Readings:
- Hosea 2.16b, 17b, 21-22
Psalm 103.1-2, 3-4, 8, 10, 12-13 Response: “The Lord is kind and merciful.” - 2 Corinthians 3.1b-6
- Mark 2.18-22
Reflections on the Gospel Reading
The new message of the reign of God requires conversion on our part, a change of mind, a whole new outlook. In today’s gospel reading Jesus challenges us to look at fasting in a radically new way.
Mark is dealing with a question that troubled his readers, followers of Jesus living in the Roman Empire during the last third of the first century. They asked: Why are we encouraged to engage in voluntary fasting (Meier 1994, pp. 501-502, note 210) when the original disciples of Jesus didn’t fast? Mark puts his readers’ question in the mouths of “people” who came to Jesus and objected, “Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?”
Practice of Fasting at the Time of Jesus
The setting is historically accurate. The Law required fasting only on the Day of Atonement. (See for example Leviticus 16:29-31, 23:26-32; Numbers 29.7) However, voluntary fasting, in the sense of abstinence from all or almost all food and drink for a set period of time, was common at the time of Jesus. (Meier 1994, p. 503, note 214)
Pious Israelites fasted to express mourning after someone died, as a penance for sins, and as a means of intense prayer of petition, especially in the face of calamity. “Fasting may also have been connected at times with preparing oneself for an encounter with God . . . .” Fasting, or “afflicting oneself,” was more than just abstaining from food and drink. It could also involve rending garments, wearing sackcloth, placing ashes on one’s head, and weeping. (Meier 1994, p. 502, note 210)
Like so many other things in an honor-based society, fasting was public. It was an act of self-affliction and self-humiliation intended to move others to action on behalf of the person or persons fasting. Specifically, it was a request to one’s patron to have mercy. Because of a relationship based on family ties or the loyalty of the petitioner, the patron is challenged to defend his honor by doing his duty of coming to one’s aid in time of need. The one who was fasting was begging others for assistance without ever saying so explicitly in words. (Pilch 1996, p. 41)
“The fasting required on the Day of Atonement was intended to move God to forgive the sins of those fasting. The idea was that if human beings can be effectively moved to compassion and practical assistance by the self-humiliation of a needy person caught in a crisis, how much more promptly should God act when faced with fasting.” (Pilch 1996, p. 41)
The Pharisees were accustomed to fast twice a week (Luke 18.12), and John the Baptist was noted for “neither eating or drinking.” (Matthew 11.18; Luke 7.33) Presumably, his followers fasted as well. Moreover, “in the background to the New Testament one finds widespread approval of voluntary fasting as a mark of religious devotion, as well as the almost spontaneous rise of individual and communal asceticism. ‘Fasting like a Jew’ had become proverbial in the Roman world of the first century . . . .” (Muddiman 1992, 2.774. The reference is to Suetonius, Lives of the Caesars, Augustus, 76.)
A Distinctive Mark of Jesus’ Followers
Contrast this with the fact that nowhere in the four Gospels do we find any explicit mention of fasting by Jesus’ disciples. In fact, not fasting seems to have been one of the characteristics that made Jesus’ disciples stand out from other pious Jewish groups, especially the disciples of John the Baptist. (Meier 1994, pp. 440-441)
It appears that the tradition underlying Mark’s Gospel either contained no account of Jesus’ fasting or had suppressed it. After Jesus was baptized Matthew says that “he fasted forty days and forty nights,” (Mt 4.2) and Luke says that “he ate nothing at all during those days.” (Lk 4.2) Mark says, “He was in the wilderness forty days, tempted by Satan; and he was with the wild beasts; and angels waited on him.” (Mk 1.13) Presumably, the angels fed him after the example of Elijah on his forty day trek to Mount Horeb. (1 Kings 19.4-8) (See Muddiman 1992, p. 775.)
Contrast this also with the fact that in the earliest records of the church we find that fasting is a widespread practice, (Meier 1994, p. 447) and you have a problem. Why was voluntary fasting forbidden then and encouraged now?
