God is Doing a New Thing

“LETTING GO”
Text: Matthew 9:14-17
Faith United
June 29, 2008


People – good people—
who haven’t grown up reading the Bible
or learning the Biblical stories in Sunday School,
often tell me that they have a hard time starting it now
They get very confused very quickly
Especially when there’s so much talk going on
about this or that is wrong
because “the Bible says so”
Many people can quote chapter and verse
of something that condemns
what they happen to be condemning
But you have to be really careful with the Bible
it’s a very powerful thing
and is actually quite dangerous in the wrong hands
But I think that if we approve or disapprove of something
Just Because it says so in the Bible
then you have to take it all the way
The kings in the Old Testament
Good kings like David and Solomon
had hundreds of wives and concubines
HUNDREDS
so, then it must be ok? Right?
So why is polygamy outlawed?
It’s in the Bible!
Or throughout the Old Testament
people owned slaves
bought and sold them
In the New Testament,
St. Paul writes to churches
telling them how to treat their slaves
and telling slaves how to treat their masters
In the 1800s, the Methodist Episcopal Church split in half
North and South
because the Southern states found justification
even God’s blessing upon slavery in the Bible
The northern part of the church didn’t agree
So there was, for awhile, two different denominations
Methodist Episcopal South
and Methodist Episcopal
And really, the Southerners had a point
It’s right there in the Bible
so it must be okay
They pointed to the story of Noah and his cursing
of Ham and his son Canaan
to show that since the beginning,
what we now call African Americans
were cursed by God
to be servants of the whites
Right there in the Bible
The Early Mormon Church --
and of course some fundamentalist groups
of the Mormons, as we know --
used the Old Testament to justify
polygamy
And well, the majority of us don’t buy that argument
Although we can’t deny
that yes, our spiritual ancestors
David and Solomon and many others
had many, many wives
Right there in the Bible
When early scientists wanted to prove
that the earth was not in fact flat
but was round,
early peoples pointed again, to the Bible
to Genesis,
to say that it was indeed flat
and the skies were a dome over the flat land
because that’s how it’s described in the Bible
When I was in college
really good Christian people
pointed to the New Testament
to tell me that God does not call women
into the ministry
because “it says so in the Bible”
And so, no, I don’t blame people
who just sit down and open the Bible
and close it in frustration and confusion
if they try to just read it start to finish
It IS confusing
But it’s nothing new
Jesus got into a lot of trouble
for messing with Scripture
as others saw it
The Pharisees, who were the keepers of the Church tradition
Keeper of the laws and leaders of the people
cherished the Scriptures
and cherished the laws of God
and traditions of their faith
To them, it seemed like Jesus was just some troublemaker
some free thinker, some wise guy
who just wanted to stir up trouble
Their religion, which was born through the Scriptures
and stories of the Old Testament
valued sacrifice for sins
If you sinned, you made an offering in the temple
you gave your best
you took the best calf, the best animal
and slaughtered it on the altar
In fact, it seemed, the more painful the sacrifice
the more worthy was the person giving it
There was no JOY about it
religion was not supposed to be JOYFUL
it was supposed to be painful
They lived by rigid rules
and sub rules to explain the rules
so that there was never any room for doubt
or uncertainty
Every day you knew exactly what to do and how to do it
right down to the detail
Then here comes Jesus --
Fasting was another key part of the Pharisee’s faith
It was a way to practice their religion
by depriving themselves
suffering for God
and it seemed the more you suffered
the more you loved God
And here Jesus comes--,
and this Jesus must have been a Methodist
because he and his disciples loved to eat --
They loved to celebrate
Jesus, apparently, was not morose enough for them
He was liable to hang out with anyone
he didn’t check out their credentials,
their worthiness
He didn’t ask them first, if they followed all the right rules
or voted the right way
before he would sit down with them
in fact, he seemed to go out of his way
to hang out with the least worthy
the most far-out people he could find
and I bet the Pharisees began to believe
that he did it just to annoy them
They were sure he had a specific Agenda!
So this particular day,
some followers of John the Baptist came to Jesus
Now, they weren’t Pharisees,
but like the Pharisees,
they adhered very closely to the law
I mean, John the Baptist was really into suffering for the Lord
He was out there in the desert
living on bugs and wild honey
wearing animal skins
and he hardly ever washed his hair
He preached wrath and doom
and scared the youknowwhat out of people
so they’d come be baptized
and so his followers come to Jesus
who they were told was the one
that John the Baptist was preparing the way for
and they’re confused
“Ok,” they say,
“Why do we and the Pharisees fast often
but your disciples don’t?”
(Maybe at that very moment, the 12 disciples
were thoroughly enjoying a big delicious meal
with great gusto)
It’s not fair!
If Jesus was the Messiah, if he was the One,
then why is he going against John the Baptist
and the traditions of the elders?
and Jesus says a strange thing
he says,
“Can the wedding guests mourn as long
as the bridegroom is with them?
The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away
from them, and then it’ll be appropriate to fast. “
In other words, I’m not here for very long
life is short
and in Jesus’ case, it was even shorter than usual
and he was saying there is a time to fast, yes,
but there is a time to CELEBRATE, to enjoy…
and that time is definitely when Jesus is among them
there will be plenty of time later to grieve
when he is gone
and they will have reason to grieve
but now, he is here, he is bringing them the face of God
the appropriate response is to receive the gift!
ENJOY!
Celebrate!
Receive the blessing!
“No one,” he says, “puts a piece of unshrunk cloth
on an old garment,
for the patch tears away from the garment
and a worse tear is made.
Neither is new wine put into old wineskins;
if it is, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled
and the skins are destroyed;
but new wine is put into fresh wineskins,
and so both are preserved.”
