Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick

 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

Yesterday, we read that, after casting out demons from two men on the other side of the Sea of Galilee, Jesus got into a boat, crossed over, and came to His own city.  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.  Matthew, the author of our Gospel, is also called Levi (Mark 2:14).  My study bible explains that Roman overlords assigned specific areas to Jewish tax collectors.  These tax collectors were free to collect extra revenues for their own profit, backed by the military might of the Roman state.  Their collaboration with the occupying Romans, their fraud, and corruption caused other Jews not only to hate them but to consider them unclean (11:19).

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."  Jesus dining with tax collectors and also accepting Matthew as a disciple ("Follow Me") offends the Pharisees.   But Jesus' defense is quite simple.  He goes where the need for the physician is greatest.  "I desire mercy and not sacrifice" is from Hosea 6:6.  My study bible says that this is not a rejection of sacrifice per se, but rather shows that mercy is a higher priority (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."  Typically in Jewish tradition fasting was done twice a week (Luke 18:12), on Monday and Thursday.  In addition to this, public fasts were regularly observed or occasionally proclaimed (2 Chronicles 20:3; Ezra 8:21-23; Esther 4:16; Joel 2:15), particularly on the Day of Atonement (Leviticus 16:31-34) and in times of mourning (Zechariah 7:5; 8:19).  But the day of the Messiah was viewed as a wedding feast, a time of great joy and gladness.  Here Jesus is proclaiming that this day is present, and declaring Himself to be the Messiah/bridegroom.  In the tradition of the Church from its earliest times, fasting was continued as a practice -- but transfigured.  It was not seen as gloomy.   It was viewed as desirable, a "bright sadness," because by fasting people were gaining self-control and preparing themselves for the Wedding Feast, a forward-looking understanding.

"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 the old garment and old wineskins stand for the Old Covenant and the Law.  In the light of Christ these are viewed as imperfect and temporary.  But the new wineskins are the New Covenant and those in Christ.  The new wine, it says, is the Holy Spirit dwelling within renewed people, who cannot be constrained by the old precepts of the Law.

Jesus' encounter with the Pharisees, and His taking on of Matthew the tax collector as disciple, comes in the context of the recent healing stories in Matthew's Gospel.  Jesus reinforces this understanding when He says, "Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick."  In today's reading, the Gospel gives us glimmers of what is to come in the sense that transfiguration is a repeated hint of the reality that Christ brings into the world.  To be healed is in a sense to be transfigured, brought from one state to another state.  Here the keys are mercy and repentance.  Mercy is the means by which God acts, and also divine action in us.  Repentance is a form of transfiguration, literally meaning "change of mind" in the Greek.  It is what is necessary for the healed state of being.  We also need to read about fasting in this light.  John the Baptist's disciples come and ask about fasting -- and Jesus puts everything into perspective by declaring Himself to be the Bridegroom.  He is the Messiah they await, and the joy of the disciples must be seen in this light.  Jesus also predicts that they will fast "when the bridegroom will be taken away from them."   The early Church would instate the practice of fasting, similarly to the practice that the Jews had on Mondays and Thursdays, but the Church would establish it for Wednesdays and Fridays (commemorating the day of Jesus' betrayal and the day He died on the Cross, the times "when the Bridegroom was taken away" from His friends).  But as hinted at in the repeated understanding in today's reading, this was a transfigured fasting practice, one that looked forward once again to the joy of unification, the wedding feast, and the return of the Bridegroom to the Church, His Bride.  The practice is meant, in a nutshell, for healing and health -- learning to abstain not simply from food but rather from sin, and coming to know our capacity for self-mastery and making choices, such as happens in repentance.  Finally Jesus gives us the great analogy for transfiguration:  the wine.  Its enzymatic action is seen similarly to the work of the Holy Spirit.   New wine -- the "harvest" of His ministry -- must be put into new wineskins, those that will grow and expand with the action of fermentation, the process of the transfiguring internal work that we don't see but yet we come to observe its effects.    This is another mirror of healing -- the mysterious process that takes place internally, but gives us signs externally of its effects.  All of these things are glimmers, facets of the light that will grow through this ministry to bring our understanding of Christ as the One who transforms, transfigures, where ultimately the power of the Cross will even transfigure death.  How we become that wine is something we can't control or name, but rather something that works within us, with which we cooperate through faith and acceptance.  We may not know even how we come to change; but we can observe the fruits of this work in our own transfiguration and capacities for the fruits of the Spirit.  Let us remember who we are as the new wine, and the journey of growth and expansion and repentance we are on, the health of the Physician who is always making all things new.