The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink." Jesus answered them, "Can you make the wedding guess fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days." And he also told them a parable. "No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak, Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. (And) no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, "The old is good."
The Word in other words
Mismatch and incompatible are the words by which we usually describe couples who don't share the same color, height, intellectual level and economic status. However, we can't deny that we have seen couples whose differences, incompatible gestures and mismatched faces have been dramatically transformed and eventually look similar as they live together for a longer period of time. Incompatibility is gradually transformed into similarity and they become truly one and the same.
Incompatibility and transformation are the first two words that come to my mind as I read the readings of today. In the first reading, Paul's letter to the Colossians show the image Christ as the image of the invisible God. Paul wants to emphasize this reality to those who deny and consider Christ as the incompatible image of God. But Christ, who co-exist with the Father, insists that "I and my Father are one." "Whoever sees me sees my Father."
In the Gospel, we discover the incompatible outlooks of Jesus and the Pharisees. The Pharisees are quick to notice the faults of Jesus' disciples. For his part, Jesus is quick to defend what his disciples have done saying, "No one tears a piece from a new cloak and patch an old one" and "No one pours new wine into old wineskin." Christ's message, as the new wine, is incompatible with and cannot be put into the old worldview of the Pharisees who consider sinners as outcasts. But Jesus sees sinners as potentials for transformation. That's why Jesus deals with sinners with compassion. What Christ does reminds us of the basic Christian tenet: hate the sin but love the sinner.
A Costa Rican bishop once said :"La espiritualidad no se ensena sino se contagia." Roughly translated, spirituality ought not to teach but to infect. Christ deals with sinners so that people will slowly get infected with his conviction and spirituality. May Christ's contagious spirituality continue to infect those who are considered by many as spiritually incompatible so that sinners and righteous alike will someday share in the same banquet prepared by Christ.
- Fr. Semei Rebayla, SVD (Veruela, Agusan del Sur)
