current context.

“Fasting” to the poor and hungry is baloney. When some are struggling for food and basic livelihood, how can we demand them too fast? The meaning of fasting in Isaiah 58:6-7 is nothing but sharing with the poor and needy and establishing justice.

6 “Is not this the kind of fasting I have chosen:
to loose the chains of injustice
and untie the cords of the yoke,
to set the oppressed free
and break every yoke?

7 Is it not to share your food with the hungry
and to provide the poor wanderer with shelter--
when you see the naked, to clothe them,
and not to turn away from your own flesh and blood....

Many feel spirituality is a self-satisfying experience. But, it’s a self-emptying experience and an experience to share the fragmented experience of the broken masses. The symbolic acts gained prominence more than the inner meaning of such acts.

Fasting is rooted in denying oneself and is rooted in the personal inspection of self which  is predominantly estranged from God’s will. Oneness of mind, to listen to the voice of God will make one to live in Godly life. In this text Jesus was challenged because the proponents of antiquity in the name of tradition charged the disciples for being natural and pragmatic.

One of the failures of the traditionalist is that their hearts glorify religious particles more than God and other humans. So pathetic! Religiosity is centered in life. Life is centered in the commonality of life for all. Jesus understood the meaning of fasting and started to unmask the reality and protested against the meaningless spirituality. His ministry is centered around the poor, the needy, the oppressed, the exploited and the vulnerable in society.

The outward projections and the inward constructs fail to conjugate because of the gulf between the belief and action. Jesus equipped his disciples and at the end his disciples became martyrs to glorify God. Jesus being a new Moses, his science of hermeneutics paved a new way and a transformed path. Doing theology for Christ is always people based and especially the negated and neglected. Restoration of human dignity for all is one of the basic traits of salvation. Let us continue to engage in restoring life to lifelessness. Amen.

I would like to conclude my study with this prayer found in Episcopal Relief and Development
website:

O Creator of all living things:
We are all hungry in a world full of abundance.
The possibilities of food for bodies and souls overflow in this beautiful world.
We ask for the grace to see the abundance of our world and
enough awareness to acknowledge our sins of greed and fear.
Give us openness of soul and courageous, willing hearts
to be with our sisters and brothers who are hungry and in pain.
We ask for your intercession on behalf of every person hungry
for earthly food and hungry for the taste of the Spirit of God.
We give thanks that we can be part of that intercession.
This world is blessed with enough food of the earth for every person to eat and be satisfied.
We all can feed on the bread of Christ, through the Holy Spirit,
as God makes a home in our hearts.
We come together in awe and wonder at the Creator who loves us so much
that we are invited and urged to be co-creators with God
in the care of our brothers and sisters.
In the name of the tender Mother-Father of all people who
hears every cry, Amen.

Action: Please let us engage in a way of love to feed the poor and needy. The Barnie Parker Sharing Shed is an opportunity to make our action a realized one.

​God Bless You! Amen.

 atthew 9:9-13

9
“As Jesus was walking along, he saw a man called Matthew sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up and followed him. 10And as he sat at dinner in the house, many tax collectors and sinners came and were sitting with him and his disciples. 11When the Pharisees saw this, they said to his disciples, “Why does your teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?” 12But when he heard this, he said, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick. 13Go and learn what this means, ‘I desire mercy, not sacrifice.’ For I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.”

Reflections:
“I have come to call not the righteous but sinners” is a powerful mission statement of Jesus describing the purpose of doing God’s mission of the Church which is called to be the living body of Christ. The Agenda of Jesus’s mission is to offer life to the lifeless and to those who are in helpless situations. The gulf between the dominant and the powerless and the struggle is an ongoing issue in the world. “Mission of God” is not a club activity of the dominant; rather, it is a call to restore the image of God in all with passion and transformation connotations. Jesus constantly worked in restoring the lost human consciousness in every individual to substantiate the purpose and meaning of creation. Accepting Jesus as Lord has a diverse understanding because of offering a new paradigm of life to all.

