Arulvakku

04.09.2020 — Each in its proper time and purpose

22nd Week in Ord. Time, Friday – 4th September 2020 — Gospel:   Lk 5,33-39

Each in its proper time and purpose

The scribes and Pharisees question fasting and praying that concerns the behaviour of Jesus followers. In his response, Jesus reveals the eschatological mysteries of the kingdom with three micro-parables – the bridegroom, the cloth repair and wineskins. In the bridegroom parable, Jesus says, it is not appropriate to fast at a wedding banquet in the presence of the bridegroom. This is a time for feasting. Notice, the practice of fasting was not rejected in this parable either. There is a somber reminder that the bridegroom will be taken away, and there will again be a time of fasting. It is given its proper time and purpose. God’s reign has not yet arrived in all its fullness. The present time is a “foretaste of the feast to come.”

In the following parables – repairing the cloth and winemaking – the issue at stake is the relationship between the old and the new. The past and the future. Time-honoured ways and uncharted territory. Notice the little parables do not suggest that old things are bad and new things are good, and that the bad old things ought to be scrapped in favour of the shiny new things. The old cloak is to be repaired and the old wineskin is to be preserved and not destroyed.  In both the antiquated object is valued. The point is that the inherited things are not necessarily bad things just because they are old things, well-used and well-worn. Rather, there is acknowledgment that old ways and new ways can be mutually destructive. How and when of its usage depends on the time and purpose.