Delivered October 28, 2007
by Pastor Eric Henderson
In China, there was an old custom in which two young girls promised to be each other's "old same" or best friend for life. This relationship was to be closer than any other and transcend the changes of life. It was to be an emotional tie that could be depended on, that would remain constant in spite of anything else life would bring. It was more precious and more treasured than family relationships because it was a chosen relationship of long standing. It was not a relationship that required a woman to relinquish her love for her husband and family, but was meant to enhance her life by its constancy.
Lily and Snow Flower became "old sames" at the age of seven, pledging their enduring friendship. Their mothers began to bind their feet on the same day. As they became acquainted and learned the special language of women, they learned from each other. Snow Flower visited Lily and her family often, but Lily was never invited to visit Snow Flower in the same way.
As the girls grew up, they developed their own traditions as friends as they learned to manage walking on their newly bound feet and made and embroidered clothing and household items for their dowries. They were glad that when they married - for their marriages were already arranged - they would be neighbours in adjoining villages. Because Snow Flower grew up in a family where there were servants, she did not know how to sweep the floor, feed the pigs or cook. Lily taught her everything she knew because Snow Flower seemed eager to learn. They enjoyed each other's company as "old sames." They could count on the other always being their friend no matter what.
We need to time-warp to first century Palestine where today's Gospel lesson takes place during a meal. Just where this meal is eaten isn't clear, but Jesus and his followers are eating supper with tax collectors and other outcasts of Jewish society. As you may already know, tax collectors were not considered VIP's in Jewish society for three reasons: 1) their collaboration with the Roman government, 2) their commerce with Gentiles and Gentile money and 3) their reputation for dishonesty in the tax rates they charged. "Other outcasts" refers to persons whom the Pharisees considered careless in their observance of the Law - the poor, the sick, etc. In many translations these people are referred to as "sinners."
So Jesus and his disciples were eating supper with Canada Revenue Agency agents and New Brunswick Mennonites we don't see in our worship services at Petitcodiac Mennonite Church. Some of the local religious church people confronted Jesus about the people with whom he was eating. In the translation of Clarence Jordan, Jesus said something like this:
"It's not the healthy people who need the doctor, but the sick. Now you all run along and study over this verse: "I want mercy and not worship." For I didn't come to invite the "good folks" but the "unsaved.""
Jesus responded with the suggestion that he is building relationships with people who needed God's Light in their lives. He also suggested that these faithful Rule Keepers may not have an accurate understanding of mercy or worship. Jesus may have even been so bold as to suggest that these very religious people might need to study their Bibles a bit more. I'm sure this suggestion was not received with joy!
Then the disciples of John the Baptist came in with a question for Jesus.
... "How come we and the church members go to worship services all the time, but your students never attend?"
Let's move across the world to China. Lily and Snow Flower grew up and, at 17, married. Lily, whose family was quite poor, had the good fortune to marry the oldest son of the most important family in the county. Snow Flower was married about a month later. When Lily went to Snow Flower's home for the first time, she was appalled by it's condition and smell. As she soon found out, Lily and her father and mother lived all by themselves in the huge ancestral home. Snow Flower's father was an opium addict and mistreated both Snow Flower and her mother. Snow Flower, who was beautiful and graceful and poised, had lied to Lily all these years about her house and family. As if this wasn't bad enough, Lily found out that Snow Flower was marrying a butcher - a despised job that was looked down upon yet the only family that would consider accepting her as a daughter-in-law.
Everyone had lied to Lily - her mother, her aunt, the matchmaker and in particular, her laotung, her old same from whom she had no secrets had, herself, many secrets. Lily was hurt and angry that the people she loved most had lied to her. They were not the people she thought they were. Her life was not the life she thought it was. It was so different from what she had always believed it to be. All had changed, so Lily did what she had been taught to do - she followed all the many rules girls were taught about life and housekeeping and parenting and being a wife.
Lily followed the rules strictly. And, as the oldest daughter-in-law who became Lady Lu rather early in life as the result of her mother-in-law's death, Lily required everyone under her influence to follow the social rules, also. She dealt with the new reality of her life by rigorously living by the rules of society that had been in place for many years. And she demanded the same of her family and friends, no matter how the rules affected the lives of her family and friends.
There were social expectations connected to religious rules in ancient Palestine. Here's the question John's disciples asked:
... "How come we and the church members go to worship services all the time, but your students never attend?"
In order to understand the question John's disciples asked and the motive for asking it, we need to understand what fasting meant to the Jews of Jesus' day, both observant and non-observant Jews. To the Jew who lived during the first 30 or so years of the first century of the Common Era, someone who went without food for religious reasons did so to mourn, to express penitence, to intercede. Fasting as a personal act reminded one of one's total dependence upon God for sustenance. After the Exile, fasting was generally recognized as a pious practice of the devout.
There's one more thing we need to know before we can get a good picture of what fasting represented to John's disciples in v. 14. What was John the Baptist preaching? John was preaching repentance of sins in preparation for the coming of Messiah, so John's disciples were fasting to prepare themselves for the coming of Messiah. They were practicing a fast of mourning and repentance, of sorrow for their sin, which was, in their context, appropriate. What they didn't realize was that Messiah had already come and was present. So Jesus may have replied something like this:
"Does the wedding party hold a prayer meeting while the wedding is going on? Rather, when the ceremony is over and the bride and groom are gone, then they may have a worship service."
A wedding, evidently both then and now, does not usually have time and space for a prayer meeting. If there is a group prayer during the wedding, prayer is focused around the new marriage of the couple.
