New Wine

The Passage

One day some people said to Jesus, “John the Baptist’s disciples fast and pray regularly, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees. Why are your disciples always eating and drinking?

Jesus responded, “Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Of course not. But someday the groom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast.”

Then Jesus gave them this illustration: “No one tears a piece of cloth from a new garment and uses it to patch an old garment. For then the new garment would be ruined, and the new patch wouldn’t even match the old garment. “And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. For the new wine would burst the wineskins, spilling the wine and ruining the skins. New wine must be stored in new wineskins. 39 But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.

~ Luke 5:33-38

Thoughts

I am been pondering this passage for quite a while. My overarching thought about it is that the way of Jesus is such a completely counter intuitive, scandalous, antithesis to religion, that the religious are threatened by him. One is a system full of expectations, the other a way of life full of grace. The guardians of the Jewish tradition lost the concept of mission and, instead got hung up on their privileged status. The guardians of the Christian tradition, likewise lost their sense of being a part of the kingdom and mission of God, making the church the end in itself.

I really liked the old wine. I was an addicted drunk! It has taken considerable time for me to detox from my addiction and I am just now beginning to see that this new wine goes very well with (real) life.

I started playing around with an old wine/new wine list. Admittedly, it is a little generalizing and simplistic, but you cannot deny that there is a contrast. Do you have anything to add?

Old Wine / New Wine

• Faithfulness to the church / Faithfulness to the way of Jesus
• Using personal gifts and abilities within the confines of the church / Using personal gifts and abilities within their community
• Giving of finances to keep the church running / Giving of finances to demonstrate the Gospel
• Emphasis on externals / Emphasis on the heart
• Emphasis on avoiding sin / Emphasis on representing Jesus to others
• Fitting into a system / Being who God made you to be
• Seeing people as saved and unsaved / Seeing people as individuals whom God loves
• Discipleship is about learning / Discipleship is about living
• Retreating into a subculture as a place of safety / Diving into culture as a place of mission
• Worrying about what people think / Just trying to follow Jesus
• Praying in public / Living life as a prayer
• Corporate, musical worship / Life as worship
• The Gospel is about believing facts and the hereafter / The Gospel is about belief and life, us and others, this life and the hereafter
• Faithfulness is rewarded by being a church leader / Faithfulness is rewarded by being a people server
• Easily offended / Understands people are just being normal
• Clergy/laity division / Everyone trying to live life in the way of Jesus
• More… Bible reading, prayer, etc. / Fewer meaningless exercises, more heart for God
• Majoring on guilt / Majoring on grace
• Faithful attendance in church meetings / Involvement in the community and in peoples’ lives
• Support the pastor / Support one another
• Criticize the pastor/ Cut each other some slack
• Get involved in a church ministry / Get involved with people
• Dependence upon the pastor’s teaching / Learning from personal study, asking questions and discussion
• Emphasis on a weekly service / Emphasis on daily service
• Expectations of God because of faithful service / Acceptance of the mystery of God
• Tenaciously holding on to our doctrinal beliefs as non negotiable / Realizing that if something is true it can withstand questioning
• A place to gather with friends / Making friends in the natural course of life
• Needing a building / Gathering anywhere
• Professional staff / Anyone can convene and facilitate the group
• Fellowship / Parties

Fish Story

I’ve got a fish story for you. I found it meandering my way through Luke’s story of Jesus’ life. In Luke 5: 1-11, after borrowing a one of the company fishing boats and using it for a floating stage, Jesus tells Simon to go back out into the deep part of the lake and throw out the nets again. This was a very daring thing to say to a commercial fisherman who had just come in from fishing though the night. I think Simon was complaining to his fellow fishermen all the way back out to the deep part of the lake. As the story goes, he found the fish, a whole lot of them. The nets almost broke. The boat almost sank. It was a fisherman’s dream and the catch would net a sizable piece of their monthly income.

