When you hear a parable on the lips of the Master, the worst thing you can possibly do is try to figure out what the parable means based on your understanding of the biblical narrative or narrative context.

But people do this all the time. It’s been done on this podcast—and it’s wrong.

The last thing any Bible student should do is try to figure out what the text is saying based on their knowledge.

Take, for example, the parable of the wineskins in Luke. Typical explanations compare old and new covenants, which leads less discriminating disciples to compare old and new communities.

Uhuh.

You sound like teenagers evaluating their parents—because your premise is that you are new and improved, better than what came before you.

Disgusting.

Like those who bravely protested the Vietnam War in the sixties before growing up to become the apologists and suppliers for the Gaza Genocide.

Western Values, habibi.

Like I said, disgusting.

Nothing new here—or anywhere else under the sun.

You believe in this nonsense because you approach the biblical text in terms of your understanding of a narrative, which is no different than your theology. It’s the same thing—a god in your head—a statue you construct to elevate yourself above others as a reference.

You and your “personal relationship” with a king you can manipulate control.

You know, the Jesus that wants you to kill Palestinians. That one. The one you constructed in nineteenth-century Europe. Or was it much earlier?

Why?

Because you are like Hymenaeus and Philetus—you need to be loved.

So, you refuse to submit as a hearer of the Bible. Instead, you insist on reading it because when you read the Bible, you control what you process and make what you control the reference.

According to Luke, when you do this, you become the old wineskin. You become the thing to be disregarded because you become the needy teacher.

If you want to hear the riddle—the dark saying—and submit to the mashal of the old wineskin, you must first stop vying to be the teacher who needs to be loved. The key to the wineskin’s riddle is not your narrative; it’s the Bible’s terminology.

This week, I discuss Luke 5:36–39.

(Episode 525)

Institution and family (or tribe, or community, or friends, take your pick) are two sides of the same coin. Both mechanisms rely on ancient forms of currency to maintain control.

The most obvious form of human currency is currency itself, money. But friends and family, just like big institutions and powerful kings, use other mechanisms of control to maintain what they perceive as wellbeing, safety, and security.

The worst of these is violence—but the most insidious is the infamous “personal relationship.” The merchant class calls it “networking.” Sociologists refer to it as “reciprocity.”

That’s why Christians love to boast about their “personal relationship” with Jesus Christ. What their theology proclaims is a less than mystical obsession, not with love, but their own self-importance They want to be insiders. They want influence over the crown.

Lonely Americans want to be the mother, brother, or sister that Jesus turns away in Luke 8. (Luke 8:21) They want to be his insider. His Peter. They want to be the guarantors of security.

But security for whom?

Much later, in John (21:17), Jesus warns his betrayer, “I’m not interested in your love. I'm interested in the work.”

The educated class in the United States is easily fooled by Western imperialism, because they have been groomed from a young age to believe in themselves, their lives, their feelings, and the centrality of their relationships.

They are incapable of hearing Scripture, which is not about their feelings and has no interest in their personal lives.

The God of Scripture is neither relatable nor relational. He is instructional.

“Do this and you shall live.” (Luke 10:28)

That’s good news for the poor. However, for the well meaning colonial, it is confusing. They need their tyrant to be a “decent man who cares deeply” about the people of Gaza, while funding and supplying Gaza’s extermination. How else could they feel good about living out their lies?

It is not complex. You are self-righteous.

Shall I pause, now, for you to extrospect?

You sound like Tobit, habibi. A well-meaning, upstanding, almsgiving do-gooder who complains to God, “I have had to listen to undeserved insults.”

Yes, Tobit. Yes. You blind fool! God is insulting you: because the Bridegroom did not come to call “Tobit the Righteous” to repentance.

Father Marc discusses Luke 5:34-35 (Episode 524)

What is self-righteousness?

You hear the command of God, and refuse to introspect. You do not, as Paul teaches, “look to yourself.”

You look to others.

You gossip. You nitpick. You complain. You find fault. You do everything under the sun but consider the one thing that is needful in God’s eyes:

The most likely possibility.

That you, oh man (or woman)—I mean, let’s be generous—oh bipedal humanoid earth mammal—you, and nobody else but you, are the problem.

But you do not consider this. You do not introspect. So when the voice of the Lord touches your heart, you “extrospect.”

You observe and consider the external world and external things.

What a lovely capitalist you make.

You are the perfect fit for judging others, for giving your opinion: for shopping, and critiquing what people do, how they talk, how they conduct their affairs, even how they look.

Extrospection is just another word for playing God—playing Judge.

To borrow and bend a line from Captain America:
“There’s only one God, ma’am, and I’m pretty sure he is not you.”

Introspection, the extrospective theologian boasts, leads to prayer and fasting. Why? Because the extrospect worships the very control they seek through extrospection.

So prayer, for the extrospect, is not submission. It’s AIPAC money.
Fasting, for the extrospect, is not weakness. It’s a corporate PAC.

I have bad news kids. God the Father is not for sale. Jesus is not Bernie Sanders.

You’re not trying to fit into the system. And make things work.

The good news is, he will not sell you out. The bad news is, he cannot be bought.

This week, I’ll explore the Hebrew and Arabic functions that ground Luke’s use of the term deēseis in Luke 5:33.

Passage:

Οἱ δὲ εἶπαν πρὸς αὐτόν· Οἱ μαθηταὶ Ἰωάννου νηστεύουσιν πυκνὰ καὶ δεήσεις ποιοῦνται, ὁμοίως καὶ οἱ τῶν Φαρισαίων, οἱ δὲ σοὶ ἐσθίουσιν καὶ πίνουσιν. (Luke 5:33)

And they said to him, “The disciples of John often fast and offer prayers, the disciples of the Pharisees also do the same, but yours eat and drink.” (Luke 5:33)

Father Marc discusses Luke 5:33 (Episode 523)