Celebration: This is the Way

Jason Freyer

This is the Way • Sermon • Submitted 3 years ago

Matthew 9:14–17

Worship

Celebration

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Transcript

Intro part one: Recap

We continue on our “This is the Way” series, where we’re looking at the attributes of a faithful follower of the Way of Jesus Christ.

I hope that as we continue through this series that you’re taking these markers of our lives as followers home, and trying out new experiences for living in “the Way.”

I hope that you’re able to live in to Forgiveness as the Way, to be able to take the next step and the next and the next to forgiving those who have wronged you.

I hope that you’re able to live in to Generosity as the Way, choosing to be more generous both with your giving to the church, your giving to those around you, and your precious resources like time and attention.

I hope that you’re able to live in to Humility, that we are constant learners and students of what God is up to in the world, and by that know our place in the story.

And today, we’re going to take a look at another marker in the Way that, truly sometimes, I wonder if the Church has totally lost sight of.

Today’s lesson comes to us from Matthew’s gospel:

The New Revised Standard Version The Question about Fasting

14 Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, “Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” 15 And Jesus said to them, “The wedding guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. 16 No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. 17 Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, 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.”

Intro part two: I got hustled.

One of the things I was most known for in my youth ministry days (ok, really all my life) is my ability to make just about anything fun.

Case in point:

When you want to be ordained, you have to take something called the Bible Content Exam.

It is as it sounds: they could ask you any small detail about the Bible and you have to be able to place it.

It was a bear!

So I made a bet with another seminary student:

Whoever had the lower score on the Bible Content exam had to dress up in our youth group’s banana costume and stand on the side of Rt. 19 with a sign that said “Ask me about the Bible” for an hour.

I figured it would be motivational to keep studying.

We had these practice exams.

I was routinely getting 78%, 79% on the practice exams.

My fellow student kept getting about 68% or so.

Both were passing grades, but I was feeling pretty great about my chances for not wearing a banana costume.

The day of the exam came

The results were instant, so I walked out of the room knowing that I had an 85%.

Totally clearing my usual score, so I had a big huge smug smile on my face walking out of the exam room.

My friend walked out…SHE GOT A 98%!!!

She only missed two questions.

To this day, I insist that I was being hustled…but like a good boy...

Check my facebook page, I there are pictures of me in a banana costume with the sign.

I like to have fun!

Is that something that works with Christianity?

Bible Breakdown

John’s jealous disciples

We have already come to know that John the Baptist had quite a few disciples of his own, and apparently they’re starting to notice that there are differences between what they have to do, and what Jesus has to do.

Specifically, why do we have to fast and your guys down?

It’s probably important to remember that these guys were likely in their teens, so add your own whiney sound if you prefer.

What is fasting, and when do you do it?

Fasting is pretty straight forward

It is essentially denying or abstaining from anything, but particularly things that you think would get in the way of your relationship with God.

Food often gets top billing.

Some people fast from television for a season.

Some people fast from physical intimacy for a season.

I once even fasted from coffee for lent...

I was not a happy person to be around for those 40 days and 40 nights.

And what’s usually true is that there are comforts in the things that you give up.

You give up food because it can be comforting.

You give up coffee to see if you can make it through a day without leaning on its comforts (never again for me…)

But when you fasted was important too.

It was for sure a spiritual discipline.

But it also had a connection with a sense of mourning.

When someone died, you fasted.

When you get laid of from work, you fast.

When the Penguins lose in the first round of the playoffs, you shave your beard.

Can’t we have fun too?

So John’s disciples come along with a question behind the question:

Have you ever had this happen before? Where the presenting issue isn’t really what’s going on.

They have a question about fasting, but what they are essentially saying is...

“Why is it that you’re allowed to have fun and we’re not?”

Now, what kind of response would you expect from Jesus in this?

We’re totally serious!

We’re focused on what we’re doing!

We’re not having fun over here!

But instead, he offers us three parables:

Parable #1: The Wedding

My Super Sweet 16

There was a show a little while back (maybe it’s still on?) called My Super Sweet 16.

Essentially the plot was that super rich people would plan these incredibly ellaborate and pricey parties for their kids on the occasion of their 16th birthday.

I never actually watched, but one of the ads that is totally suck in my head is of this boy who wanted to ride in to his super sweet 16 on the back of an elephant, and his parents totally obliged…but the elephant was just a bit too small and so he threw a tantrum.