Why might Jesus do such a thing?
A) He wanted to give the family fishing business a good week.
B) He was planning a really big fish fry,
C) He wanted these guys, especially, Simon, to know that they could trust him.

I wonder what we would do if we really trusted Christ? Rather than do something crazy, I think we would do what he tells us. What is he telling you? What is in your heart?

Then Simon gets all religious, convicted, and repentant. His excursion back out into the deep where he didn’t want to go and catching the mother lode of fish, had a big impact on him. He knew there was something divine about Jesus and something very un-divine about himself. The weight of his sin came crashing in on him. Jesus says, Don’t be afraid. That was new. People then were afraid of God.

I wonder what would happen if we were not afraid of God. What if we were free of the whole sin, guilt, shame, past thing? What if we were a hundred percent forgiven, redeemed, accepted, and restored to a favored position with God? What would change?

Then Jesus says something very odd. He said, From now on you’ll be fishing for people. Huh? Is this the soul winner’s charge? Is it an injunction to proselytize? Or does it mean that Jesus wants people to become the most important thing in our lives… even more important than fishing or our job, or our self consumed concern about not being good enough? So, if life really is about Jesus and relationships, what would change? What if we really did love people the same way Jesus did?

Will we…
Really trust Jesus?
Really live in his forgiveness and grace?
Really accept this mission of loving people that he has given us?

You’ve Got The Power

I have been amazed as I have started reading the Bible again. Instead of coming up with sermons, I am coming up with a lot of questions. Like this week, in my slow meandering through Luke, I have come upon Luke 4:31-44. In those few sentences, we find Jesus amazing people by the things he said because he spoke with authority. Then he amazed people when he cast evil spirits out of a man. They said, “What authority and power this man’s words possess.” The he healed Simon’s mother-in-law of a debilitating fever, resulting in people throughout the village bringing sick family members to Jesus for healing. He had the authority to speak as though he were God (of course he was), heal all manner of diseases and cast out evil spirits.

What set Jesus apart from other Rabbis was his authority. His authority got me to wondering about my authority, yours too. What authority do we have? While I am steering clear of the wackiness of the hyper faith, name-it-and-claim-it crowd, I wonder if we have under-rated the authority that Jesus has given us. Then when you through in John 14:12-14, it gets really confusing.

I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father. You can ask for anything in my name, and I will do it, so that the Son can bring glory to the Father. Yes, ask me for anything in my name, and I will do it! I tell you the truth, anyone who believes in me will do the same works I have done, and even greater works, because I am going to be with the Father.

It seems like we Christians are anemic. We whine and cry a lot, have as much trouble maintaining our marriage, managing our finances, and avoiding addiction as anyone else. We are not exactly world changers because we are usually wrapped up with our own issues. Yet, Jesus said, we will do the same works and even greater works than did he.

• Is that the same kind or works, but greater in scope?

• Do you think the problem is that we usually don’t want to do the same kind of works as he did?

• What if his authority resided in our words, our healing manner, and our battles with evil? Why isn’t it?

How Good Is The Good News?

I looked forward to reaching this passage in Luke 4, as I wander through Book of Luke. I mean, it’s exciting stuff! Jesus is making his great announcement that he is the Messiah and prophecy is being fulfilled in real time. To mark the beginning of his ministry, he reaches back to Isaiah 61, a passage of hope to the Jews in captivity that is reminiscent of the year of Jubilee.

When he came to the village of Nazareth, his boyhood home, he went as usual to the synagogue on the Sabbath and stood up to read the Scriptures. The scroll of Isaiah the prophet was handed to him. He unrolled the scroll and found the place where this was written:

“The Spirit of the Lord is upon me,
for he has anointed me to bring Good News to the poor.
He has sent me to proclaim that captives will be released,
that the blind will see,
that the oppressed will be set free,
and that the time of the Lord’s favor has come.”

