NOTES for Mar 2:13-28
In today's passage, three episodes can be distinguished: the calling of Levi son of Alphaeus, the conversation with the disciples of the Pharisees and of John the Baptist about fasting, and the conversation with the Pharisees about keeping the Sabbath. In all three episodes, the growing conflict between Jesus and the Pharisees is shown. The Pharisees cannot accept the newness in relations with God and with people that Christ offers them. In their view, the main thing is the letter of the law. They condemn Jesus because He associates with tax collectors, who collected taxes for Rome. Such people were considered traitors and great sinners. For a pious person, it was considered unacceptable to sit at the same table with them. But for Christ something else proves important: the thirst for salvation that makes many tax collectors and sinners follow Him. Levi leaves his profitable place and immediately follows Jesus.
Jesus' attitude toward fasting is also incomprehensible to the Pharisees. Fasting is an ascetic means to which ascetics have resorted since ancient times in the hope of drawing near to God. But Christ's disciples cannot fast, because the One toward whom they strive is already with them. The time for fasting will come when Christ is no longer nearby. Christ compares the Pharisees' lack of understanding to the way old cloth cannot be mended with a patch of new cloth, and old, fragile wineskins cannot hold new wine. In order to receive the new relationships that Jesus offers, people themselves must be renewed.
Thus Christ places the Old Testament law about the Sabbath not above the human being, but at the service of the human being. For God, the human being is more important. The Sabbath has no value in itself, but was established for the human being. Christ, God become man, the "Lord of the Sabbath," affirms the primacy of the human being over the letter of the law, replacing it with relationships of love and faith.