John has a demon; Jesus is a winebibber

St. Luke 7:33-35 — For John the Baptist came neither eating bread nor drinking wine, and you say, “He has a demon.” The Son of Man has come eating and drinking, and you say, “Look, a glutton and a winebibber, a friend of tax collectors and sinners!” But wisdom is justified by all her children.

It is worth remembering that St. John the Forerunner and Our Lord Jesus Christ are cousins. It is worth remembering that they both spoke highly of each other. Sometimes we forget that and tend to split them apart from each other in our mind, and that would be most wrong.

St. John 1:29-30 — The next day John saw Jesus coming toward him, and said, “Behold! The Lamb of God who takes away the sin of the world! This is He of whom I said, ‘After me comes a Man who is preferred before me, for He was before me.'”

St. Matthew 17:10-13 — And His disciples asked Him, saying, “Why then do the scribes say that Elijah must come first?” Jesus answered and said to them, “Indeed, Elijah is coming first and will restore all things. But I say to you that Elijah has come already, and they did not know him but did to him whatever they wished. Likewise the Son of Man is also about to suffer at their hands.” Then the disciples understood that He spoke to them of John the Baptist.

From the beginning, St. John the Forerunner jumps with joy while still in the womb when his cousin shows up in the Blessed Virgin Mary’s womb. During their ministry, they were tied together as though with a real physical cord. St. John the Baptist started preaching in the area of Judea and Perea. Within a short time, Our Lord Jesus joined him there. You know that you are in the first year of Jesus’ ministry if you read about both of them being in that area. The second year of Jesus’ ministry begins with John being arrested. You know it is the second year of Jesus’ ministry if John is still alive, but in jail. During this time Jesus hurriedly leaves the southern area and makes Capernaum his base, ranging out to Tyre and Sydon and over to the Decapolis, as well as Galilee and Samaria. You know it is the third year of Jesus’ ministry if John is dead. And, finally, Our Lord Jesus Christ joins St. John the Forerunner in his death, though, of course He rose again in three days, unlike St. John. Their lives and their ministry are tied to each other.

Why is it so important to keep them both together? Because of that little phrase from St. Luke where Jesus is called a winebibber and of John it is said that he has a demon. You see, we still tend to do that among Christians, at times. Why do I say that? Because St. John the Forerunner is indeed a forerunner, not simply a forerunner of Our Lord Jesus Christ, but also the forerunner and the first among many who would follow his example by becoming monks and hermits. And, of course, Our Lord Jesus Christ is “the author and finisher of our faith.” But, in one way, His behavior is what gives us permission to, yes, drink wine and be able to go to dinner parties at our friends’ houses, to have wine at our weddings and to enjoy what the Lord has given us.

We constantly have movements or sometimes only tendencies in the Church to see either John-like people or Jesus-like people as being somehow a little deficient. And, so, we have the monks who look down upon those who are, uhm, winebibbers. They argue that the way of honey, locusts, and a hair-shirt, that is the way of asceticism, is that which produces the most spiritual of Christians, looking down on the rest of us as the “profane.” In the same way, there have been too many sermons preached against monastics claiming that their asceticism is nothing but works-righteousness falsely disguised as spirituality, and that their visions are caused simply by lack of food and sleep.

And, yet, neither St. John the Forerunner nor Our Lord Jesus Christ were ever recorded as criticizing the lifestyle of the other. Both lifestyles were acceptable ways to live out a life in service to Our God. One was called to leave the world, and only to come back in order to speak into it calling for repentance. The other was called to live in the world, bringing the power of God and His Word to bear to each and every situation that He encountered. In the same way whether we are called to be lifetime ascetics or we are called to be in the world, each lifestyle expresses something of God’s image and likeness, of vocation and of dedication. As the Church we need to accept and celebrate both lifestyles.

At the same time, it is healthy for those in the world to experience ASCETICISM by way of our Orthodox fasting disciplines lest they lose their balance. And, yes, despite the, uhm, tradition in Orthodoxy of ascetics who never celebrate, it is important to remind the lifelong ascetics that we CELEBRATE the Divine Liturgy not simply officiate it. We CELEBRATE the Easter Vigil. We CELEBRATE the Resurrection of Our Lord each and every Sunday.

And, so, though there are those of us called to be lifetime ascetics and those of us called to be, yes, winebibbers, each of us must choose to make both fasting and feasting part of our Christian life experience.