Who are tax collectors during Jesus' time?
During the time of Jesus, the people of Israel were under the imperial and colonial rule of Rome. The religious leaders had their local autonomy in matters relating to the life of the people. The temple was at their control, and the temple was not just a spiritual institution. It was the center of the people’s holistic life. The subjects of the society were under two authorities; politically, under Rome and religiously under Sanhedrin, Rome gave autonomy to the religious leaders to mitigate the revolts because the religious beliefs were so sensitive and complex. In such a context, Rome appointed people to collect the taxes for their government and such collectors were called publicans or apostates.

They were considered as proxies of Rome and gained hatred from the public. They imposed unredeemable taxes and had their loyalty to the Roman Imperials. They gained more profit by unjustifiable taxes. They were seen as traitors and thieves of people and considered as defiled elements because of their association with the enemy, the Romans.

The hostility over tax collectors tagged them as “Sinners”. Here the tax collector was none other than Mathew, and the record from Mathew 9:9 substantiates the argument. Normally, Jews will have two names, and many theologians suggest the name as Levi Mathew, who became the disciple of Jesus.

Tax Booth
I see these booths as the places that symbolically represent oppression and exploitation. The people were under great oppression because the Roman government operated in a very systematic way at various levels to maintain their supremacy over the poor. Jews always believed in the Rule of God-Theocracy. In reality, their dreams were shattered by the foreign powers because of their military inefficiency and their ideological schisms. Rome was a superpower, and these centers represented their authority over people, their work and earnings. People were drained by the taxes which made their lives more miserable. The taxes were collected in harsh methods. The people paid money to Temple to maintain their religious commitments and paid compulsory taxes for their income.

Taxes were imposed on custom goods. Even tolls were collected for the usage of roads and bridges of that time. So, the people who indulged in such tax collections were socially abandoned by people, politically treated as traitors and religiously labelled as sinners. Mathew was sitting in that booth to collect the taxes. But Jesus liberated him from his box and made him an agency of salvation; I mean an agent to liberate people from worldly clutches that haunt life every day. We have to find such boxes and breach the forces that negate the freedom for us and others.

“Follow Me”
Jesus said to Matthew, “Follow me.” And he followed him without any question. The unconditional obedience of Mathew describes his agony over his work as well as his dissatisfaction over the colonial set-up. His attitude highlights the aspiration to repent and begin a new life in God by following Christ. His immediate response explicates his search for a better way of life. Following Jesus, is an opposite turn from the job he was assigned. Jesus' movement offered abundance of life and catered to the exploited and the oppressed. It connected people socially and enabled them to realise the reign of God.

The politics of power was defused by the power of love for one another. Matthew believed in the words of Jesus which enabled him to envision the future. Apparently, the transition of Mathew to Jesus indicates a mystic and divine experience which cannot be comprehended in total, but it can be felt at a spiritual domain. Following Jesus is not simple; it requires one to turn from the world and prepares him/her to be an agency of Christ to offer life to the people in the world. It demands us to offer life to the lifeless not to overfeed the self-righteous or the privileged. Mathew left his lucrative employment, positions, and his authority for Jesus because he affirmed the truth and chose the way of Christ, which calls our attention not to deepen our parochial attachments but to reach the reality of life and to enhance every human to have equal access over life. The disparities in life distribute horrific situations and cause civic unrest. The movement of Jesus is the movement of Love engendering all of us for peaceful co-existence and sustainable living.

Jesus - “Friend of Sinners and Tax Collectors?”
Jesus extends his relationship to all and especially to transform the people who are socially rejected, politically muted, and spiritually de-codified. Jesus’ ethics includes everyone and attends to the odds of the society with a moral appeal and not by force. 

Religion should be a moral obligation or it becomes another institution to display power to dictate. But the religion of the Pharisees was so judgmental. The “Jesus Movement” was optimistic and open. The religion of Jesus displays its roots in Love for others like oneself which expresses the Love of God in total. Jesus indicates that “only the sick need the physician”; the mission of the church should always focus for the needy not the greedy. (The Learning Pod in partnership with the Lions Club at St. James’ and the Barnie Parker Sharing Shed at St. John’s are some of our novel expressions of doing missions at this COVID 19 crisis. I would continue to urge you to contribute to such noble acts.)