Hence why I never actually watched.

But the whole premise here is that there should be one day where you get to feel like royalty.

Royalty for a day

Weddings in Jesus’ day were kind of like this.

Instead of going away on a honeymoon, the party came to the new bride and groom’s house.

They had a week long open house after the wedding, where friends and neighbors and family would come to their house.

It’s not hard to imagine why this tradition has changed...

But these extra guests were actually there to be the servants of the new bride and groom.

Whatever they need, they got.

The guests actually even referred to the bride and groom as King and Queen.

So for just one week, no matter how wealthy or poor you may have been, you got to live like a king and queen.

Pretty hard to do anything less than celebrate in this situation

Now again, it’s hard for me to imagine inviting the whole neighborhood in to my house under any circumstances, but...

Imagine there was someone there who was just a bummer the whole time.

One of those kind of people that you are sure Eeore is based off of.

Get right out!

There’s no room in a celebration like this for an attitude like that.

To which Jesus says “Exactly.”

You cannot be around Jesus and be sullen.

You cannot be around Jesus and be stern.

You cannot be around Jesus and fast in mourning.

To be around Jesus is to celebrate.

These parables are related!

Now, that first parable makes total sense following the question.

But then Jesus takes what seems like a total left turn.

Hang in there, because in the Greek this is all one thought for Jesus.

These next two parables are related to the first one in some way, and we need to figure out how.

Parable #2: Worn Wear

There was a time that when a jacket or a shirt or something ripped, we didn’t just throw it away, but we tried to repair it.

In fact, some of the folks I hang out with in the outdoorsy community take great pride in repairing and patching their gear to make sure it lasts as long as possible.

But you do have to be careful what you patch clothing with, and how you patch it.

Jesus is imagining a jacket that is really well worn in, and in fact has shrunk a little bit.

And then he imagines putting a piece of brand new material on it.

If you sew it to the coat taught, as the unshrunk cloth begins to shrink, the old worn in jacket isn’t going to have any give to it.

It’s already flexed as far as it’s going to flex.

So as the patch flexes and the jacket does not, Jesus tells us that the patch is going to rip away from the jacket and ruin both.

And this…is somehow about fasting and celebration?

Hmmmm.

Parable #3: Wineskins

I have never understood this parable on it’s own

First of all I’m not a wine guy at all.

But I knew next to nothing about ancient wine keeping practices.

What’s a wineskin, and how is wine made?

A wineskin was a bladder made out of leather that would…hold wine!

In fact it was the device they used to ferment wine.

You would put your grape juice in to the wineskin, close it up tight, wait a while, and vua la! Wine.

But you had to be careful with the wineskins.

When you put grape juice in to the wineskin, it starts to ferment.

Part of the fermenting process includes releasing gasses from the wine.

If you are using a new wineskin, it’s fresh and flexible, so as the gas is released from the juice the bag will flex and move with it.

But if you put new wine into an old, brittle, and inflexible wineskin, there’s nowhere for those gases to go.

So the wineskin would burst, and the whole batch would be ruined.

Two parables following the first one, how do they relate?

When we are inflexible, we have a hard time celebrating.

John’s disciples and the Pharisees are locked in to a tradition that they don’t seem to think they can get out of.

It is likely one of those things, particularly in the Pharisee’s case, that has been passed down from generation to generation to generation.

Of course we fast. Why wouldn’t we fast?

Of course we sit in this pew. Are you crazy, I’m not moving!

Of course we have to have our church service in this order. How dare you suggest otherwise!?!

And look, tradition is good, and tradition has a place, and that’s not what this sermon is about.

This is about what happens when that tradition gets so rigid, so inflexible, so stale, that it’s robbed of it’s joy.

Jesus might ask it this way: If God is doing a new thing, if God is calling you to unfamiliar places, is that something that excites you, or is that something that makes you afraid?

Jesus is God showing up in human form in front of these disciples of John and these Pharisees, and that’s not something that had ever happened before.

Church in the 1500s went through a radical re-imagining and reorienting, and some folks went along with the changes with excitement and joy, and others clung to their rigid systems.

In today’s world, God is doing big huge things through a changing culture that some of us can’t recognize any more, but which is also opening up more and more young people to have more spiritual experiences in their lives. Are we on board with that, or is that something that makes us afraid?

If God is doing a new thing, is that exciting or frightening?

Application

Go ahead and admit it: Celebration is the Way.

