Amy C Walters

A Question About Fasting | Luke 5:33-39

The Pharisees don’t approve of Jesus’ choice of disciples, nor their behavior. When they question him about it, Jesus responds with a word picture and a parable about patched clothing, wineskins, and wine preferences. Together, they demonstrate what Jesus is looking for in his disciples.

This passage includes the first parable in Luke. Of course there will be many more throughout the rest of Luke’s Gospel. But this is the first mention of them. 

In this parable, Jesus talks about an old garment and a new patch, new wine and old wine skins, and someone who prefers old wine to the new. At first glance, this seems like a very simple parable, saying that the new is better than the old. New wine that needs new wine skins, a new garment is better than an old one that needs a patch.

But this last part that Luke includes breaks the pattern. Instead of the new being better, the old is better: “someone who has had old wine doesn’t want the new because they say the old is better.” So what is going on here? 

It’s interesting that this last statement is only included in the book of Luke. When Mark writes about this same situation in his gospel, he doesn’t include that last statement (Mark 2:21-23). So Luke is trying to communicate something very specific to us by including it. I think we need to look at the whole context of this story and also what comes before and after it to understand it. 

• Luke 5:1-11, Jesus calls the first disciples, taking them from their work as fishermen.
• Luke 5:27-32, Jesus calls a tax collector to be his disciple and hangs out with sinners.
• Luke 6:1-11, the Pharisees criticize Jesus’ disciples for “working” on the Sabbath.
• Luke 6:12-15, Jesus chooses his core group of 12 disciples. 

So the broad context of this story is Jesus’ choice of disciples. 

In the story itself, we see the Pharisees leveling two accusations against the disciples that Jesus has chosen. The first one is during Levi’s party which is filled with his tax collector friends. The Pharisees complain to Jesus’ disciples, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” So the Pharisees have a problem with who the disciples are hanging out with.

Jesus addresses their complaint and says, “It’s not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.” 

So the Pharisees retort with another accusation. They say, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, as do the disciples of the Pharisees. But your disciples go on eating and drinking.” Here, they complain that Jesus’ disciples don’t practice the same disciplines that their disciples or even John’s disciples follow. 

Jesus answers with another word picture, this time about a bridegroom and his friends. “Can you make the friends of a bridegroom fast while he is with them? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken from them. Then they will fast.” Basically, there will be a time for fasting when the bridegroom, Jesus, is not on earth with his people. But right now, when he is here, it’s a time for celebration. The disciples are doing what is appropriate for the context. 

Notice both of the Pharisees’ accusations against the disciples have to do with outward appearances: who they hang out with, what and when they eat. The Pharisees are concerned with these outward displays of righteousness and they expect to see such from a disciple. So Jesus tells a parable to show them what he is looking for in a disciple. 

The first part of the parable is about not tearing a new garment to patch an old one. Why not? The new will not match the old, and you will have ruined a new garment. 

This is absurd, nobody would do this, because a new garment is still going to shrink and change size and shape as you wear it and wash it. It’s still changeable. Whereas an old garment is not changeable anymore, it has already shrunk to the size it’s going to be. It’s changed its shape, it’s a little bit more rigid now, it’s not changeable. So when you add something that’s still changeable and in process to something that has stopped changing, then you get things that don’t work together.

What about the wineskins example? Wine, as it’s fermenting, lets off gasses. And so whatever container you put it in needs to be flexible enough to expand with that new wine. Old wineskins have already gone through that process of expansion, and then have dried out and hardened. They’re inflexible, they don’t change anymore. And so if you pour new wine into that old wineskin, the old wineskin doesn’t have the flexibility to change with the new wine.

Now again, it may seem like a comparison between new and old, how the new is better. But then we get to the end of this parable, and it says, “and no one who has had the old wine likes the new because he says the old is better.” Who or what is inflexible here? It’s the person! They only want the old because that’s what they’ve had and that’s what they like. They say it’s better, even without trying the new wine. 

So in the first part, you have an old garment that is inflexible. Then you have old wine skins that are inflexible. Finally, you have a person who is inflexible in their taste in wine. 

So what is Jesus getting after here? It’s not old versus new. It is an attitude of flexibility. Or when applied to the context of disciples, it’s teachability. Jesus is seeking teachable disciples. Disciples who are going to grow and change as Jesus is teaching them, not ones that are inflexible and rigid and already have their minds set about things.

The danger of seeing this parable only in terms of the new is better than the old is that we are not meant to follow every new teaching that comes along. Paul’s letters to the churches in the New Testament are full of warnings against new teachings that lead people astray. New is not automatically better. Listening to Jesus is automatically better. 

Now teachability has nothing to do with education level, intelligence or age. You can be teachable even if you have the highest degrees or no degrees at all. It’s not about what you have been taught, but about the attitude of your heart. 

And teachable doesn’t have to do with intelligence. You can be a brilliant person and unteachable because you have already learned all that you wanna learn. You think you’ve got it all figured out. 

Teachable doesn’t have anything to do with age. Unless maybe you’re a teenager–teenagers do tend to be rather unteachable! 

Let’s think back for a moment to the previous story where Jesus heals the paralytic. The Pharisees first say, “Who is this who speaks blasphemy? Who can forgive sins but God alone?” Now, if the Pharisees had had a teachable spirit, they might have come to a different conclusion. It is good to ask, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?” And if they had had a teachable spirit, they might have then thought, “Could this be God? We know Messiah is coming, could this be him?”

But they are like old wineskins that have hardened and are inflexible. They are like a person who has tasted that old wine, and they don’t want anything new, they’re happy with the old. They reject Jesus’ teaching and activities because they go against what they’ve always done. 

What about you? Are you teachable?