November 20, 2022
Gospel – 9/4/2 – Luke 5:33-39
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus,
“The disciples of John the Baptist fast often and offer prayers,
and the disciples of the Pharisees do the same;
but yours eat and drink.”
Jesus answered them, “Can you make the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?
But the days will come, and when the bridegroom is taken away from them,
then they will fast in those days.”
And he also told them a parable.
“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.
Otherwise, he will tear the new
and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins,
and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.
And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new,
for he says, ‘The old is good.’”
Doing something again and again just because it is the way we have always done it isn’t doing it right. It’s doing it the same.
Jesus tells us today, that the old ways don’t fit forever – a lesson all of us can learn.
The world changes, the people in it change but the message must remain the same.
Today, Jesus tries to explain, that in matters of Salvation, it isn’t a matter of fasting or whether you eat.
Fasting was for the Jewish people to become “Jewish” again during the Exodus. They had been Egyptian slaves for so long they forgot how to be a Jew.
At the time of Jesus, it wasn’t about being a Jew who followed all t he Laws from the times of Moses, life had changed. Jesus was telling them, and us, that we should now be more about the Kingdom of Heaven here on earth and that he wasn’t going to be with us long.
But, adhering to old laws because they were law didn’t help us to enjoy him while he was here and all things old would be new again. If all we do is follow what was given us long ago, then we will not be able to recognize the New Covenant that Jesus represents.
At least that’s what I heard Him say…
What I Heard Him Say 