Monday of the 2nd week of Ordinary Time
Then Samuel said to Saul, "Stay, and I will tell you what the Lord said to me last night."
He said to him, "Say on."
Samuel said, "Though you were little in your own sight, weren't you made the head of the tribes of Israel? The Lord anointed you king over Israel; and the Lord sent you on a journey, and said, 'Go, and utterly destroy the sinners the Amalekites, and fight against them until they are consumed.' Why then didn't you obey the Lord's voice, but took the plunder, and did that which was evil in the Lord's sight?"
Saul said to Samuel, "But I have obeyed the Lord's voice, and have gone the way which the Lord sent me, and have brought Agag the king of Amalek, and have utterly destroyed the Amalekites. But the people took of the plunder, sheep and cattle, the best of the devoted things, to sacrifice to the Lord your God in Gilgal."
Samuel said, "Has the Lord as great delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices, as in obeying the Lord's voice? Behold, to obey is better than sacrifice, and to listen than the fat of rams. For rebellion is as the sin of witchcraft, and stubbornness is as idolatry and teraphim. Because you have rejected the Lord's word, he has also rejected you from being king."
I don't rebuke you for your sacrifices. Your burnt offerings are continually before me. I have no need for a bull from your stall, nor male goats from your pens.
But to the wicked God says, "What right do you have to declare my statutes, that you have taken my covenant on your lips, since you hate instruction, and throw my words behind you?
John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting, and they came and asked him, "Why do John's disciples and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples don't fast?"
Jesus said to them, "Can the groomsmen fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them, they can't fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, or else the patch shrinks and the new tears away from the old, and a worse hole is made. No one puts new wine into old wineskins; or else the new wine will burst the skins, and the wine pours out, and the skins will be destroyed; but they put new wine into fresh wineskins."
What strikes me most about these readings is how they challenge us to examine the difference between going through the motions and genuine surrender to God's will.
King Saul thought he was being faithful. He completed the mission—mostly. He defeated the Amalekites and brought back their king as proof. When confronted, he even claims the leftover plunder was meant for sacrifice to God. How noble that sounds! But Samuel cuts through the religious veneer: "To obey is better than sacrifice." Saul's partial obedience masked his desire to stay in control, to improve on God's instructions.
We do this too, don't we? We attend Mass, say our prayers, maybe even do charitable work, but hold back in areas where God's call feels inconvenient or costly. We negotiate with grace, offering God our religious activities while keeping our deeper surrender just out of reach.
Jesus addresses this same tendency when questioned about fasting. The Pharisees and John's disciples had their religious routines down to a science. But Jesus reveals something beautiful: when the bridegroom is present, celebration is the appropriate response, not obligation. His followers aren't skipping spiritual disciplines out of laziness—they're responding authentically to the moment of grace before them.
The image of new wine in old wineskins speaks to this beautifully. In Jesus' time, wine was stored in animal skins that would stretch as the wine fermented. Old skins, already stretched to capacity, couldn't accommodate new wine without bursting. Sometimes our spiritual lives need fresh containers—new ways of responding to God that match the grace he's offering us right now.
What areas of your life might need "new wineskins" to hold what God wants to give you? Where might you be offering sacrifice when what's really needed is deeper obedience?