Daily lesson for October 1, 2014

Today's daily lesson comes from Luke chapter 5 verses 36 through 39:

36 He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and puts it on an old garment. If he does, he will tear the new, and the piece from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and it will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. 38 But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

"Give me that Old-time Religion,
Give me that Old-time Religion,
Give me that Old-time Religion,
Well, it's good enough for me"

A great tune, but I'm not so sure about the message. If it means, "Give me what is constant, universal, and essential throughout all ages," then yes. But if it means, "Don't tell me anything I don't already believe or introduce anything to me that I'm not already familiar with," then absolutely not.

Old-time religious ways can be very comforting, but they can also be fatally confining.

One day Jesus was confronted by Pharisees who were concerned that he was not conforming to their religious customs. Jesus answered with an analogy about wine and wineskins (you gotta love this guy). New wine, he said, must be put into fresh wineskins lest the new wine's unaged properties be too strong for the old wineskin. New wine in an old wine skin bursts the wineskin and the wineskin is lost and, even worse, so is the wine (like I said, you gotta love this guy). So, Jesus said, in order to keep using the old wineskin people close themselves to new wine. "The old will do," they say.

If our Old-time Religion leaves us closed to science in the classroom, music and video in worship, dance in the living room or even in the aisles, or anything else that is new and unfamiliar, then the wine we are drinking probably isn't very good -- it's just old.