Shifted Paradigms

What DID Jesus DO?

It was the first in-person meeting of our small group for our fresh and new women’s ministry. During the previous month, we had read the first three chapters of the book of Esther and worked through some discussion and reflection questions.

Jody and I had spent the entire month of January and part of February manning a women’s ministry table in the back of the warehouse, meeting women, and signing them up for our two small groups. Quickly, I realized that I only knew about 30-50 people in our church. I can’t really say how many people attend our church because we don’t believe in counting, keeping score, or having a scoreboard. I think there are 400 chairs up in our warehouse, and sometimes we have to set up folding chairs. That’s as close as I can estimate how many people attend.

I’ve led small groups for years–sometimes with people I know and sometimes with those who start as strangers and end up leaving as friends. As I looked over the list of women who had signed up for this small group, I quickly realized I didn’t know many of the ladies or their backgrounds. To start this first in-person meeting, I asked everyone to tell us their name and then a brief explanation of how they ended up at our church.

I learned that only a handful of the ladies had been involved in church before and most were there because someone they loved and respected had invited them. As we started the conversation about Esther, I was amazed at the honesty and transparency of these ladies. 

I spent so many years in churches where there was only one right answer that sometimes I forget what it’s like to be in a church and around people who don’t feel compelled to give that “right” answer. I don’t know if you’ve ever heard this phrase before, but we used to laugh about “Sunday School” answers–the answers you were supposed to give regardless of what you really thought when you were in a church group or a church setting.

My favorite story about Sunday School answers came from an actual Sunday School class at my previous church where the teacher asked the question of what’s gray and fluffy and lives in a tree, and the kids all answered “Jesus.” 

Ummm…no…the answer is a squirrel…

If you’re like me, you’re probably chuckling a little and thinking how kids are funny, right? But, if we’re being honest, we have to admit those same Sunday School answers can sneak right into our adult lives too through our small groups, our conversations with people, our comments on social media, and how we portray ourselves and our lives to others. We know what we’re supposed to do, say, look like, and be, and so we find ourselves presenting ourselves in that way regardless of who we really are, what we really think, and what our lives are really like.

It wasn’t until five years ago when we launched small groups at my current church that I discovered honest, transparent, and authentic people who aren’t afraid to say the “wrong” thing in a faith community.

I remember one of the first small groups I attended. One of the guys in our group had lived a pretty rough life. He grew up with Christian parents, but he rebelled against every single thing they wanted him to do. He had some incredibly difficult and rough decades before he found his way to our church. He was never afraid to speak his mind, to ask questions, to be honest and vulnerable, and to speak his truth when he didn’t agree with something the author of the book we were reading had said. He also had no problem walking in and telling us all he hadn’t read, but he was still there to soak it all in. I never had to worry that he might give a “squirrel” answer.

His name was Bronson, and he was one of my favorite people. 

While it might surprise some people, I have to think that Bronson bore a pretty strong resemblance to the types of people Jesus called to be his disciples.

The Pharisees Question the Disciples

Last week, we talked about Jesus calling the tax collector, Matthew, to be one of his disciples and how the Pharisees had a little fit over the fact that Jesus was eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. After Jesus calls Matthew and he holds this banquet, the Pharisees and teachers of the law question Jesus.

They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” Luke 5:33 NIV

Most of us are familiar with the Pharisees questioning Jesus throughout the gospels because we know the whole story. Sometimes, familiarity makes us miss details, though, and this is one of those stories where I definitely feel like I missed a few key details. 

Luke has been telling the story of how Jesus called his disciples, and the focus was on what unlikely choices these disciples were. If you’ve been reading along with me through this series, then you remember that Jesus was a rabbi with authority, which meant he was one of only 25-30 rabbis students would have sought out to study under, to hear preach, and to learn from. It’s easy to forget that the Pharisees were religious leaders themselves who also would have been seeking to hear and learn from the teachings of these rabbis with authority.

Enter Jesus–a rabbi with authority with the most utterly unlikely disciples.

Can you imagine what these Pharisees must have been thinking? 

They had devoted themselves to their religion and the religious law, and now Jesus shows up–a rabbi with authority–with the most rag-tag bunch of disciples that he chose himself. Those Pharisees had to be confused and probably a little jealous at this point in Jesus’s ministry. They hadn’t yet made up their minds about him, were curious about who he was and what he was teaching, and were all probably trying to figure out what made these men suitable to be Jesus’s disciples instead of them.

Then, they stand back at a distance far enough away not to ruin their reputations, and watch this banquet unfold, a banquet where Jesus and his disciples are eating and drinking with these tax collectors and sinners instead of fasting and praying like John’s disciples and the their own disciples. 

Notice what they say to Jesus: Our disciples and those of John fast and pray, but your disciples just go right on eating and drinking.

They didn’t question Jesus here; they questioned his disciples. 