Two Bridegroom Sayings
Mark attempted to explain this discrepancy by two separate sayings of Jesus that mention “the bridegroom.” The question that forms part of the first saying is about as close as we can come to an actual quotation of the historical Jesus. (Funk et al. 1993, p. 47; Meier 1994, pp. 442-450) “The wedding guests cannot fast when the groom is with them, can they?” (Donahue & Harrington translation)
The meaning seems to be: If fasting is a sign of mourning, it is no longer appropriate. “Fasting at a wedding, thereby refusing to participate fully in the wedding celebration, would be a serious insult implying disapproval of the marriage taking place.” (Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003, p. 155) Jesus is saying that his disciples should act like wedding guests when the bridegroom is right there.
John the Evangelist also has a bridegroom saying. “He who has the bride is the bridegroom. The friend of the bridegroom, who stands and hears him, rejoices greatly at the bridegroom’s voice.” (John 3.29) Although this comes from a source independent from Mark, it agrees in associating the presence of the bridegroom with joy.
This raises another question: Who is the bridegroom? The prophets used the image of the bridegroom for God’s relationship with the People of Israel. (e.g. Hosea 2.16-20; Isaiah 54.4-8; Jeremiah 2.2; Jeremiah 2.31-32; Ezekiel 16.7-14) Here Jesus appears to be applying that image to himself. (Taylor 1959, pp. 210-211; Meier 1994, p. 441) At least Mark seems to understand the saying in that sense.
In the ministry of Jesus, God’s reign is breaking in upon us. Everyone is invited to the wedding celebration. Rejoicing, not fasting, is the proper response. “The overall thrust of the story is clear: fasting is in principle now abrogated.” (Tuckett 1996, p. 447)
However, there was a second bridegroom saying in the tradition Mark was working with. This saying is probably not from Jesus during his earthly ministry (Fuller 1984, p. 307; Meier 1994, pp. 444-445) but from the Spirit of Jesus speaking to the church. “But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.”
In this saying there is a clear reference to Jesus’ passion and death. Quite possibly, “When he is taken away” echoes a passage from the fourth servant song in Isaiah:
By a perversion of justice he was taken away.
Who could have imagined his future?
For he was cut off from the land of the living,
stricken for the transgression of my people.
(Isaiah 53.8)
“Jesus prophesies that he, the bridegroom, will be ‘taken away’ from his friends (namely by violent death on the cross . . .). His death will introduce a time of bereavement as opposed to wedding joy, a time when his friends will mourn over his (physical) absence. Fittingly, then, they will practice fasting ‘on that day.’” This second “bridegroom” saying “justifies to the present-day church of Mark its own quite different practice of fasting.” (Meier 1994, p. 441)
This raises still another question. Other New Testament writers, especially Luke, had a vivid sense of the continuing presence of Jesus in the church. Matthew ends his Gospel with the risen Lord’s declaration, “And remember, I am with you always, to the end of the age.”? (Matthew 28.20)
Along these same lines, how does the Roman Catholic requirement to fast on Ash Wednesday and Good Friday square with the many-faceted belief in the real presence of Christ articulated by the Second Vatican Council? ”To accomplish so great a work, Christ is always present in His Church, especially in her liturgical celebrations. He is present in the sacrifice of the Mass, not only in the person of His minister, ‘the same one now offering, through the ministry of priests, who formerly offered himself on the cross,’ but especially under the Eucharistic species. By His power He is present in the sacraments, so that when a person baptizes it is really Christ Himself who baptizes. He is present in His word, since it is He Himself who speaks when the holy Scriptures are read in the church. He is present, finally, when the Church prays and sings, for He promised: ’Where two or three are gathered together for my sake, there am I in the midst of them.’ (Matthew 18:20)” (Constitution on the Sacred Liturgy, no. 7 in Abbott 1966, pp. 140-141)
If Jesus, the bridegroom, is still present to his church, how can we fast? If we do fast, how is our practice different from that which Jesus forbade?
