The Life of the Party

The Life of the Party--February 13, 2018

“Now John’s disciples and the Pharisees were fasting; and people came and said to [Jesus], ‘Why do John’s disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?’ Jesus 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’.” [Mark 2:18-19]

Jesus was—and is—the life of the party.

It’s kind of funny, don’t you think, that that’s not one of the official titles we have for Jesus, despite all the other titles ascribed to him, and despite the fact that you can find all sorts of products, from neckties to coffee mugs to wall plaques to devotional booklets, all highlighting different titles or names for Jesus. They say things like, “Lord of Life,” “King of Kings,” “Bright and Morning Star,” “Great Physician,” “Ruler of Nations,” “Lamb and Lion,” and a whole lot of other favorites, but I have never seen “Life of the Party” on a single one of them.

It’s not because it isn’t true—although sometimes we Christians have done our darnedest to whitewash over this in the Gospels because it doesn’t seem very dignified for a messiah. Jesus says as much here in these verses—he himself is the reason his disciples don’t put on dour faces and jump through religious hoops or fast and abstain from food or drink (or even good wine!) as part of their spiritual discipline. They can’t, Jesus says, because he is with them, and as long as he’s with them, a party is going on. Jesus declares himself the permanent life of the party, and in fact, brings it with him wherever he goes. The way of Jesus is the way of joy. So of course, his followers and friends can’t hold back from celebrating, just because they are in his presence. You don’t have to like it. You can be scandalized by it. You can be a party-pooper yourself, I suppose, if you insist on it. But you can’t deny the fact that Jesus of Nazareth, the Son of God in the flesh, was nothing less than the everlasting Life of the Party.

Now there have always been people, from the first century to the twenty-first century, who didn’t think that this seemed very respectable for a rabbi. The Pharisees—the ones supposedly “serious” about their religion—made it a practice to fast for certain periods and times as a sign of their devotion to God. Even good old John the Baptizer taught his followers to do the same. And Jesus himself doesn’t seem to be opposed to the practice exactly, at least if you didn’t already happen to be at the greatest party of all time. But that’s just the thing: fasting, or any other kind of self-imposed limitations as part of a spiritual discipline, are not inherently good or bad, virtuous or sinful. But they just don’t make any sense when you are in the midst of a real party. The wedding reception for your best friend is not the time to decide you don’t want to raise a glass for the toast. And a really good party is not the time to decide you are too mature to have a piece of cake. There are times when, as Jesus would say in another parable of his, “we have to celebrate.” You just have to.

You can’t help but be joyful at some moments in life—and strangely enough, those moments often depend on being in the presence of the right people. The lyric of the old Dave Matthews song may be cliché, but it’s true: “Turns out not where but who you’re with that really matters… and hurt’s not much when you’re around.” Or to cite a more scholarly spiritual source on the subject, Rowan Williams (the former Archbishop of Canterbury) writes, “There are some people who so enjoy being who they are that they make everyone else in their vicinity enjoy being themselves.” And Williams says that’s at least a good part of what we mean by the word holiness. (And yet, plenty of us religious folks have taken that word and beaten all the sweetness out of it like a piñata, leaving nothing but a flimsy, starchy, empty husk to the word—shame on us!)

Well, in any case, being in the presence of Jesus is a contagiously joyful experience. Apparently, to hear Mark tell it, you couldn’t help but be joyful, you couldn’t help but celebrate, simply because you were in the presence of Jesus. Maybe not every moment was all giggles—but consistently, regularly, faithfully, there was an abiding joy that just resisted any attempt to squelch it or step on it with a solemn religious procession. That is simply amazing—I fear that sometimes we forget how joyous a thing it was, and is, to be in the presence of the living Jesus.

You know what else amazes me? That Jesus doesn’t use this joy as a “hook,” or as a sales-gimmick. You never find Jesus saying, “Do you want to be happy? Well, come follow me, and use me as a means to be happy.” You never find Jesus trying to get something out of us in exchange for the joy he is shilling—because he’s not shilling or selling anything: he’s giving it away for free simply as the result of being with him. If you have known what that is like in this life by having your spirits lifted just to be around one of those joyful people in your life, if you know what it is to have your ears perk up when they walk in the room or your spirit swell to have reconnected with a dear friend or loved one, you know that this kind of joy is not an illusion or wishful thinking. And you know it is not for sale. You know the way to get “more” of that joy (if you can think of joy in terms of quantities!) is to spend time in the presence of those joyful, holy (as Rowan Williams would call them) people.

On the days when we feel too busy to be renewed and recharged, perhaps the very thing we need is consciously set-apart time in the presence of Jesus, and we can leave it to him to let his joy be contagious. On this day, we can let Jesus be who he is: the everlasting Life of the Party. And we can let the way of Jesus be joyful as we follow.

Lord Jesus, be near us today, and let your joy infect us like laughter. And let that be our holiness today.