At this point in Jesus’s ministry, it’s unclear if the Pharisees had already written off Christ, but they had all the questions when it came to his choice of disciples. And that tracks with Luke’s focus and attention on how unqualified, unlikely, and even scandalous Christ’s choices were for disciples.

Jesus Shifts the Paradigm

Jesus responds to these Pharisees' statements with three different parables.

Jesus answered, “Can you make the friends of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.”

He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’ ” Luke 5:34-39 NIV

His first parable is pretty straightforward for us today still, but his listeners would have understood that a wedding is a time of celebration whereas fasting is done in a time of reflection, distress, or sorrow. No one would fast while the bridegroom was still in their presence, only after he was gone. As the bridegroom, Jesus’s disciples wouldn’t fast while he was with him, but the time for fasting would come after he was gone.

He could have stopped there and still made his point about why his disciples were eating and drinking instead of fasting and praying.

He doesn’t, though. He goes on with these parables that seem to be a bit more cryptic. Some people say that Jesus was saying that his ways represent the new garment and the new wineskin while the Pharisees and the law represent the old. I can understand that interpretation, but what it doesn’t take into account is the fact that the Pharisees aren’t focusing on the acts of eating/drinking and fasting as much as they are focused on the fact that Jesus’s disciples were eating/drinking instead of fasting–these men who the Pharisees were questioning because they were completely unqualified and the most unlikely choices.

What if, instead of Jesus being the new garment and the new wineskin, we look at the disciples as the new garment and the new wineskin? And, what if we look at the law of the Pharisees as the old patch and the old wineskins? 

Jesus needed these disciples because he needed open-minded disciples instead of closed-minded Pharisees. He needed new students instead of ones who were indoctrinated with the law and traditions. He needed those who weren’t afraid to give the wrong answer, to ask their questions, and to answer “squirrel” when that was the answer.

The Pharisees are the old and the disciples are the new, and Jesus knew they wouldn’t meld into one another, just like the old wine can’t be put into new wineskins or an old patch be put on a new garment, and just like the Pharisees see the old as better than the new.

Through these parables, Jesus didn’t just answer the question of why his disciples were eating/drinking, he answered the unspoken and underlying question of why Jesus hadn’t chosen the Pharisees as his disciples.

The Danger of Comfort

The older I get, the more I realize how much I don’t know and how many of the answers I don’t have and  the more wary I become of people who think they know everything and have all of the answers. 

There’s so much danger in that.

The beauty of the disciples was in how open they were for Jesus to pour into them, to fill them, and to prepare them. If we aren’t careful, we can easily find ourselves looking a little too much like the Pharisees and not nearly enough like the disciples. 

We can be the ones who think:

• We have all the answers.

• We know what’s best.

• Our traditions are the best.

• Our way is better.

• Other people aren’t worthy.

• Other people don’t deserve their calling.

God isn’t after our Sunday School answers. He’s not looking for us to put on shiny, happy faces, to pretend like everything is fine all the time, and to paint the perfect picture of our lives on Facebook and when we walk through the church doors. 

I think he’d rather we be honest, we admit when we don’t have all the answers, and when we own our weaknesses, our failures, our doubts, and our flaws. I think he would rather we sit in community with one another and be transparent instead of saying what we think is the “right” thing to say.

But, how often do we do that?

I sat with my college friends I hadn’t seen in 25 years a few weeks ago, and I listened to them talk about their church hurt, their experiences with disingenuous members of their small groups, and their narcissistic church leaders. When I got to church the next day, I cried through the entire service because I hate that so many faith communities look more like the Pharisees than they do the disciples, and because I’m so grateful that I’m surrounded every Sunday and in each of my small groups by people who don’t even know there is a “right” answer and who would have fit right in at that banquet Matthew threw for Jesus and his tax collector/sinner friends.

I’ll take them over the Pharisees any day.

Modern-Day Disciples

My friend and small group favorite, Bronson, tragically passed away from injuries sustained in a car accident. I can’t think about that guy without tears and a smile because when I think about Jesus’s choices of his disciples, Bronson would have fit right in. He would have been one of those unlikely choices Jesus sought out and called, and the Pharisees would have been just as put out about that choice as they were with Peter, Andrew, James, John, and Matthew. He would have fit right in at Matthew’s banquet, and he probably would have tried to get Peter to pick a fight with those Pharisees when they questioned Jesus about him and his friends. 

We have a choice, friends.

We can be like the Pharisees who were so caught up in the law and their traditions that they weren’t open to the teachings of Jesus or we can be like the disciples who weren’t swayed by the law, rules, and traditions, but, instead, were open vessels willing and able to let Jesus pour himself, his love, his grace, and his teaching into them.

Reflections:

1. When were the times in your life that you felt more like a Pharisee than a disciple?

2. What can you do to make sure you are open to the nudges of the Holy Spirit and not caught up in laws or traditions?

3. When do you feel most compelled to just “say the right thing” or “give the right answer”?