Jesus’ analogies of the patched
cloak and the wineskins always capture my imagination. I have had enough experience with
sewing and laundry to envision the patched cloak. I’ve never seen a wineskin in action, but I can just imagine
the bursting skin in my mind’s eye.
Great images! And so, what
is Jesus teaching us about navigating the juncture of old and new?
I honor the scriptures as I’m sure
all of you do. It’s just something
my parents and my community taught me to do. But there are times when my values are challenged by two
opposing (yet linked) ideologies.
At one end of the spectrum, the scriptures are reverenced to the point
of being frozen in time. You just
don’t tamper with them. At the
other end is the question, “Why do you listen to the same old stories week
after week, year after year, to the exclusion of everything else?” The old and the new.
When I imagine these ancient texts
as “reverenced to the point of being frozen,” then I can see them as an old
cloak or wineskin. Why are we
still using them? Why try to apply them to our new way of looking at the
world? They will just get ripped
apart! Maybe we should set them
aside and focus instead on something more modern and fitting with our culture.
But in this passage, Jesus was not
talking about the scriptures.
Instead, he was talking about our response to the scriptures. I believe he was telling his followers
that the Word of God is alive! We
can’t let it get trapped into our old traditions and frozen in time. It will be useless to us. Instead we need to let it move and grow
and draw us into new ways of responding to the world around us. Those of us who love the scriptures
feel the presence of the Holy Spirit in them making them alive, and because of
that, they are always being made new!
- Sue B.
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