Luke 4: 16-19 (NLT)

As I read it, I wondered about the poor, the captives, the blind, and the downtrodden. Is this to be taken as their spiritual or physical description? I couldn’t recall anything Jesus did that reversed the financial plight of the poor, nor could I think of a time that he initiated a prisoner release, nor could I think of a time that he freed those who were subservient to others. Of course, he did restore sight to some who were blind.

Is this passage a declaration of a social agenda or a manifesto of spiritual freedom from a tyrannical religious system? The Gospel is Good News to those who recognize they are personally, spiritually destitute. It is good news to those who have become captives to an impossible list of rules. It is good news for those who have been blinded by a system of pseudo righteousness. It is good news to who felt they had no choice but to serve those impossible demands.

It was revolutionary to be released from all of that! Jesus was setting people free from an oppressive religious system, but what about those who really are poor, really are captives, really are blind, and really are oppressed in the physical sense? Jesus addresses these issues and the imperative nature of a practical response elsewhere, like in Matthew 25: 31-46.

So, now I am wondering about the Gospel. How good is the good news? How many different kinds of good news does the Bible reference?

There is…

• save your soul from Hell good news.
• find meaningful life good news.
• rescue people form oppressive religious demands good news.
• alleviate suffering by helping the poor, the incarcerated, the oppressed, and the disenfranchised good news

Perhaps, the questions are:

• How many facets are there to the good news?
• What types of avenues are there for sharing the good news?

That’s Tempting

These are old questions… and my answers are old too. Maybe they are the best answers we have, maybe not. Let’s see what you think.

The most curious thing to me in the temptation account of Jesus (Luke 4: 1-13) is that the Spirit led him out into the wilderness, the place of his very intense temptation. Why would the Spirit do that?

• To prove that he was indeed Jesus?
• As sort of an initiation rite, after which Jesus could begin his ministry?
• So he could be tempted in the major “categories” so he could identify with us?

Satan is directly involved in tempting Jesus. What are his powers, limitations, and how does he factor in concerning temptation?

• Do you believe that he is a real person, fallen angel and all?
• How much access does have to people? Does it vary between believers and unbelievers?
• What is his role in temptation? What is ours?

Get practical about what helps you to stare down temptation.

• What helps you from repeatedly falling into the same hole?
• How do you beat the sin that so easily besets you?

O.K., that’s a lot of questions and you don’t need to answer them all, but I am interested in what you think.

Outsiders

In these days of presidential campaign politics, it is popular for a candidate to position himself as a Washington outsider. In reality, probably not one of them is an outsider and being an outsider may not be an advantage.

In the church world, a system has evolved through the centuries. It has a lot of branches and off shoots, each of which became a culture unto itself, complete with its own folkways, language, heroes, and expectations. Perhaps there have always been battles over the system… battles for control and battles for influence in the broader culture, including government. Some of the battles have called for an examination of the system. Many people eventually turned away from this system that they understood to be somewhat askew of its original intention, as well as, too closed and too separate from the rest of culture.

About twenty years ago, I started squinting at the church system from the perspective of an outsider, even though I was very much caught up in it. That took me on a journey that has had a lot of interesting and unexpected stops along the way. Much to my surprise; I wound up being an outsider myself.

Believe it or not, these thoughts bring to John, the baptizer, because he was he ultimate outsider. Yet found a way to be at the heart of kingdom activity and was referred to by Jesus as the greatest of all naturally born individuals. John’s way of doing things is very instructive for us today when so many people are opting out of the system. I think of him as a cross between Jeremiah Johnson, Keith Green, and Mark Driscol. That makes for one very gifted, tough, straight shooting, in-your-face dude!

John positioned himself outside of the power structure. His ministry base was mobile and in the countryside away from the influence of the city and the halls of political and religious power. He had no allegiances, so he could say what needed to be said… and he let it rip with pointed words for the sons of Abraham and the regional puppet governor!

