The last word on the factions. Paul has said the teachers are nothing, then that they belong to the church; now he says what they actually are, and who gets to grade them.
What happens
"Thus should one regard us: as servants of Messiah and stewards of the mysteries of Theos. Now it is of course required of stewards that they be found trustworthy. It does not concern me in the least that I be judged by you or by any human tribunal; I do not even pass judgment on myself. I am not conscious of anything against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted; the one who judges me is the master. Therefore do not make any judgment before the appointed time, until the master comes, for he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness and will manifest the motives of hearts, and then everyone will receivepraise from Theos."
What to notice
Two job titles, both subordinate. Hypēretas — under-officers; the word's oldest sense is the rower on the lower bench of a warship, who pulls where he is told and cannot see where the ship is going. Oikonomous — household managers, the slaves or freedmen who ran an estate and handed out the stores. Both are people who distribute what is not theirs. Then the courtroom. Anakrinō appears three more times here — Paul's word from Tuesday, the verb for a preliminary hearing — and he applies it in every direction: not by you, not by any human tribunal, not even by me. His phrase for the tribunal is a coinage: hypo anthrōpinēs hēmeras, "by a human day." Everyone in his audience knew the day of Yahweh; Paul sets against it the little day human beings hold, with its own docket and verdicts, and refuses its jurisdiction. And then the sentence worth carrying around: ouden gar emautō synoida, all' ouk en toutō dedikaiōmai — a clear conscience is evidence, not a verdict. Note where it lands: the thing the master brings is epainos, praise. Not sentence. Praise.
An acrostic wisdom poem, and one of the calmest things in the Psalter: a long argument, letter by letter, that the apparent success of the wicked is temporary and not worth the heat. Its recurring instruction is a verb of waiting.
The selected verses
Psalm 37:3–4."Trust in Yahweh and do good, that you may dwell in the land and enjoy security. Take delight in Yahweh, and he will grant you your heart's requests." Psalm 37:5–6."Commit your way to Yahweh; trust in him, and he will act. He will make your right relationship shine like the dawn, and the justice of your cause like the noonday." Psalm 37:27–28."Turn from evil and do good, that you may dwell forever. For Yahweh loveswhat is right and does not forsake his faithful ones." Psalm 37:39–40."The rescue of the righteous is from Yahweh; he is their refuge in time of distress. Yahweh helps them and delivers them because they take refuge in him."
What to notice
Psalm 37:5 is gol al Yahweh darkekha — literally "roll your way onto Yahweh." Galal is the verb for rolling a stone; it appears when the stone is rolled from the mouth of the well in Genesis 29:3. The instruction is not a mental attitude. It is the image of pushing a weight off yourself and onto someone standing next to you. And Psalm 37:6 gives the day its exact rhyme with the first reading: ve-hotzi ka-or tzidqekha, "he will bring out your right relationship like the light." Paul: "he will bring to light what is hidden in darkness." The same claim — that vindication is a disclosure, and somebody else's to make.
The last of a run of controversies in Luke 5 — a leper touched, a paralytic forgiven, a tax collector called to a banquet. The complaint has been building, and now it arrives as a question about religious practice.
What happens
"The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same; but yours eat and drink." Jesus answers, "Can you make the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them, then they will fast in those days." Then two images. "No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak." And: "No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise the new wine will burst the skins, it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined." Then a line only Luke has: "And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"
What to notice
Luke has adjusted the cloak parable from Mark's version, and the adjustment is characteristic. In Mark 2:21 the trouble is that an unshrunk patch pulls away and makes the tear worse — a story about ruining the old garment. In Luke, you have to cut up the new one first. The new cloak is destroyed to make the patch, and the patch does not match anyway: Luke's version costs more and gains nothing. But the sentence to sit with is his closing addition, because it is not a rebuke. "No one drinking old wine wants new; he says the old is chrēstos" — good, mellow, easy on the palate. It is simply true, and any winemaker would agree. Luke lets the objection stand at the end of a passage about newness, in the mouth of nobody in particular. He does not say the man is wrong; he says this is what happens to a palate. It is the most sympathetic thing in the paragraph and the most inconvenient.
The fasting, which is coming, and the taste for new wine, which takes time
Today's readings all decline to settle something now. Paul refuses three tribunals in a row and tells the Corinthians to stop grading each other pro kairou, before the time. The psalm's instruction is a verb of transfer followed by a verb of waiting: roll it onto him, and he will act. And the Gospel's answer to a question about fasting is essentially a question about the calendar — not while the bridegroom is here; the days will come.
Which makes the pairing between the first reading and the Gospel sharper than a shared theme of patience. Both are about the danger of the correct practice performed at the wrong moment. The disciples of John are fasting, which is a good thing, and Jesus does not say otherwise — he says there is a wedding on. The Corinthians are assessing their teachers, which is not in itself illegitimate — "it is required of stewards that they be found trustworthy," so an audit is coming — but they are holding it in a human day, on their own authority, years early.
Then the wineskins, usually read as a straightforward case for the new against the old, and Luke will not let them be. He makes the patch cost you the new cloak. He has the burst skins ruin the wine and the skins — two losses, not one. And he ends with a man who prefers the old and is not corrected. Luke's point is not that newness wins. It is that new and old cannot be made to share a container, and that the preference for the old is a real fact about real people rather than a moral failing. Whoever is doing the pouring has to reckon with a palate trained by everything it drank before.
Set that against Paul's "I am aware of nothing against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted" and the day acquires a spine. The confidentconscience and the trained palate are the same organ: both reliable, both formed by experience, and neither the final word. What they produce is testimony. The verdict is scheduled for a different day.
A Question to Sit With
"I am aware of nothing against myself, but I am not thereby acquitted." I run that first audit constantly and always return the same finding: as far as I can see, I am fine. Paul had the same result and refused to treat it as a verdict — not out of scrupulosity, but because he thought the instrument was the wrong one for the question. What would change today if I held my own good opinion of myself the way I hold a preliminary report: real evidence, honestly gathered, and not the finding?