Tradition – Matthew 9:14-17

“Fiddler on the Roof” chronicles the growing obsolete character of traditions followed by Jews in Russia as changes in society alter the way they live. The value of traditions notwithstanding, cultural shifts require new ways to do life.

Jesus is bringing new ways to observe faith and life with God as the kingdom nears in arrival. Matthew shows how the kingdom powers (miracles) arouse questions concerning how followers of the King should behave, and Jesus addresses them a forthright manner.

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?” And Jesus said to them, “Can the wedding guests mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one puts a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch tears away from the garment, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins. If it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled and the skins are destroyed. But new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.” (Matthew 9:14-17 ESV)

Matthew addresses another discipleship issue in this interlude between the miracle reports.  Why does it seem that the requirements for discipleship have changed with the coming of Jesus?  This question does not come from the Pharisees but from the disciples of John the Baptist, whose teacher announced Jesus’ coming as the king.  They have always been taught to fast on multiple occasions, not from Scripture per se (only one or perhaps two fasts were required for certain holy days in the year), but by the religious traditions of the nation.  It was not wrong to fast this way yet Jesus doesn’t try to wrestle with the issue of how much you should fast but rather why fasting takes place at all.

Jesus makes it clear that fasting is a kind of mourning for the kingdom not being here yet.  It is a personal abstention from food as a way of saying the kingdom is more important than eating and until it comes people will sin, truth will not always be clear, loved ones will die, and we will lose our appetite over that.  Fasting is appropriate when we mourn in this way.  But when Jesus came the kingdom had come near and the king was present.  There was no need to mourn now, though this time would be short-lived.  The coming of the king signals God’s new way of doing things.  The old structures are no longer adequate to sustain the new things He is doing as He works to bring history to a conclusion.

We have seen the old structure go by the wayside (animal sacrifices, strictly Israelite observances in regard to diet and other rituals as God’s people expands beyond one nation). But as Jesus said, the bridegroom has now been taken away and there are still appropriate times now to mourn as we long for and pray for God’s kingdom yet to come.  But there is also great occasion to rejoice at what God has been doing in reaching the nations and preparing a people for His coming.  We must not resort to old wineskins or forms in which to store this new wine, this new kingdom living.

We are still prone, like the Pharisees, to add traditions to gospel observance. Such traditions may not be wrong in and of themselves but they are not truly required. The use of lectionaries, ways of observing the Lord’s supper, certain hymnody, and purchasing property and building church meeting places are just a few traditions that we have come to see in some circles as essential to true gospel observance. May God give us wisdom to reject such traditions as authoritative, even if we choose to observe them.