SPIRITUALITY VERSUS RELIGION. These days, it’s common to distinguish the two, with the point being that spirituality is a good thing and religion…well, let’s just say that religion often loses its way, such that its practices become ends in themselves instead of leading us to God. We may go to church, pray, or read our Bibles because we think we’re supposed to, because that’s what good religious people do. Unfortunately, however, our church attendance may do nothing to shape our character, our prayers may be rote, and our eyes may simply scan the words of our daily Bible reading without our taking those words to heart.
The problem goes back for milennia. Through the prophets, the people of ancient Israel were often condemned by God for the soulless way they went through the motions of religious obedience. Take Isaiah, for example, in which God thunders, “The multitude of your sacrifices—what are they to me? I have more than enough of burnt offerings… I have no pleasure in the blood of bulls and lambs and goats. …Stop bringing meaningless offerings! Your incense is detestable to me. …I cannot bear your worthless assemblies” (Isa 1:11, 13, NIV).
So what does God want instead? Isaiah continues:
Wash and make yourselves clean.
Take your evil deeds out of my sight;
stop doing wrong.
Learn to do right; seek justice.
Defend the oppressed.
Take up the cause of the fatherless;
plead the case of the widow. (vss. 16-17)
Similar messages can be found in the writing of the other prophets as well. False, empty religion is condemned, and spiritual and moral transformation is demanded instead. Amos, for example, calls for “justice [to] roll on like a river, righteousness like a never-failing stream” (5:24). And Micah tells the people that what God requires is for them to “act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with [their] God” (6:8).
Fast-forward to the time of Jesus. Some Jews belonged to the influential sect known as the Pharisees; the name itself means “separated,” suggesting the supposedly exemplary piety that made them stand out from the common folk. Throughout the gospels, they challenge Jesus to justify his words and deeds, as they did in Luke 5 by questioning why Jesus would stoop to sharing a dinner table with despised tax collectors and other sinful people.
The next question seems similar in intent:
They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” (Luke 5:33, NIV)
Before, the issue was why Jesus feasted with sinners. Now, it’s about why he didn’t fast like other good religious people.
But wait… who was asking the question? Luke merely says “they”—and on the heels of the previous vignette, that makes it seem like another challenge from the Pharisees. But it would be odd for the Pharisees to ask such a question while referring to “the disciples of the Pharisees” in the third person.
If not the Pharisees, then who? Here’s Mark’s version:
Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people came and asked Jesus, “How is it that John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?” (Mark 2:18)
Mark’s way of telling the story makes it sound less connected to the one about Jesus eating with tax collectors. His reference to “some people” is even more vague than Luke’s “they,” but at least doesn’t sound like a reference to the Pharisees. Matthew’s version, however, is more definite:
Then John’s disciples came and asked him, “How is it that we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?” (Matt 9:14)
All three versions in all three gospels are part of the same sequence of vignettes, coming after Jesus’ healing of the paralytic and Matthew’s controversial dinner party. In the New International Version, all three are prefaced by the same heading: “Jesus Questioned About Fasting.” And all three share the same basic facts: first, the disciples of John the Baptist practice fasting, apparently with some regularity; second, so do the Pharisees; third, the disciples of Jesus do not; and fourth, someone asks Jesus why. If we use Matthew’s version to fill in the ambiguity in Mark and Luke, then the question is coming from the disciples of John the Baptist, and it’s possible that some Pharisees were with or among them.
That’s not a perfect solution, though. If John’s disciples were asking the question, then we have a similar problem as before: now they are the ones referring to themselves in the third person. And any way we read it, we still don’t know how long after the banquet the conversation occurred.
Still, the questions about feasting and fasting are held together by the common theme of proper religious observance, of what a supposedly religious person should or shouldn’t do. Note that such questions can be asked honestly, by open-minded people who really want to know the answer. But often, the question is asked judgmentally by closed-minded people. It’s like the audience member at a public lecture who, during the Q and A, prefaces their question with, “Don’t you think…?” That seemingly innocuous wording is typically code for, “I know what you should think, and if you don’t, you’re wrong.”
Such questions can create a no-win scenario. Jesus will suggest as much later in Luke:
For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man came eating and drinking, and you say, “Here is a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners.” (Luke 7:33-34)
You can feast or fast; either way, if someone has a mind to find fault with you, they will.
But whatever the motivation behind the question, Jesus dignifies it with an answer. And in doing so, he implicitly invites his questioners to join him in a celebration feast.
