Sermon Title: Coloring Outside the Lines
Sermon Text: Mark
Sermon Date:
Scripture:
18Now John's disciples and the Pharisees were fasting. Some people
came and asked Jesus, "How is it that John's disciples and the disciples
of the Pharisees are fasting, but yours are not?"
19Jesus
answered, "How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with
them? They cannot, so long as they have him with them. 20But
the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them, and on that day
they will fast.
21"No
one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If he does, the new piece
will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. 22And
no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the wine will burst the
skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, he pours new
wine into new wineskins."
Sermon
Did
you know that there is a new Monopoly game out called “Here and Now?”
Now
this is not the only other Monopoly game out there. Hasbro has seven other versions out there in
addition to the original one. There is
Sponge Bob edition, the Disney edition, the Junior Disney Princess edition, the
70th anniversary edition, the junior edition and then there is one
for about every college out there. You
too can play Purduopoly! And Rod says he
has a Star Trek version.
But,
with Rod’s help, I want to show you this newest version of Monopoly.
See
the new game tokens. No more shoe or
race car….here are the new ones.
Cell
phone, Airplane, New Balance tennis shoe
McDonald’s
fries, Coffee cup
Lap
top computer, Labradoodle – new to me too, fancy car
If
you go to jail you go for insider trading (pause) or identity theft. And it looks like you get $2 million for
passing go.
And
there is a 5 million dollar bill too!
And
you will need those big bucks to buy Wrigley Field or O’Hare Aiport.
Or
you can buy the Gateway Arch and the White House. I’ll tell you – I can’t wait to play this
game and I’ve avoided monopoly for years!
I know you have two questions about
all this:
Why
did Hasbro change this beloved game so drastically and more importantly, what
does this have to do with Jesus?
First,
Hasbro did this because they decided to ask the people what Monopoly would look
like if it were being created today and these items and places were their
answers.
Second,
when I learned that the newest version was coming out I told a young friend of
mine about it. Her response was “that is
just wrong!”
It
is hard to step aside and let a new day begin, whether a 70 year old game or
wineskins.
Prayer: Lord, may the words I use be your words. And may we be transformed in the
hearing. Amen.
If you know anything about Jesus you
know he liked to use stories people could relate to. He used stories they understood, stories that
were part of their lives -- as he did with the concept of new wine and old
wineskins.
We Baptists use grape juice at the
communion table but in Jesus’ day wine would have been a staple, the primary
drink of choice. Water wasn’t often safe
to drink but wine or fermented grape juice was.
Some years ago when I was asked
about being a woman minister and the sin of that I asked the Southern Baptist
gentleman if he drank wine or grape juice at communion. His answer was of course, grape juice. When I asked why he didn’t subscribe to
Paul’s admonition to take a little wine each day, he remarked that of course
the bible meant grape juice. I’m not so
sure about that.
Wine was part of their lives and had
great religious significance at Passover festivals. And it would have been carried in wineskins,
not glass bottles. Those listening to
Jesus would have known that the old wineskins tended to be dryer and more
brittle than the new ones. The new
wineskins would have been more flexible
with more elasticity.
Old
wine would have been completely through its fermenting process and would not be
producing any gases to expand the container in which it was stored. So putting it in old wineskins was not
a problem. On the other hand new wine was still fermenting a little and
would produce some gases that would need some room for expanding. Old wineskins
would split under the pressure but new wineskins were flexible enough to expand
as the new wine continued to mature. (cite source here)
Maybe Jesus’ point to the people there
was that they too should be flexible.
Jesus isn’t asking the folks listening
to his story to toss out their heritage or the things of importance and value
to them. He was just saying that just he
and his disciples were not bound by the same laws.
In Matthew it is John’s own disciples
who ask the question – why aren’t you all fasting? In Mark we don’t know who does the
asking. It means though that Jesus was
catching it from the traditionalists and the pietists. “If they were serious (like us), they’d fast!”
But Jesus says to them, “they can’t.”
And he proceeds to talk about the wedding and the bridegroom. No one is going to fast at a wedding when the
whole point is to share the groom’s joy with him. The feast would go on for days and no one would
insult the groom by fasting.
So while the disciples and others are
in the presence of the Messiah (although they don’t understand that yet),
things are different. This isn’t your
father’s Oldsmobile or monopoly game.
This isn’t the Messiah you were expecting. Jesus is talking to those who are blind to
the new thing he is doing in their midst.
Be flexible, folks, he said. Be
open to the new thing I am doing. Be open
to what is yet to come. This Messiah is
going to eat with sinners and touch lepers.
He is going to challenge them to look at the least of these and see
him. Oh, taste and see that the Lord is
good! (The Lectionary Commentary for the Gospels,
p. 189-192)
I struggled a lot with how to bring
this sermon to an ending. I kept coming
up with things to say about us as a church and how we could be more flexible,
more open, willing to color outside the lines, so to speak. But that isn’t what I want to leave you with
today. I want to leave you with a
question.
I want to ask you to contemplate on
the things that you as an individual need to be more open about. So here it is:
In this new year, in the here and
now….. In Hasbro’s words – if you were going to create your life today, what
would it look like?
How can you and I be more flexible,
more open to this new thing Jesus is doing?
Yes, you and I. In our own
lives. In our professional lives. In our religious lives.
Take a
moment and think. Ask yourself ‘how can
I be more open?’ Think about it. (Silence)
As an
individual
As a family
member
As an
employer
As an
employee
As a
spouse, …..a parent……a sister….a brother…..a mother…..a father…..a child…..a
friend.
How can I
be more open?
As a member
of
As a
resident in my community
As a
believer in Jesus Christ.
How can you and I be more flexible….more open…..more available
to what Jesus wants of us?
What will
you do in this new year? How will you
open your eyes and your heart to seeing what new wine can be made or what new
ways we can play the same game?
In a few
moments we will come to the communion table and you will be invited to join
us. You will be invited to come and tear
off a piece of the bread and dip in the juice we Baptists use.
After you
come forward go to your seat and invite God to open your heart to something
tremendous in 2007. Not to grant your
wishes. Not to make your life
easier. Not to give you more money or a
better job. Simply ask God to open your
heart to God’s will and desires. Taste
and see what God has in store for you.
Prayer:
God,
We celebrate this new year and all of the opportunities that
come with it. We ask you to open our
hearts that we might hear what you have to say to us. We ask you to give us willing ears to listen
and eyes to see new things. And give us
the courage to step out and forward to do good things in your name. Amen.