Knowing the Situation
Wisdom to know the moment.
The Christmas season is now over. But the light of the Christ-child carries on. Lent will arrive before we know it (February 18). In the meantime, we walk the teachings, life, and stories of Jesus.
There’s nothing wrong with wanting to get things right. But when that desire supersedes the ability to discern the moment, we begin to lose the point. In today’s passage, Jesus is questioned about religious faithfulness. The questions aren’t hostile (yet). They are questions asked by people who care deeply about getting things right.
Jesus’ response is not to dismiss fasting or the Sabbath. Instead, he reframes them by asking a more fundamental question: Do you know what kind of moment you are in?
There is a time for fasting, Jesus says, but not when cause for celebration is present. There is a time to protect the Sabbath, but not at the expense of human need. Faithfulness, in other words, is not only about knowing the rules. It is about discerning what God is doing right now.
James echoes this wisdom in a quieter register. Do not be deceived, he says. God gives good gifts. And because that is true, the posture of the faithful is not quick judgment or rigid certainty, but attentiveness - being quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to anger.
Devotion without discernment can miss the very work of God it seeks to uphold. Religious practice detached from situation can become blind to grace. Knowing the law is not the same as knowing the moment.
But be careful: Jesus does not abolish faithfulness. He fulfills it. He fleshes it out. He insists that following him means paying attention to people, to need, to timing, and above all, to his presence. The challenge is not simply to do the right thing, but to know when and how faithfulness is being asked of us.
Mark 2:18-28
John’s disciples and the Pharisees had a habit of fasting. Some people asked Jesus, “Why do John’s disciples and the Pharisees’ disciples fast, but yours don’t?”
Jesus said, “The wedding guests can’t fast while the groom is with them, can they? As long as they have the groom with them, they can’t fast. But the days will come when the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.
“No one sews a piece of new, unshrunk cloth on old clothes; otherwise, the patch tears away from it, the new from the old, and makes a worse tear. No one pours new wine into old leather wineskins; otherwise, the wine would burst the wineskins and the wine would be lost and the wineskins destroyed. But new wine is for new wineskins.”
Jesus went through the wheat fields on the Sabbath. As the disciples made their way, they were picking the heads of wheat. The Pharisees said to Jesus, “Look! Why are they breaking the Sabbath law?”
He said to them, “Haven’t you ever read what David did when he was in need, when he and those with him were hungry? During the time when Abiathar was high priest, David went into God’s house and ate the bread of the presence, which only the priests were allowed to eat. He also gave bread to those who were with him.” Then he said, “The Sabbath was created for humans; humans weren’t created for the Sabbath. This is why the Human One is Lord even over the Sabbath.”
James 1:16-19
Don’t be misled, my dear brothers and sisters. Every good gift, every perfect gift, comes from above. These gifts come down from the Father, the creator of the heavenly lights, in whose character there is no change at all. He chose to give us birth by his true word, and here is the result: we are like the first crop from the harvest of everything he created.
Know this, my dear brothers and sisters: everyone should be quick to listen, slow to speak, and slow to grow angry.
Prayer
God,
It’s just an ordinary day in January. The rain is splatting coldly outside. I’ve an agenda ahead of me today that seems audacious in light of a throbbing tooth. The weekly budget set for the year just a few days ago already seems out of whack. It’s a day when the situations with kids seem to be multiplying beyond responsible control.
But you are good. I choose to believe that you are present. That your Spirit is moving in and out of these things faster than I can think about them.
Even so…help me to think about them! Give me wisdom to deal with it all according to your grace, love, and justice.
By your Spirit & in Christ,
Amen.
Brilliant reframe on faithfulness being less about rulebook perfection and more abouthuman attentiveness. I've noticed that when I'm too locked into \"doing it right\" I actually miss whats happening right in front of me, like when somone needs help but I'm mentally checking boxes. The James bit ties it together perfectly because listening deeply is way harder than defaulting to certainty.