They put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved

 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."

So he arose and followed Him.  Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  But go and learn what this means:  'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."

- Matthew 9:9-17

In yesterday's reading,  Jesus got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.  (This is after the healing of the Gergesene demoniacs - see What have we to do with You, Jesus, You Son of God?)  Then behold, they brought to Him a paralytic lying on a bed.  When Jesus saw their faith, He said to the paralytic, "Son, be of good cheer; your sins are forgiven you."  And at once some of the scribes said within themselves, "This Man blasphemes!"  But Jesus, knowing their thoughts, said, "Why do you think evil in your hearts?  For which is easier, to say, 'Your sins are forgiven you,' or to say, 'Arise and walk'?  But that you may know that the Son of Man has power on earth to forgive sins" -- then He said to the paralytic, "Arise, take up your bed, and go to your house."  And he arose and departed to his house.  Now when the multitudes saw it, they marveled and glorified God, who had given such power to men.

 As Jesus passed on from there, He saw a man named Matthew sitting at the tax office.  And He said to him, "Follow Me."   So he arose and followed Him.  Now it happened, as Jesus sat at the table in the house, that behold, many tax collectors and sinners came and sat down with Him and His disciples.  And when the Pharisees saw it, they said to His disciples, "Why does your Teacher eat with tax collectors and sinners?"  When Jesus heard that, He said to them, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick.  But go and learn what this means:  'I desire mercy and not sacrifice.'  For I did not come to call the righteous, but sinners, to repentance."  My study bible tells us:  "Matthew is also named Levi (Mark 2:14; Luke 5:27, 29).  Roman overlords assigned specific areas to Jewish tax collectors, who were free to collect extra revenues for their own profit.  Their collaboration with Gentiles, and their fraud and corruption, caused other Jews to hate the tax collectors and consider them unclean (11:19; Luke 15:1).  Jesus, with power to forgive and undo all offenses, calls to this tax collector, follow Me, and then dines with him and other sinners.  Thus His followers are not troubled later at seeing a tax collector entering into the company of the disciples.  The Pharisees, however, are offended, and Jesus' defense is simple:  He goes where the need for the physician is greatest.  I desire mercy and not sacrifice does not mean that Jesus rejects the sacrifices of the temple, but that His priority is mercy -- the forgiving love of God in action (see Psalm 51)."

Then the disciples of John came to Him, saying, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but Your disciples do not fast?"  And Jesus said to them, "Can the friends of the bridegroom mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them?  But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.  No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch pulls away from the garment, and the tear is made worse.  Nor do they put new wine into old wineskins, or else the wineskins break, the wine is spilled, and the wineskins are ruined.  But they put new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved."  My study bible says that by Jewish custom fasting was twice a week (Luke 18:12), Monday and Thursday.  Also, public fasts were "regularly observed and occasionally proclaimed" - especially on the Day of Atonement (Lev. 16:31-34) and in times of mourning (Zech. 7:5; 8:19).  But the day of the Messiah was viewed as a wedding feast -- "a time of joy and gladness, not a time of mourning and sorrow."  Jesus here proclaims that He is that Messiah/Bridegroom.  However, He does say that the time will come when His disciples will fast.  Perhaps this alludes to the time of mourning, His passing as a human being.  But, my study bible adds, "For His disciples, then, fasting is not gloomy but desirable, a bright sadness, for by fasting they gain self-control and prepare themselves for the Wedding Feast of the Lamb," His second return.

Let us consider the wedding feast.  The Gospels tell us of this feasting with His own disciples, the happiness of reconciliation mirrored for us all in this feast with sinners at table, those who have been reclaimed and reconciled.  It is these who have been healed by the Physician.  Let us consider the place of the tax collectors, and that of Matthew, author of this first Gospel in the Bible, the book of the Church.  Scorned and despised, on many levels and for many reasons they are outcast as sinners in their own right and perhaps also as sinners against the Jewish community.  But a Physician comes to heal what needs healing, and those who are willing to "follow Him" become the new wine that needs new wineskins, those that can stretch to accommodate this new expansion.  It takes a new adjustment to see things from Jesus' perspective.  In this time of reconciliation, in which it is understood that those who are at table with Jesus are now His followers, we get glimpses of the fullness of the Kingdom.  Jesus hints of the time when His friends will fast, the time when He is taken away from them, He is no longer physically with them at table.  But in those times, as my study bible points out, fasting will be a preparation for His return, for the Feast of the Great Day.  In the meantime, this feast, a microcosm -- a glimpse -- of the great wedding feast to come gives us a taste of the Kingdom, and it gives meaning to the phrase Jesus will teach His apostles to say when He sends them out on their first mission:  "The kingdom of heaven has come near."   We have a taste of this Kingdom, and yet it isn't fully here as we expect it will be in that Day.  It is a strange and difficult thing to get our heads round this paradox, and yet this is His teaching to us.  The healed and the reconciled sinner (those of us who "miss the mark" in any way, for this is the literal meaning of the word for sin in the Greek) becomes the new wine of the wedding feast, this symbol of a new covenant.  Jesus as Physician initiates a time not only in which the Kingdom comes near to us, but that its power is one of continual renewal.  When we pray for our "daily bread" we're not praying simply for physical sustenance, but also for the bread from heaven, for Himself, for the kingdom of heaven come near which we need for our daily renewal.  While we await the Second Coming, this Kingdom in all its fullness, we need the new wineskins for a continual kind of stretching, a continual repentance or renewal, one that works with us daily in the form of the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, the One who comes to our side when called.  The great wedding feast may be what we look forward to, but the Gospels assure us that we've already been visited by the Bridegroom, that the Kingdom of heaven is near, at hand, it is among us, within us.  The Physician does not leave us alone, and His continual presence is a promise of the fullness of His return.  Can we wrap our minds around that?  We are like the new wineskins, that must stretch to include all the meaning in that promise.