Sunday, February 7, 2010

New Wineskins - Part 1

So if you have read many of the other posts on this blog you’ve probably developed a sense of my style.  I start with a story, it leads to a passage of scripture, and I then try to faithfully exposit that scripture. 
This week is going to be a little bit different.  In my reading this week I came across Luke 5:33-39.
And they said to him, "The disciples of John fast often and offer prayers, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours eat and drink." And Jesus said to them,  "Can you make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them?  The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days." He also told them a parable: "No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"
I have been wrestling with this passage a bit this week.  In a number of settings I have heard this passage used to justify any change that a leader may want to bring to the Church.  The procession would usually go something like this:
1.      Leader gets a new idea.
2.      Leader decides this idea is a “move of the spirit” based on some sort of subjective confirmation like a warm fuzzy feeling during prayer.
3.      Leader presents this change as a “new wineskin” to hold the “move of the spirit” that has been delivered to him.
For someone my age watching this progression is honestly getting a little amusing.  I grew up in a traditional congregation, and was first introduced to contemporary worship when I was eighteen.  I encountered a new level of excitement and emotion that I had never before experienced.  As far as I was concerned this was the new wineskin for the new wine of God’s spirit, and the old skins of hymns, liturgy, and men in robes needed to be trashed like an old garment.
Flash forward a few years and I re-discovered traditional Christian worship.   I found a depth and richness that seven line choruses simply couldn’t match.  I saw the contemporary songs that I sang in college quickly fall out of style and become “so three years ago.”  I realized that I will have about as much interest in passing these along to my children as I do the M.C. Hammer album I listened to as a kid (yes, I admit it!).  As far as I was concerned this re-discovery was a new move of the spirit, so the new skins of old traditions must be used to hold this move while the old skins of new music were trashed like an old garment.
Are you starting to see why I find this amusing?
The question I have to ask is, if we make this passage about comparing new and old practices in the church, are we in fact missing the point completely?
I’m going to stop with that question.  My next post will give my explanation of what I think this passage is actually getting at, but before you read it, take some time to consider how you have read this passage in the past, and what you have heard others take away from it.  If you have any thoughts to share I am happy to hear them!

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