1st book of Samuel 15,16-23.
Samuel said to Saul: "Stop! Let me tell you what the LORD said to me last night." "Speak!" he replied. Samuel then said: "Though little in your own esteem, are you not leader of the tribes of Israel? The LORD anointed you king of Israel and sent you on a mission, saying, 'Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction. Fight against them until you have exterminated them.' Why then have you disobeyed the LORD? You have pounced on the spoil, thus displeasing the LORD." Saul answered Samuel: "I did indeed obey the LORD and fulfill the mission on which the LORD sent me. I have brought back Agag, and I have destroyed Amalek under the ban. But from the spoil the men took sheep and oxen, the best of what had been banned, to sacrifice to the LORD their God in Gilgal." But Samuel said: "Does the LORD so delight in holocausts and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the LORD? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams. For a sin like divination is rebellion, and presumption is the crime of idolatry. Because you have rejected the command of the LORD, he, too, has rejected you as ruler."
Psalms 50(49),8-9.16-17.21.23.
Not for your sacrifices do I rebuke you, nor for your holocausts, set before me daily.
I need no bullock from your house, no goats from your fold.
But to the wicked God says: "Why do you recite my commandments and profess my covenant with your lips?
You hate discipline; you cast my words behind you!
When you do these things should I be silent? Or do you think that I am like you? I accuse you, I lay the charge before you.
Those who offer praise as a sacrifice honor me; to the obedient I will show the salvation of God."
Holy Gospel of Jesus Christ according to Saint Mark 2,18-22.
The disciples of John and of the Pharisees were accustomed to fast. People came to him and objected, "Why do the disciples of John and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, but your disciples do not fast?" Jesus answered them, "Can the wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them? As long as they have the bridegroom with them they cannot fast. But the days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast on that day. No one sews a piece of unshrunken cloth on an old cloak. If he does, its fullness pulls away, the new from the old, and the tear gets worse. Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins."
BANNED
"Go and put the sinful Amalekites under a ban of destruction." –1 Samuel 15:18
In the Old Testament, the Lord often told the Israelites to put their enemies "under the ban," that is, to completely destroy all the people and livestock of their enemies. This practice seems strange to us, but it is a profound revelation about the nature of sin. Sin is something like cancer. Unless we get all of it, it will spread and destroy us.
In the New Testament, we no longer fight against human beings but against demons (see Eph 6:12). Therefore, we don't put people "under the ban"; instead, we ban "Satan, all his works, and all his empty promises," as we promised at baptism. We "have no love for the world, nor the things that the world affords" (1 Jn 2:15). We save ourselves "from this generation which has gone astray" (Acts 2:40). We "make no provision for the desires of the flesh" (Rm 13:14). We crucify our "flesh with its passions and desires" (Gal 5:24). We exterminate from our lives anything not pleasing to the Lord. We "bring every thought into captivity to make it obedient to Christ" (2 Cor 10:5).
We can "purify ourselves from every defilement of flesh and spirit" (2 Cor 7:1) because Jesus put every sin which has ever or will ever be committed "under the ban." Jesus took all our sins to Calvary. He became sin (see 2 Cor 5:21) and in His death all sin died. Put sin under the ban, and walk under the banner of God's love (Sg 2:4, JB).
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