Daily Lesson for July 14, 2021

 Today’s Daily Lesson comes from Mark chapter 2 verses 21 through 22:

21 ‘No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. 22And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins.’

Lately there has been a lot of talk about the Alamo and especially the new book by Bryan Burrough, Chris Tomlinson, and Jason Stanford “Forget the Alamo: The Rise and Fall of an American Myth”.

The myth of the Alamo, and the myths of Texas and the West were planted so deep into so many of us white folk down here that any new light or revelation of real and contesting facts is seen as a threat, not only to an old story but also to the very personhood of a people. The story is bound up so tightly with the identity of the people, that you cannot change one without also changing the other. And this is true not only for the story and people of Texas, but also for the stories and people of America. We cannot have our mythic stories changed, without also being required to change ourselves. 

And this is why apparently our Governor shut down a scheduled event about the new book. He liked the old story better. 

Jesus told a two stories back to back.  One was about new wine not being able to be put into old wine skins. The other was about a new cloth having to be shrunk to fit an old garment. 

The new wine of new truth cannot be contained in old wine skins of old myths. Some will try to shrink the new truth down, but inevitably, it will pull away from the old myth and the old garment will be split. 

That is what is meant by the latter part of “rise and fall”.  The new wine of new light cannot but split the old wine skin. The new, unshrunk truth cannot but tear away from the old garment. So in the end, the old myth is exposed — frail and fallible, a story from our one-sided and divided past, and unfit to hold the truth of what we hope to be our diverse and united future. 

At least what I hope anyways . . .

Ryon Price is Senior Pastor of Broadway Baptist Church in Fort Worth, Texas.