Get rid of your Leisure Suits

Jeremy and Jessica were in the Light Up Logansport Parade with the children's choir this year. While we were waiting for the kids to sing, I struck up a conversation with a couple standing nearby. I found out that they grew much of their own produce on their small farm and were very much into organic farming. The woman said, "We are really locavors." Locavors? Now, I have had some trouble keeping up with words now days, but what the heck is a locavor? It seems that more words are added to the English vocabulary than I can keep up with. With this woman, I just acted smart and pretended to know what she was saying (I looked it up on-line later). Other times I just say, "Say what?"

Jesus has a few of the, "Say what?" statements in his teachings. I read one of them on Friday. It comes from Luke 5:37-39, "No one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wine skin will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'the old is better,'" Say what? Is this about not getting drunk? What does wine, fasting, pharisees, the disciples, and wineskins have to do with anything? Maybe a little explanation will help put understanding to this story. Remember that Luke wants you to know that Jesus came for the Gentiles, also; that the gentiles were not accepted by the Pharisees, and that Jesus was making some changes in His kingdom. Let me begin with a story that may help you understand this better.

I saw a gentleman in a leasure suit the other day. It was right out of the sixties. I went to Goodwill awhile back to see if they had any sports jackets and I found a rack filled with leasure suites. I thought about buying one just for the fun of it. Can't you see me preaching in a plaid leasure suit? LOL! I just might do it for an illustration. Anyway, the old guy in the old leisure suit was like the old wine in an old wineskin. He was comfortable, it fit him, and he was happy. There was no way that you could get him to go to Joseph A. Banks and purchase a $1,000.00 suit. As much as the suit was old, out of place, and not of this generation, it was his and he was happy with what he had. No matter how much I may have wanted to change his suit, it was not going to happen.

The Pharisees were trying to put Jesus into a leisure suit. They all wore leisure suits, they liked leisure suits, and they thought Jesus should wear a leisure suit. You see, the Pharisees wondered why the disciples were not fasting. It was a custom of that day (and something that we can still practice today). But the disciples didn't fast. They were with Jesus, why should they fast. But the Pharisees wanted them to fast. They wanted the disciples and Jesus to walk around in leisure suits because everyone should have a leisure suit. But Jesus says that you can't put the Messiah into a leisure suit. He just wouldn't look right in a leisure suit. As a matter of fact, if you put Jesus in a leisure suit, then why didn't we just keep things the way that they had always been. The Pharisees didn't need one more person walking around in a leisure suit telling them what they were doing wrong. They needed a Savior to break out of the mold and actually save people.

Here is the reality, Jesus did not come to keep things the same but to make a great change. Salvation was now offered through the Lamb of God. The blood of Jesus would be enough! We would not need to follow 660 laws and have hundreds of hoops to jump through for salvation. Jesus changed things and invited us gentiles to join in the heavenly party. But the Pharisees liked life the way it was. Thus, "The old wine is better" in the scripture lesson. They even wanted Jesus to fit into their old way of doing things, "Old wine in old wineskins." But Jesus was not old wine, he was new wine that was going to make some great changes. Old wineskins are hard and brittle. If you put new wine in them, when the wine expands it will blow the old wineskins to pieces. Jesus was new wine! They didn't like Jesus coming along and giving people freedom, forgiving people of their sins, and healing people who were in bondage. That was new wine and they didn't like it. But Jesus could not allow people to stay in the same state they had always been in. It was time for a change and Jesus was willing to make that change. He was throwing off the leisure suit and getting a custome fit at Joseph A. Banks that people really needed. The Pharisees liked their rules but Jesus liked forgiveness. The Pharisees liked their regulations but Jesus liked relationships with his creation. Jesus was new wine and it could not be contained in the Pharisees way of life. So Jesus poured his new wine in what we call today the Church. Maybe that is why the church changes so much. The wine of Jesus just keeps expanding to bring more people into His kingdom.

Pastor Aaron   

P.S. By the way, a locavore is one who eats food grown locally whenever possible.