A previous church I worked at used to have a preschool, and they would ask me to lead them in some songs around the holidays.

Because there were a lot of kids, the best place to do this was in the sanctuary.

Now, if you want preschool kids to get interested in what you’re doing, you need to be big!

One of my favorite phrases with the kids (which I stole from another worship leader) was “That was really pretty singing, but we don’t want pretty, we want LOUD!”

And so we’d have kids in the sanctuary screaming and stomping and jumping and having a great time in praise.

But there was always that one teacher...

That one teacher that wanted everyone to sit criss cross apple sauce.

That one teacher who wanted indoor voices barely above a whisper.

That one teacher who valued order above all.

I am not that one teacher!

I think one of the first things that we can do is the recognize that as much as Forgiveness, and Generosity, and Humility are the way, so is celebration.

Now of course, there are times and places.

I probably wouldn’t wear the banana costume to someone’s wedding.

But I think it is undeniably true that Jesus calls us to celebrate.

Case in point: When he’s looking around at his disciples to explain what’s about to happen with the cross, he uses the image and the language of a feast and a festival.

You want to understand how I’m about to redeem the world? Pass the carbs around!

In fact, not only with communion, but a wedding banquet is one of Jesus’ favorite metaphors to explain what heaven is like.

I think just like I had to tell those teachers that it was actually ok for kids to be shouting in the sanctuary, it’s important for us to be reminded that it’s ok to choose celebration.

Celebrate the good that God has done in your life, rather than focusing on what’s going wrong.

Celebrate the people in your life, giving thanks for the way they brighten up your world.

Celebrate a week with slightly warmer weather, and long bike rides!

Celebrate the very…next…breath that goes in and comes back out.

Celebrate.

Celebrate the new things God is up to in the world, and in our church!

One year in.

I was reminded that our experience of the pandemic is about a year old now.

The virus broke out in 2019, but it was right around now last year that things started to shut down.

Remember when you couldn’t get a roll of toilet paper to save your life?

And that brings two things to mind for me:

We can complain about all that we lost in the last year, and for some of us it’s a tremendous amount that has been lost and should be mourned.

But I wonder what would happen this morning if we celebrated the good things that have come in the last year.

Some of us got to spend a great deal more time with our families this year.

Some of us figured out that outside was better than inside with this virus, so we’ve spent way more time in God’s creation.

Some of us even managed to get new jobs along the way!

Where we put our focus is incredibly important in this life.

But there’s something else that comes to mind as we mark this year of COVID:

Something new is brewing.

The question that seems to be on most people’s mind is “When will things get back to normal?”

I might answer with “I don’t remember what normal was any more.”

We have been irrevocably marked by this year.

Even down to the simplest thing:

Before the pandemic I used to do a triple pat on my way out the door: Keys, Wallet, Phone.

What do I do now?

We are not “going back to normal.”

And I am sick as can be of the phrase “the new normal.”

But I think it is abundantly clear that God is doing a new thing.

The way we do family after the Pandemic will not look like it did before.

The way we do business after the Pandemic will not look like it did before.

And let me be abundantly clear: the way we did church before the pandemic is a thing of the past.

God is doing a new thing.

Are we afraid of that?

Or are we ready to celebrate it?

Are we going to mourn the way it used to be?

Or are we ready to embrace new ways to see God at work in the Church and in the world?

Are we going to dedicate our energies to trying to rebuild what once was?

Or are we ready to pour joyful energy into creating new programs, opportunities, and more importantly relationships?

Are we going to try to keep using the same old wineskins?

Or are we going to joyfully celebrate the new life that God is calling out within us?

Challenge: Find a new way to experience God, and celebrate it.

So while we’re looking forward to what God is calling out of us in this season of Pandemic, we’re not quite there yet.

So I have a two part challenge for us today:

Be mindful of a new thing God is up to in your life.

A new opportunity at work.

A more open relationship.

A good medical report.

A wee bit of sunshine in the morning on the way to the car.

Celebrate it!

And let’s be super clear: Be ridiculous about it!

Like I know not everyone has a banana costume, but...

Get a cake for no other reason than a beautiful Sunday morning.

Throw a party with streamers and confetti and the whole deal just because that Zoom meeting ended 20 minutes early.

Give a family member a gift just because you’re feeling good today.

Because it’s true. Celebration is the way.

Let’s celebrate the new things God is doing in our midst this day, and all our days.

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