Clinging to Rafts of Frail Assumption
- davidwperk
- Feb 23, 2024
- 7 min read
Devotional Reflection, Friday, February 23. 2024
The week of the first Sunday after Lent
The Rev. David W. Perkins, Th.D.
Key phrases for reflection from today’s reading:
21 ‘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. 22And 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.’
You will find the full text of today’s Gospel at the end of this reflection.
Daily Office Lectionary Readings (BCP, 953)
AM Psalm 95 [for the Invitatory] 40, 54; PM Psalm 51
Gen. 40:1-23; 1 Cor. 3:16-23; Mark 2:13-22
Today we celebrate the Feast of Polycarp. (See below.)
David’s Reflections
Auden’s poem “The Quest” contains these lines in section XIX:
With time in tempest everywhere,
To rafts of frail assumption cling
The saintly and the insincere;
Enraged phenomena bear down
In overwhelming waves to drown
Both sufferer and suffering. *
People observing Jesus’ ministry must have felt like time was in tempest and that their rafts of frail assumption were tossing on the waves. In today’s reading, Jesus celebrates a ceremonial meal with a Jewish revenue officer for Rome, deemed unclean and unfit for social intercourse by the pious in Judaism because of his association with the Romans. That tax collector even becomes a follower of Jesus. Such behavior flayed the rafts of frail assumption of Jesus’ strictly devout fellow Jews.
Even John the Baptist’s followers felt scandalized because Jesus’ followers did not observe the weekly fasting so important to Jewish ritual piety. An inquiry to Jesus elicited several short parables with a common theme, “Time is in tempest.” This is a new time and the old ways cannot contain it. They were clinging to rafts of frail assumption in the tempest.
New unfermented grape juice required new, more elastic animal skins. Otherwise, as the wine fermented, the gases generated by the bacterial action on the sugars would stretch and rupture previously used skins that had sacrificed their elasticity for a previous fermentation. A robe in need of a patch would only suffer further damage from a patch made from unshrunk cloth, because at the first washing the new patch would shrink and the repeatedly washed robe would not.
“Time is in tempest.” What an apt phrase for our time. Our frail assumptions conditioned by past experience and learned responses will make very poor rafts in the tempests we seek to navigate. To what then do we cling? Perhaps it is the clinging itself that has become a problem. The COVID-19 pandemic has proven quite a tempest; our time-tested assumptions about engaging in church and mission feel like old wineskins that cannot contain the new wine of our learnings from the pandemic.
The call to follow Jesus keeps stretching us into new places of discomfort. If our assumptions about worship, the Bible, people, our vocation, our identity are creating anxieties in response to time’s tempest, perhaps reflecting on that anxiety will surface the places where our rafts of frail assumption must be released to embrace new reality. Angry efforts to preserve the old order and accusations that the new is heterodox are reactionary ways of avoiding the question, “Is this new realty an expression of Jesus’ renewing presence?” For example, as we emerge into a post-pandemic space can we bring forward our learnings from the pandemic, or will we cling to our frail assumptions and seek to return to a previous paradigm.
New church starts and new mission ventures have given us a treasure trove of learnings about worship and engagement and reaching people. Traditional ways of being church and doing mission would be enriched by those learnings. In the post-Covid tempest of change, clinging to our frail assumptions and seeking to return to the way it was will make very poor rafts. We will be better served to harvest learnings from those engaged in new church starts and from those who have launched new missional ventures and now are serving more traditional churches.
Becoming more fully open to Jesus demands reframing our personal reality. The alternative is to cling to our rafts of frail assumption and to risk damaging ourselves by trying to contain the new within an inflexible vision, an “old wineskin” as it were. And, it is to risk watching the form of Jesus grow smaller and recede over the horizon as he sails on and we stand pat, clinging to our rafts of frail assumption.
* W. H. Auden, "The Quest," in W. H. Auden: Collected Poems, ed. Edward Mendelson (New York: Random House, 1976), p. 230.
Collect of the Day, The First Sunday in Lent
Almighty God, whose blessed Son was led by the Spirit to be tempted by Satan; Come quickly to help us who are assaulted by many temptations; and, as you know the weaknesses of each of us, let each one find you mighty to save; through Jesus Christ your Son our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen. (BCP, 218)
Collect for Friday in the first week of Lent
Lord Christ, our eternal Redeemer, grant us such fellowship in your sufferings, that, filled with your Holy Spirit, we may subdue the flesh to the spirit, and the spirit to you, and at the last attain to the glory of your resurrection; who live and reign with the Father and the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (Holy Women, Holy Men, p. 40)
Today we celebrate the Feast of Polycarp, bishop of Smyrna and martyr (died 155 cE).
Collect of the Feast of Polycarp
O God, the maker of heaven and earth, you gave your venerable servant, the holy and gentle Polycarp, boldness to confess Jesus Christ as King and Savior, and the steadfastness to die for his faith: Give us grace, following his example, to share the cup of Christ and rise to eternal life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who lives and reigns with you and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and for ever. Amen
A Collect for Fridays
Almighty God, whose most dear Son went not up to joy but first he suffered pain, and entered not into glory before he was crucified: Mercifully grant that we, walking in the way of the cross, may find it none other than the way of life and peace; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 97)
A Collect for Quiet Confidence
O God of peace, who has taught us that in returning and rest we shall be saved, in quietness and confidence shall be our strength: By the might of your Spirit lift us, we pray, to your presence, where we may be still and know that you are God; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen. (BCP, 832)
In the Order of Worship for Evening
Almighty, everlasting God, let our prayer in your sight be as incense, the lifting up of our hands as the evening sacrifice. Give us grace to behold you, present in your Word and Sacraments, and to recognize you in the lives of those around us. Stir up in us the flame of that love which burned in the heart of your Son as he bore his passion, and let it burn in us to eternal life and to the ages of ages. Amen. (BCP, 113)
A Collect for Mission
O God of unchangeable power and eternal light: Look favorably on your whole Church, that wonderful and sacred mystery; by the effectual working of your providence, carry out in tranquility the plan of salvation; let the whole world see and know that things which were cast down are being raised up, and things which had grown old are being made new, and that all things are being brought to their perfection by him through whom all things were made, your Son Jesus Christ our Lord; who lives and reigns with you, in the unity of the Holy Spirit, one God, for ever and ever. Amen. (BCP, 280)
Daily Office Gospel, Mark 2:13-22
13 Jesus went out again beside the sea; the whole crowd gathered around him, and he taught them. 14As he was walking along, he saw Levi son of Alphaeus sitting at the tax booth, and he said to him, ‘Follow me.’ And he got up and followed him. 15And as he sat at dinner in Levi’s house, many tax collectors and sinners were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples—for there were many who followed him. 16When the scribes of the Pharisees saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, they said to his disciples, ‘Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?’ 17When Jesus heard this, he said to them, ‘Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners.’
18 Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to him, ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ 19Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding guests cannot fast while the bridegroom is with them, can they? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they cannot fast. 20The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day.
21 ‘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. 22And 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.’
Daily Offices in The Book of Common Prayer
Morning Prayer, Rite 2, page 75, The Book of Common Prayer
Noonday Prayer, page 103, Book of Common Prayer
Order of Worship for Evening (Vespers), p 109, Book of Common Prayer
Evening Prayer, Rite 2, page 115, Book of Common Prayer
Compline (Night Prayer), page 127, Book of Common Prayer
Daily Devotionals, page 136, Book of Common Prayer
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