Matthew 9:16-17 The Patches and the Wineskins
“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. For the patch will pull away from the garment, and a worse tear will result.
Neither do men pour new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the skins will burst, the wine will spill, and the wineskins will be ruined. Instead, they pour new wine into new wineskins, and both are preserved.”
Although everyone probably understands what Jesus is saying, here he is speaking particularly to housewives whose job it is to mend clothing. When mending a garment, there are two choices: use old material from another garment or use brand new material. The problem with new material is that it will shrink as soon as it is washed for the first time while old material has already been washed several times and has already shrunk as much as it can. Without any old material, a canny housewife must wash the new material two or three times and hang it in the sun before using it to patch a garment. Without pre-shrinking the material, the housewife will be embarrassed when her repair falls apart.
The phenomenon of shrinking material continues to be a challenge. As a 4-H member sewing for competition, I learned to always wash my material before attempting to tailor it into a garment. After washing the material, I would also iron it before beginning to sew. Here in Ghana, we must also soak material in salt water to fix the dyes; otherwise, the dye will run, staining other clothing.
Old leather wineskins have stretched as much as they are going to. As long as the wine in the old wineskins is old, it has already reached its maximum point of fermentation. But new wine is still in the process of fermenting and must be stored in fresh wineskins that are still pliable and stretch.
What’s Jesus trying to illustrate with this parable? Jesus is trying to say that the good news of the Kingdom of God is like new material or new wine. The messages of Jesus will not fit neatly into the current religious structure because God wants to do a new thing and Jesus is His messenger. The old material and old wineskins represent that pre-existing religious structure with all the minute rules and regulations that have been developed over centuries.
There surely must have been Pharisees and religious teachers in the crowd who are fuming over this message. After all, these men have dedicated their lives to observing all these rules; now Jesus is saying that those rules are not important? Some of these men might be fearing for their jobs and positions while those who truly hunger for more of God are waiting to hear what else Jesus is going to say. Jesus has already told listeners that he has not come to set aside the Mosaic Law but to fulfill it. The problem is not with the Mosaic Law but with all the other practices that have been developed during centuries of attempts to interpret it. The professional religious men in Jesus’ day have a large number of dietary rules, rules about what constitutes work on the Sabbath, rules about clothing, and rules about every aspect of daily life. The average person can’t possibly follow all these rules because observing them requires time and money beyond their reach.
Although we might like to feel superior to the religious leaders of Jesus’ day, we must continue to check our own attitudes. Without meaning to, we may have adopted sets of rules and regulations about approaching God, worshiping God, etc. We might be judging others based on our rules; meanwhile, Jesus has totally different ideas. Some Christian denominations have stringent dress codes, particularly for women. While people should be free to follow their convictions, judging others by these standards can inflict wounds. Several years ago, my husband and I had just returned from a two-year mission term in Ghana and were helping at a Christian camp. One group that came for a week did not approve of trousers, short sleeves, or short hair for women. Unfortunately, I was emptying trash barrels and doing other janitorial work in my jeans and tee-shirts. Because I had been working in a tropical country, I had cut my hair short. The ladies in this group did not welcome me as a Christian sister but glared at me. What they would have done had I had tattoos and dreadlocks, I can only imagine.
Sometimes Christians have been guilty of employing special language in trying to sound more spiritual. There are all kinds of Christian catch-phrases, and there are also all kinds of teachings that bear no relationship to those of Jesus. Such pseudo-religious jargon leaves many people convinced that Christians are supercilious know-it-alls who simply want to appear superior.
What about modes of dress? When we first came to our little village, it was quite common for women working on farms to be naked to the waist or possibly to simply wear a bra. These same ladies would wear tee-shirts and skirts to church along with rubber flip-flops. These days, nobody dresses like that, and only the very poorest wear rubber sandals to church. Now we have a new problem; some young women dress nicely but so immodestly that they shock our Muslim friends.
What should we do with this parable? We must examine ourselves to see if we are dragging around any old wineskins. Are we cherishing practices and beliefs contrary to Jesus’ teachings? Are we demanding that others must fit into molds we have designed while Jesus wants them to come to Him as they are? One fallacy frequently promoted by Christians is that we should clean ourselves up before we come to Jesus. Jesus throws “Come as you are” parties. Come to Jesus and he will clean you up. My husband had smoked two packs of cigarettes a day for twenty years, but when he became a Christian, God convicted him that he stopped smoking. The same thing happened with his drinking alcohol. Nobody at church put a guilt trip on my husband; the Holy Spirit caused him to realize that he did not need cigarettes or alcohol anymore.
If you are not a Christian and someone has been putting guilt trips on you over your appearance, ignore them! Jesus loves you just as you are and if you will trust him, he can tell you what you need to change. My husband has a tattoo on one arm that he has used many times to tell people about Jesus. Jesus can change your spirit and then you will know if there is anything else he wants you to change.
PRAYER: Father God, thank You for loving us and for caring for us. Lord, many of us have been wounded by religious jargon jugglers. Please make Yourself so real to these precious people that they understand that Your love goes far beyond anything they have ever experienced previously. In the mighty and precious Name of King Jesus. Amen.
Burunche's Blog 
Leave a comment