Jesus is saying, "Look folks. This isn't the appropriate time to fast. What is appropriate is to take advantage of your opportunity to be with God on earth while I'm here. It's time to enjoy being with me, not mourn. It's time to learn as much as you can about God, because here I AM. There will be plenty of time for sorrow and mourning later, but for right now let's make hay while the sun shines."
John's disciples couldn't figure it out. Why would the followers of Someone who was obviously sent by God not do the religious, pious thing of fasting - the godly thing? Why did they feast instead? Surely a truly religious person would fast to prove to all how spiritual they were. All the religious persons they knew did. That's how things were done. That was the "rule."
The Chinese aren't so very different from us. While Snow Flower and the Secret Fan is fiction, Lisa See depicts universal human emotions that result in universal human responses. Lily, now Lady Lu, has revealed her insecurities and lack of understanding by forcing her friends, family and village to do her will. She parrots all the rules of married life - which means primarily obedience to one's husband and mother-in-law regardless of one's well-being - to her "old same" friend of almost 30 years instead of allowing herself to care for Snow Flower. This important relationship becomes cracked and broken for both women. Snow Flower, beaten regularly by her husband, suffering physically from illness and neglect, turns to three women in her village for support and comfort. Lady Lu allows this knowledge, in turn, to enforce a stronger sense of alienation and hurt. In her anger and hurt, she cut off the relationship completely, ignoring Snow Flower's existence for eight years. In her eyes and according to social custom, Lady Lu - Lily - was right.
Perhaps you have been hurt by what seems to be happening like Lady Lu was or misunderstood like Snow Flower.
Jesus chose to reinforce the wedding metaphor with two others. Perhaps he said something similar to this:
"Nobody ever uses new, un-shrunk material to patch a dress that's already been washed. For in the laundering process the patch made out of new cloth will shrink and it will pull the old material and make a tear."
"Nor do people put new tubes in old, bald tires. If they do, the tires will blow out, and the tubes will be ruined and the tires will be torn up. But they put new tubes in new tires and both give good mileage."
Those of us who work with fabric know exactly what Jesus was talking about. The newly patched dress would be in worse shape than ever after the first laundering, particularly if both dress and patch were natural fibres. And, since most of us don't produce wine, I think Clarence Jordan chose the bald tire word picture well. I imagine that sometimes putting a new inner tube in an old tire would work - for awhile anyway. But there is the likelihood that, if the worn tire fails, the new tube will be ruined also. The best solution is to buy both a new inner tube and a new tire.
It seems to me that Jesus is saying two things in these three verses. First of all, in v. 15 Jesus says that this is not a time to mourn but a time to rejoice! This is the time for which all the praying and fasting and repenting and longing has prepared you. This is the time the prophets were predicting - Messiah is here! Now is the time to feast and celebrate, for God has heard your pleas and prayers and acted. God has sent a saviour. In fact, God decided to come in person, so here I AM. So let's celebrate and enjoy the day. Let's take advantage of our time together.
The second thing Jesus says with his word pictures is that John's disciples - and we - have choices to make about how to respond to the new reality of God With Us - Emmanuel. Will we allow God to help us see and understand from God's perspective so that we can be patched in to the dress without making a bigger hole? Will we receive God's new revelation of God'self with open arms, embracing Jesus and God's Son and Messiah and joining the fabric of the wedding party?
Are we willing to discard both the ruined inner tube and the worn out bald tire that could possibly be used a bit longer in order to ensure longer and more reliable use as well as less waste from a new inner tube and new tire?
After eight years, Lady Lu was summoned to the bedside of Snow Flower, who was dying. Lady Lu chose to answer the summons and remained in Snow Flower's room for the remaining two weeks of her life, bathing her, feeding her, singing and talking to her, holding her. She slept with Snow Flower as they had as girls, talking as long as they could stay awake. Finally, in last hours of life, Lily and Snow Flower were once again "old sames." But their friendship was not the same as it had been in the early years. It had been tested in the fires of anger, hurt and humiliation. It had been broken and trampled. And, finally, it was resurrected by Lily's choice to put aside her point of view - being right - in order to consider that of Snow Flower's and what was best for her.
Some minds are like concrete, thoroughly mixed up and permanently set.
(http://groups.yahoo.com).
No matter what our views and opinions, whether we're actually "right" or not, I believe God calls us to reject concrete minds and remain stuck on what may be "right." Moving ahead spiritually as a congregation may require that we choose an openness to consider what might be in the mind of Christ, what might be best. How do we know what the mind of Christ is? Anabaptist theology says the mind of Jesus is discerned in the community of believers.
As we continue at Petitcodiac Mennonite Church to carefully consider and discern, God's vision for us as a congregation and as individuals, let's be right about things but also open to God's idea of what is best.
SOURCES CONSULTED
Coogan, Michael D, ed. The New Oxford Annotated Bible: New Revised Standard Version with the Apocrypha
Eerdman's Bible Dictionary
Gardner, Richard B. The Believers Church Commentary: Matthew
Jordan, Clarence. The Cotton Patch Gospels
Metzger, Bruce M. and Michael D. Coogan, ed. The Oxford Companion to the Bible
See, Lisa. Snow Flower and the Secret Fan
Stern, David H. The Complete Jewish Bible
Vine, W. E. The Expanded Vine's Expository Dictionary of New Testament Words
http://groups.yahoo.com/group/illustrations/message/333
Petitcodiac Mennonite Church