Jesus had said more than once in the Gospels
when instructing his disciples,
“go only to the lost sheep of the house of Israel,
go nowhere among the Gentiles…”
and sometime later, along the way
he changed that
he didn’t only go to the Jews with his message
but broadened his ministry to non-Jews
Later on, when the disciples spread out
and started preaching and teaching
they stuck with Jesus’ old commandments
about the people of Israel
Or, they decided, if Gentiles wanted to be a part of the new Way
they had to become Jewish first,
they had to get circumcised
St. Paul came along, preaching to the Gentiles
and he believed that the message was open to all people
Jew or Gentile
and that Gentiles could remain Gentiles
and still be accepted into the faith
But Peter and the disciples fought him
and there was huge controversy among
the believers in Christ
Peter and the others believed that if Gentiles
wanted to join the faith
they had to be circumcised first
(Obviously, men were the only ones that counted
as believers at that time)
Anyway--surprise, surprise
they had a committee meeting to talk about it
a Conference--
to argue both sides
and both sides had strong arguments for their position
and it tore them apart
People, of course
thought that people who would let
uncircumcised men into the fellowship
weren’t truly of God
and those who believed that God is a God of mercy
as we see God in Jesus,
and would therefore not require the Gentiles
to conform to Jewish traditions
just to be worthy of inclusion,
well, they were just bleeding heart liberals
who ought to be punished
Paul won that battle, but the war was far from over
and there remained a stubborn contingency
who refused to include Gentiles among them
if they didn’t get circumcised
Later, Peter would get a vision from God
where God would command him to eat
all the things that are declared unclean
and unfit to eat in God’s own law
and Peter protested against God!
It’s unclean, Lord!
But God said to Peter,
“you shall not declare unclean
what I say is clean…”
and after that Peter actually changed
from his staunch, rigid position
to include uncircumcised Gentiles in the faith
Because he had a vision from God
a visit from the Spirit of God
“New wine is not put into old wineskins
if it is, the skins burst and the wine is spilled
and the skin is destroyed…
but new wine is put into fresh wineskins
and so both are preserved.”
Jesus was a Jew
He was raised Jew
he and his faith adhered faithfully
to the Jewish laws and traditions
but when Jesus began his ministry
some things had to change
he didn’t get rid of the law
but he came to fulfill it
Some things were done away with
or changed with the coming of Jesus
because God was doing a new thing in Jesus
and when God does a new thing
the old passes away , according to the prophet Isaiah
It’s not completely thrown out
but is changed
The Methodist Episcopal Church
could not remain intact
and keep doing things the way they’d always been done
once people started to realize
that people from Africa were, in fact, human beings
created by God,
and that God is not a God of slavery
They came to new understandings
and so the old had to pass away
At first, that meant that the Church was split
into North and South
but as time went on, more and more people
realized, I believe, by the Spirit of God
that things simply could not remain the same
once we gained new understanding
And so the Methodist Episcopal Church
was finally reunited into one again
with the unified decree that slavery was wrong
in the sight of God
The old wineskins could not contain
all that the Spirit of God was doing in the Church
and so they had to change too
The Spirit of God stirs things up
God is not done doing new things
God is still working, still creating, day after day
Just 100 years ago
women couldn’t even vote
much less run for the presidency
Just 50 years ago, African Americans couldn’t vote
couldn’t even sit in the same restaurants
or drink at the same fountains with white people
and good, Christian, church-going people
justified their racism with their belief in the Bible
They could quote chapter and verse,
right there in the Bible
But with new understanding and new insight
society had to change
the Church had to change
and we still have a long way to go
The Church is still very much segregated
But new wine, the Spirit of God
could not work in the church if it remained closed
and rigid in it’s old traditions
New spirit, new wine, requires new containers
new foundations
I don’t know about you, but that scares me sometimes
How do we know when to stop?
How do we know where to draw the line?
How do we know when it is of the Spirit
and when it’s just some arrogant liberals
trying to stir things up and destroy?
I believe Jesus is our criteria
As I’ve said before,
when the Bible confuses me,
I go to Jesus
and the Gospels
How would Jesus respond?
Jesus said, just a couple of verses before this passage,
“Go and learn what this means,
“I desire mercy, and not sacrifice.”
I desire MERCY and not sacrifice
In other words, time and time again
when Jesus was called on the carpet
for breaking a temple rule
it was always because he chose mercy
over law
He chose human hearts and souls
over black and white words on a page
because he came to bring the Spirit of God
that sets us free from slavery
and emotional constipation
Jesus, the Risen Christ is still alive
and his spirit is still moving, growing
and challenging us
as people and as a church
We could hold on tight to what is black and white
so we don’t have to struggle at all
or think or go on faith
but I believe Jesus calls us to live by the Spirit
to trust the spirit to tell us what is right
to teach us, stretch us,
challenge us
as we get more and more new information
in this world and in our lives
God is doing a new thing all the time
and so we have to find more and more new ways
to respond to God’s transforming grace
It hurts
It’s hard to let go of the old
and trust the new
It’s hard to change
but God is out there running ahead of us
and if we stay back here
and refuse to follow
then we are the ones who are sadly deprived
of the new life and profound new blessings
that God has in store for us
There’s a very wise saying
“Let Go and Let God”
Let go-- you or I are not in charge of the world
and we can tie ourselves up with rigidity and misery
and withhold mercy from people around us
or we can trust the spirit of God
who is running on ahead
creating, changing, enlivening,
opening up new possibilities all over the place
Let go
Let God run the world
Let God do new and amazing things in you
and get on board with all the exciting new things
that God is about
You were created to be a part of it
and God is not finished creating you OR the world yet
Let go, and let God’s Spirit amaze us all….