He made Jesus and his kingdom the issue, instead of getting lost in the minutiae that the religious hot shots argued about, as he ever pointed the way to the Messiah.

He focused on behavior as the evidence of repentance and faith rather than holding to a belief system.

He pointed to wealth as the test of one’s heart as he addressed sharing with the poor and being honest in a corrupt world.

He was green and seemed to live off the land. (Curious!)

He stayed humble and never had any official status, saying he was not even worthy to be Christ’s slave.

Reading Luke 3 came alive this week as though it were written for us today. What implications do you see for us today?

Speculation

This week, I have been thinking about Jesus’ younger days (Luke 2:21-52). My thoughts have led to speculation because we really don’t know anything about Jesus until he was about 30.

Here is what we do know. He grew up healthy and strong, was filled with wisdom beyond his years, and God placed his special favor on him. (Luke 2:40) He was obedient to his parents and was loved God and all who knew him. (Luke 2:52) the other information we have is about the time he was twelve and got separated from his parents at the Passover festival in Jerusalem and was found having deep discussions with the religious teachers. Pretty interesting, but very sketchy.

We could speculate what a about what a great boy Jesus must have been while still being a boy. I wonder if he… was mischievous, teased girls, was attracted to girls, was good at whatever games they had then, was a good student, how he got along with his siblings, what it was like to have Jesus as a brother, and what kind of carpenter he was.

I also wonder, why we don’t have any more info on Jesus, the early years. Was it because he never did anything important in those years, or was it because it wasn’t customary to move into your own vocation until he had first apprenticed with his father, or was it because everything we need to know about Jesus we have recorded in scripture and that is mostly the last three years of his life?

When I used to preach regularly, I would probably have preached something about being obedient to parents and growing up like Jesus, peppered with a little well-worn humor about what it must have been like to have a perfect brother. Yet, now for me this mystery is more about what it is at face value, a mystery.

When did we first start thinking that we had to figure everything out and what has that done to us? I guess we would dial back a few centuries to birth of the Enlightenment and introduction to the modern educational model. What has it done? This pursuit of knowledge has fueled exploration, experimentation, and study. But hasn’t it also caused us to rush to conclusions and try to come up with an answer for everything, even if it is inadequate? Has it caused us to be arrogant? Has it caused us to be frustrated? Has it caused us to be exclusive and shut others out?

I’m just speculating.

Nobodies

A cursory reading of Luke 1:1- 2:10 is a little hard for me to get into because it contains the most popular version of the Christmas story. Yet, here in this much read section, I found something very interesting.

Here I found an old, childless couple, Elizabeth and Zechariah, the parents-to-be of John, the baptizer. Though very godly people, Zechariah doubted the angel’s message about them becoming parents at their advanced age and was stricken with nine months of deafness.

Here I found a peasant girl and a carpenter who were on the receiving end of an even more fantastic divine message. They would be parents of the Messiah, no less, without going through “the usual process.”

Shepherds are my kind of people. They were ceremonially unclean because of their job and they were considered an underclass, blue collar, untrustworthy lot. Mike Rowe of Dirty Jobs would have liked these guys. Yet, they were the first to get the news of Christ’s birth. Odd choice.

When you throw in the rest of the props of this eventful story… a foreign military occupation, a crazy governmental census, an overcrowded hometown, and a barnyard birth… everything about it seems counter intuitive.

God did it all in a really weird way. I know that it all fulfilled prophecy, but it is still very weird, under the radar of the important people, surprising everyone, and using a bunch of nobodies. It seems to be his M.O. for his way of interacting with us right up to today. This all sounds very Jim Palmer-esque.

I wonder what would change in my life if I really believed that God used nobodies, like me.

Here I am, wanting you to do your thing through me, God. I feel like I have been put on hold, but maybe I was too preoccupied with thoughts of past hurts and failures to look forward. Help me to get over that! Help me to be in hot pursuit of what your purposes are for me, but help to realize that today is as much a part of the adventure as tomorrow.