New Skins

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.’” (Luke 5:33-39)

It’s hard to become new wineskins to hold new wine, that is, different ideas and ways of thinking and behavior such as our attitudes towards LGBTQ individuals.  The more we learn about truths, especially biological truths, the more we tend to resist them especially if they go against years of our thinking differently and believing otherwise.  For many of us this new wine is poured into our old wineskins, and we burst.   Old habits die hard.

Perhaps we can start by temporarily patching those old skins but eventually and quickly get new ones.  It’s paramount.  Otherwise, we will keep being torn and spilling on the ground. We will never overcome our biases and prejudices.  Our bridegroom awaits our transformation.

Deacon David Pierce