Luke 5:33-39
The scribes and Pharisees said to Jesus, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be 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 sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and 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 wine, but says, ‘The old is good.’”
New Revised Standard Version, copyright 1989, by the National Council of the Churches of Christ in the United States of America. Used by permission. All rights reserved. USCCB approved.
Embrace the New
People fear change. It’s part of our evolutionary makeup to keep us safe by holding on to the predictable “known” and rejecting the potentially dangerous “unknown.” We see this exact human vulnerability play out in Luke 5, where both Jesus and his disciples are actively disrupting the norms of the day!
When the critics complain, "Your disciples eat and drink!" Jesus basically tells them to “read the room.” They are so locked into their rigid schedules that they are missing the joy of the present moment.
Jesus then uses the imagery of the cloak to tell the Pharisees that an old, failing system isn’t corrected with a patch; the new piece won't match, and the tear just gets worse.
Then, he really puts an exclamation point on why humans resist this systemic shift: “And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’” He knows how much we prefer comfort over growth.
But the message is clear: out with the old and in with the new! Jesus is the new covenant, and he purposefully posed a threat to the Pharisees’ old, comfortable way of doing things. It's time to stop worrying about the external adherence to old traditions and fully embrace the new.
—Danny Monistere is a member of the Board of Trustees for Montserrat Jesuit Retreat House in Lake Dallas, TX. He is a member of Sacred Heart of Jesus Chinese Parish in Plano, TX.
Prayer
Make us worthy, Lord, to serve our fellow men throughout the world who live and die in poverty and hunger. Give them through our hands this day their daily bread, and by our understanding love, give peace and joy. Lord, deliver us from a life of comfort and complacency. Free us from the old habits that keep us blind to the new things You are doing today. Cleanse our hearts so that we may become new wine for a world that thirsts for Your love.
Amen.
— Adapted from a prayer of St. Teresa of Calcutta