He lived in Capernaum, so Matthew (or Levi) who worked for the Romans as a tax-collector, was a familiar figure. One day, as Jesus was walking past his office, he called him to “Follow me”. Without a moment's hesitation, Matthew left his office and began to follow, and then threw a party, with Jesus as the guest of honour. All the outcasts and dodgy types were there. Jesus was criticised for the company he was keeping, but that was why he was there: for the outcasts, the broken; the people whose lives had fallen apart. The Kingdom was party-time for those with broken lives, who were ready to make a fresh start.
But there was another question fired at Jesus – maybe not immediately – but in time. John the Baptist's disciples, hearing about what was happening, wanted to know why they and the Pharisees were fasting, while Jesus was partying. Michael Green says “Typical religious people. They engage in all sorts of actions and ceremonies but have not the least idea why they do it.”
Fasting had originally been something people did in moments of grief or desperation – turning from sin or urgent prayer. The Jewish religion had turned it into a religious exercise. For them, fasting was just part of the Structure of their religious life. It went along with going to the Synagogue, and celebrating the great festivals through the year. It was part of the structure of their faith community.
We talked last week about Spirituality: the processes by which we know God and grow in him. Structures are what the Church brings to the equation to shape our lives as Christians and our life together. I suppose they are the “organised” bit in organised religion. There are structures that exist to manage our life together: meetings at set times and in familiar places. A news bulletin; rotas for making the tea; Leadership and other Teams, a bank account; Kids' work, house groups, plans for Christmas. It's all part of our “Structure”.
Jesus comes to this old structure of Judaism with a new thing called “The Kingdom of God”. It's exciting. It's fresh and creative and a bit intoxicating; it's alive and growing. The Kingdom is often likened to a wedding. A huge celebration: bigger and better than Mathews big party for Jesus.
And some people thought, “Good! The Messiah's Kingdom will keep our religion alive. He will make it stronger; we will get rid of the Romans, rule ourselves and maybe rule the world.”
But Jesus doesn't agree. That's why he tells these three parables. “You can't call a fast at a wedding banquet. You can't patch old clothes with new cloth. You can't store new wine in old wine-skins.”
1. Fasting wasn’t appropriate when Jesus was there, doing the stuff that shows God's rule. There would be times for fasting – like when Jesus was taken away and put to death as Jesus hints in the parable. There are still times to fast and times for celebration for the Church today.
2. Patching up the old. Jesus says you can't use the Kingdom to patch up the old and threadbare structures of man-made religion. Your old shirt has already been washed many times and shrunk as much as it is going to. When it gets a hole you patch it with a bit of new cloth, put it in the wash and the new bit shrinks. You are back where you started, with a hole in your shirt!
3. New wine in old wine-skins. You can't hope to carry the vibrant reality of the Kingdom in the tired bottles of man-made religion. New wine is still alive, still fermenting, releasing bubbles of CO2. Wineskins were made from the skins
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The wine is not the bottle. That is so obvious that I almost missed it until I read what Howard Snyder, a Methodist scholar wrote way back in 1978, “Jesus distinguishes between something essential and primary (the Wine) and something secondary but also
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| Image by G Lilly |
That's what Jesus says about structures. That and very little else. As far as worship, he gave one instruction: break bread in remembrance of me. As far as leadership, he appointed twelve to be with him and then to be sent out.
In Acts 1 we find the Church has latched on to … the number 12: the structure. Then in Acts 2, the Holy Spirit came. So now the Church had two things: it had people and it had the Spirit. (An it had the Gospel, and very little else!) And out of the people, the Spirit made this thing called “fellowship”: koinonia is the Greek word for it. Snyder says “This is the only explanation for the early Christian community described in Acts. The creation of genuine fellowship is an integral part of the work of the Holy Spirit.”2 The first believers were together; they obviously communicated with each other because they knew about one another's needs. Snyder says “Communion without communication would be a contradiction in terms.”3 And the Spirit kept moving amongst them. Paul says"where the Spirit of the Lord is there is freedom" (2 Corinthians 3. 17). And as the Spirit moved, the Church continued to reach its neighbours with the Gospel. Together, communication, freedom, and mission, were the key words for the earliest Church's life, and their structures were simply there to enable these values.
What Jesus, the Acts of the Apostles, and indeed the rest of the bible models, is a flexible approach. The seven were appointed for practical caring ministry in Acts 6 because what they had – the 12 doing all the work – wasn’t' working. But isn't it interesting, that when the structures embody these values, both in Acts 6 . 7 and in Acts 2. 47, the church's mission leaps forward.
In the Old Testament, as the people journeyed through the desert, Jethro told Moses to appoint judges because what they had – Moses doing everything – wasn't working.
Even the physical structure of the Tabernacle was designed to work – to be waterproof when it was up and portable when it was down. The holiest thing in the Tabernacle, the Ark of the Covenant, the greatest symbol of God's presence with his people, was designed to be practical. Designed by God himself, overlaid with gold, but with rings and carrying poles built in so it could be carried. It's about structures that work. The Bible teaches us effective structures. The test of effective structures are togetherness, communication, freedom and mission.
My Dad's family were hoarders. In the sixties they still had things like the family's ID cards and ration books. I still have bits and pieces I have saved up from when I was a teenager. But my Mum wasn't a hoarder. When I was in second year at secondary school, we did woodwork. I can't remember anything Mr McClymonts taught us about woodwork. All I can remember is how he swore at my poor workmanship. Each of us made a box for putting shoe polish and brushes in. Mine wasn't very good, but I eventually took it home and gave it to my Mum. It was kept, with brushes and polish, under the sink, and I forgot about it until one day, in the 80's I was back home for a family funeral, and wanted to clean my black shoes. I went looking for the polish box – and Mum had thrown it out when they had moved. I was a bit put out at the time. But you know what – she was right. My joints were not that neatly chiselled out, they were made good with wood-filler, and the whole thing had been given coat of red paint to hide the defects. It was not the kind of thing she was going to put on the coffee table when visitors came round.
We can be hoarders in the way we deal with our structures. We try to make the new cloth of the Kingdom patch up the old, threadbare structures. We try to justify the existence of the old wine-skins by putting the kingdom into them. Sometimes we need to just chuck them out.
Sometimes we suffer from an obsession with structures. We forget that the wine isn't the bottle: the tree isn't the plastic sleeve. Church structures don't have a sort of divine seal of approval on them. Thirty or so years ago some groups of Christians were obsessed with “restoring Biblical structures to the Church.” The one of those groups published a magazine article that asked “Who's got the right Biblical Structure?” And the answer? “Nobody!” We can be obsessed with new structures when we are thinking “new”. And we can become obsessed with structures when we are thinking “old”.
It's the new wine of the Kingdom that matters. We need to create structures that work for the Kingdom: new wine-skins. Effective structures that bring us together, and enable communication, freedom, and mission. And that brings us back to where we started, with Jesus partying with Matthew the tax-collector and his friends. The new wine is the generous, vibrant, living Kingdom. the Spirit in the Church, is the spirit of the Kingdom. And the Kingdom is about the lost. Effective structures are not there to keep the saints in or the lost out. They need to have doors and windows. Effective structures let the Kingdom do what it wants, where it wants, where it's needed.
© Gilmour Lilly November 2015
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