Quiet and simple comforts
I make my way to the coffee pot and as I walk quietly through the dark house, I listen to the rain and feel the cool, damp breeze as it wafts through the open window. It takes a minute for my eyes to adjust from the bright light of my bathroom to the dark of the living room, but I have no need of light – this is home, and I am comfortable here.
As I sit at the kitchen table with my coffee to enjoy the peaceful stillness of predawn, I wrap a soft fleece blanket around my shoulders; it too is familiar and comfortable. Sipping my coffee, I pray for my family and friends as they come to mind. These are the people who make me feel comfortable -people I know and love.
I think this is true of most of us, we like the places, people, and things that are familiar and comfortable. And most of us struggle – at least to some degree- to love and accept those ideas, things, and people who are different.
The Gospel of Luke
As I have been making my way slowly through the New Testament this year, I have recently started reading through the gospel of Luke. Of all the gospels, Luke is perhaps my favorite. My mind seems to relate to ideas and concepts through metaphors and stories, and Jesus often used metaphors and stories or parables as he taught. As Luke records the teachings of Jesus, he seems to move from one parable to another, which makes me wonder if he too could ‘see’ the gospel in the parables of Jesus.
The first parable Luke records is in Luke 5:36-39. Luke records this parable following the party given by Matthew in which Jesus and his disciples were criticized by the scribes and Pharisees for eating and drinking with tax collectors and sinners. Jesus was then asked why he and his disciples did not fast. The religious leaders were critical of Jesus and his disciples, first for doing what was considered unlawful and eating with ‘sinners’ and then for not practicing what was considered an obvious expression of righteousness (fasting). It is in this context that Luke records this parable.
The Parable
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. But no one who drinks the old wine seems to want the new wine. ‘The old is just fine,’ they say.”
Righteous Obedience and the Gospel of Grace
There are differing opinions on this parable and how it should be interpreted, but many commentators believe that the old garment that Jesus is referring to is the righteous obedience to the moral and ceremonial law that the scribes and Pharisees used to define their own righteousness and the new garment is the gospel of grace Jesus both lived and taught.
I grew up hearing scripture read and taught all my life, and I have always thought that as Christians we identify with the disciples and others that followed Jesus. But as I have grown older and God has used life experiences to shape and mold me, I have seen myself far more closely related to the Pharisees who thought they were righteous and accepted by God because of their religious practices. Because of their self-righteous pride, they often didn’t understand or were angered by the message of grace that Jesus taught
Thoughtful Comments
So, as I was reading commentaries on this passage, this quote from the Jamieson-Fausset-Brown Bible Commentary seemed to speak directly to my heart and gives what I feel is a thoughtful explanation of this passage.:
But the “new wine” seems plainly to be the evangelical freedom which Christ was introducing; and the old, the opposite spirit of Judaism: men long accustomed to the latter could not be expected “straightway”—all at once—to take a liking for the former; that is, “These inquiries about the difference between My disciples and the Pharisees,” and even John’s, are not surprising; they are the effect of a natural revulsion against sudden change, which time will cure; the new wine will itself in time become old, and so acquire all the added charms of antiquity. What lessons does this teach, on the one hand, to those who unreasonably cling to what is getting antiquated; and, on the other, to hasty reformers who have no patience with the timidity of their weaker brethren!
The Righteous and the Reformer
I love that this speaks to both the righteous and the reformer. The true message of the gospel – that we are all sinners saved by grace isn’t comfortable to those of us accustomed to the sense of righteousness we have put on as we have grown complacent adhering to religious customs. And yet the true message of the gospel also expands the hearts of those who have been suddenly struck by our own desperate need for grace and long to reform the comfortable compliancy of our own hearts. We cannot tear the gospel – that mercy and grace that are new every morning – from scripture and sew it into the religious practices that may be more cultural than we realize. We must be renewed by the gospel – completely changed and transformed by grace – so that we can separate it from those things that are merely liturgical or cultural (traditional or modern).
Let’s remember that comfort is not a person, or a place, but it is a condition of the heart. So, while we may seek comfort in liturgical or cultural practices of worship, I pray that we can also find comfort in grace. And as we have been given, let us freely give and offer space for grace to others as they travel that long slow journey of sanctification beside us.