Two Short Parables
Perhaps it was to settle this problem that Mark appended the two short parables – one for women (sewing) and one for men (wine making). The two sayings on the new patch and the new wine are at the very center of the chiastic literary structure of Mark 2.1-3:6. Accordingly, they are the key to the interpretation of all five controversy stories (healing, eating with sinners, fasting, eating grain on the Sabbath, and healing on the Sabbath). “The sentiments they express are revolutionary, since they affirm that a new message must find a fresh vehicle, if it is not to perish and destroy existing institutions.” (Taylor 1959, p. 212)
We are reminded again of the prophetic words of the man with the unclean spirit in the synagogue at Capernaum, “Have you come to destroy us?” (Mark 1.24) Without a change of mind and heart, the answer is yes, “the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the skins are destroyed.” If we are to continue the practice of fasting, it must become a radically new kind of fasting or the practice will become destructive of the Christian community.
Implications for Lent
Achieving this new understanding of fasting takes on all the greater importance as we approach the season of Lent. In the first reading for Ash Wednesday from the prophet Joel God calls for a fast that would even make “the bridegroom quit his room and the bride her chamber.” In the reading from Matthew’s Gospel Jesus counsels us about the interior dispositions that should accompany fasting in secret. What kind of fasting is this? Certainly not a mournful fast precisely when Christ the bridegroom is present at the eucharistic banquet.
Is Almsgiving the Key?
The answer is not easy. Perhaps we need to associate fasting with almsgiving rather than with mourning and self-humiliation. We abstain from food, pleasure, and possessions in order to share them with our sisters and brothers in Christ and with all who are in need. We are called to supply the provisions for the wedding banquet.
Regardless of their status, all are called to the banquet of life. In the presence of our Father/Patron and the risen Lord it is not necessary for us to humiliate ourselves to get attention. Nor should it be necessary for our brothers and sisters to humiliate themselves, to make an open show of their misery, in order for us to come to their aid.
We should be like the prodigal father in Luke’s Gospel who spies his wretched son from afar and rushes out to meet him to forestall his son’s intended act of public abasement. (Luke 15.11-32) If we are truly sisters and brothers in the Lord, our fasting should involve sharing that is spontaneous, generous and joyful.
In any case, today’s gospel reading challenges us to adopt a radically new approach to fasting. Are we up to the challenge?
In preparing these reflections, in addition to the biblical texts, I consulted the following works:
ABD = Anchor Bible Dictionary 1992 – David Noel Freedman, Editor-in-Chief, The Anchor Bible Dictionary. Six Volumes (New York: Doubleday, 1992)
Donahue & Harrington 2002 – John R. Donahue, S.J. and Daniel J. Harrington, S.J., The Gospel of Mark (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 2002), pp. 105-110.
Fuller 1984 – Reginald H. Fuller, Preaching the Lectionary. The Word of God for the Church Today (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1984), pp. 305-308.
Funk et al. 1993 – Robert W. Funk, Roy W. Hoover and the Jesus Seminar, The Five Gospels: The Search for the Authentic Words of Jesus , A Polebridge Press Book (New York: Macmillan Publishing Company, 1993), p. 47.
LaVerdiere 1990 – Eugene LaVerdier, S.S.S., Luke. New Testament Message, Volume 5. A Michael Glazier Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1990), pp. 85-87.
Malina & Rohrbaugh 2003 – Bruce J. Malina and Richard L. Rohrbaugh, Social-Science Commentary on the Synoptic Gospels, Second Edition (Minneapolis, MN: Fortress Press, 2003), p. 155.
Meier 1994 – John P. Meier, A Marginal Jew: Rethinking the Historical Jesus, Voume Two: Mentor, Message, and Miracles (New York: Doubleday, 1994), pp. 439-450.
Muddimann 1992 -John Muddiman, FAST, FASTING in ABD, Vol. 2, pp. 773-776.
Pilch 1996 – John J. Pilch, The Cultural World of Jesus, Sunday by Sunday, Cycle B. A Liturgical Press Book (Collegeville [MN]: Liturgical Press, 1996), pp. 40-42.
Taylor 1959 – Vincent Taylor, The Gospel According to St. Mark: The Greek Text with Introduction, Notes, and Indexes (London: Macmillan & Co. LTD, 1959), pp. 208-217.
Tuckett 1996 – Christopher M. Tuckett, Q and the History of Early Christianity: Studies in Q (Peabody, MA: Hendrickson Publishers, Inc., 1996), pp. 446-447.