Jan 17: Jesus Teaches Us in the House of Levi

Paolo Veronese: Feast in the House of Levi (detail)
Gallerie dell’Accademia, Venice, 1573

Memorial of Saint Anthony, abbot

Gospel: Mk 2:18-22

“No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins (NRSV, Mk 2:21-22).”

Father, in Mark’s gospel, still only in the 2nd chapter, Jesus, after having amazed everyone after his return to Capernaum with the healing of the paralytic, does what anyone would have least expected. He fraternizes with Levi, the tax collector, actually pushing himself on him in the counting house and then ending up a guest at his home for dinner. So there is the Anointed One, having dinner with a tax collector and public sinners. Not what one would have expected at all.

How long does it takes us, Lord, to realize that it is impossible for us to predict what will happen in our relationship with you. We expect Jesus to show us the way by fasting and prayer. Instead we find him proclaiming the kingdom at a banquet. The future to which you call us is always much more than we can possibly conceive or imagine. Only after it unfolds does it make any sense. Of course, we say now, your Son Jesus has a mission to everyone, not only the holy or the already saved (if such were even possible) but especially for those most in need. Easy to say now after the fact. Of course, we say, we should have realized it. But the fact is, Father, that we do not realize it in advance . . . ever. How important it is for us, therefore, always to be open to that which is truly new in everything which you offer to us.

We listen to Jesus words, spoken at Levi’s banquet. “No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak.” Of course, Jesus has to be speaking about the new dispensation which he is heralding as opposed to the old. Help us to realize, Lord, that there is not just one divide in our understanding of the story of our salvation, the new which replaces the old. Indeed, every moment has to be something radically new if we will only say “yes” and allow it to happen. You, who are unchanging, call us, Father, through your Word ever present to us, in each moment to grow more and more in your life. The abundance to which you call can always overwhelm what preceded if we are open to it.

Help us, Father, that we might apply Jesus’ words to our lives: to be ready in every moment to let go of our past, especially our understanding of what should be and what we think that you require of us, in order that we may truly grow, constantly and ever again, into something new.

Through Christ our Lord. Amen.