And he spoke a parable also to them, "No one puts a patch from a new garment on an old garment; else not only does he tear the new one, but the patch from the new garment does not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wine-skins; else the new wine will burst the skins, and will be spilled, and the skins ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh skins, and both are saved. And no man after drinking old wine immediately desires new; for he says, 'The old is better.'" Luke 5:36-39
Here's a photograph of a garden jacket I bought back in 1979, when I was a brand new deacon and assigned to a parish where I had a garden behind the convent. The jacket was also new then. Over the four decades it's been washed, stitched and patched endlessly.
We might recall these gospel verses about old and new follow the debate the religious leaders were having with Jesus about who he should and shouldn't be eating with, and why Jesus' disciples weren't fasting. Jesus responded with these two images: new garment/old garment, new wine/old wine skins. He's talking about his new teaching—that God's new rule is here, requiring new thinking and a new heart-response.
The old religious ways of staying ritually pure, eating with the right people, fasting to stay in shape spiritually - they're like an old coat. And the new teaching of Jesus can't simply be stitched up or patched on. All these old ways of religious living are like dried out wine skins. And expecting that the new wine of Jesus' teaching can be successfully held in those old prescriptions, just won't do. Something has to give: the tear on the patched coat will only get worse; the old brittle skins will be lost, as will the new wine itself. These are images of a new kind of religious thinking and do-ing.
There are lots of people who want their religion to remain just like the old days. Listen to the blow back directed at the Pope leading up to and during the Amazon Synod. The idea of a new way to speak to new problems and concerns isn't acceptable to them. And according to the Gospel, Christ's new way is to stop obsessing about old observances (the fasting and the table company rules) and to accompany broken, needy, marginalized persons to the good news of God's unchanging and inclusive love.
The word inclusive scares some people. They can't even abide indigenous persons wearing bright feathers in St. Peter's Basilica, let alone imagining new ways for them to worship in their Amazon communities.
The word inclusive scares some people. They can't even abide indigenous persons wearing bright feathers in St. Peter's Basilica, let alone imagining new ways for them to worship in their Amazon communities.
Summed up: All this old thinking of religious clean and unclean - it has to go. Even this last gospel verse here that sounds so mysterious - "No man after drinking old wine immediately desires new; for he says the old is better." Well, old wine is expensive and only the rich can afford it. The new way of Jesus is a celebration of God's hospitable love for the poor and the outsider. Those with cultivated tastes would never want new wine, "the old is better." But Jesus has in mind his new teaching which can be likened to Beaujolais - new wine which is fresh and alive. There are people who wait eagerly for the new wine to go on sale each year, and there are Christians who aren't afraid of the new teaching of Jesus in all of its fresh aliveness. "New" doesn't terrify them.
How do I get Jesus' new wine? A lot of people simply don't think anymore, they just repeat or nod their heads even to what is completely unintelligible to them. They get their news from the six minute TV or radio snippet of their mind-alike news host. A lot of people live extroverted religious lives, but there is nothing going on inside - no connection to divine energies (call it grace if you care to) that evolve us and make us whole.
One sign of being made whole is to be in possession of a new empathy with people outside one's own immediate concerns—a new empathy with the planet in its suffering and pain. Empathy: en=in, pathos=feeling. Feeling with, fellow-feeling, inner feeling.
The heartbreaking cover of this month's National Geographic shows a gentle, young African boy crouching down to touch the enormous head of a dead rhinoceros—these great and ancient animals, which by human greed, are now seconds away from extinction.
How do I get Jesus' new wine? A lot of people simply don't think anymore, they just repeat or nod their heads even to what is completely unintelligible to them. They get their news from the six minute TV or radio snippet of their mind-alike news host. A lot of people live extroverted religious lives, but there is nothing going on inside - no connection to divine energies (call it grace if you care to) that evolve us and make us whole.
One sign of being made whole is to be in possession of a new empathy with people outside one's own immediate concerns—a new empathy with the planet in its suffering and pain. Empathy: en=in, pathos=feeling. Feeling with, fellow-feeling, inner feeling.
The heartbreaking cover of this month's National Geographic shows a gentle, young African boy crouching down to touch the enormous head of a dead rhinoceros—these great and ancient animals, which by human greed, are now seconds away from extinction.
