Notes toward a sermon

Below are some preliminary notes for my sermon on August 4, 2012. Criticism is most welcome. The title, "New Buckets" is from an illustration that may or may not actually make it into the sermon. It is based on the need for appropriate containers when berry picking. Different kinds of berries require different containers if you're going to protect the fruit. Different people prefer different styles of buckets. But if you are going to gather enough berries to share or to save, you must use a container of some kind. 

Jesus talked about wine skins instead of buckets.

New Buckets

Texts: Matthew 9:17, Mark 2:22, Luke 5:37

Recently I was visiting with a young man who grew up in the church. He attended Adventist schools. He went to Sabbath School and church every week. He participated in Pathfinders (the Adventist version of Boy Scouts and Girl Scouts). Then after he got out of college he discovered he could do quite well without church. He had a woman in his life he loved. He had a job that was interesting. He was healthy. He didn't believe everything he heard in the church of his childhood. But now he was thinking about having kids. He found himself wondering just what values, beliefs and practices from his childhood he still believed in. What did he want to pass on to his kids?

Flat out rejection of everything in the religion of his childhood would be silly. On the other he could not imagine himself simply stepping back into the old traditions, lock, stock and barrel. He wanted to keep what was true, beautiful, and helpful. He wanted to jettison anything that was faulty or out of date or counterproductive.

Our conversation got me thinking. I'd like to invite you to think with me. Over the next couple of months, I'd like you to join me in addressing the question he so eloquently raised: Of all the traditions the church has embraced over the last 150 plus years which ones do we keep? Which ones do we modify? Which ones do we jettison?

Our starting point will be a conversation Jesus had with some of his critics. People observed that his disciples were breaking some of the rules for devout religious living. Rabbis had developed all sorts of habits to help people keep in mind God's holiness and their special relationship with him. The goal of these rabbis was to help people live pure lives, reminded of God's claim on them in every activity.

It is vital for to understand that these practices that the disciples were ignoring had been designed to serve a high and noble purpose.

The critics saw the disciples blithely ignoring ancient habits and they were scandalized. How could Jesus possibly tolerate such flippant disregard of holy tradition? One of the specific traditions ignored by the disciples was systematic fasting. It would be like a Muslim eating lunch during Ramadan or an Adventist bringing steak to potluck. It was scandalous.

Jesus' answer: People at a wedding reception don't fast. They party. Fasting comes later. Then Jesus added this cryptic remark: You don't put new wine in old, brittle wine skins. The old skins are likely to break. Instead you put new wine in flexible new skins.

Jesus compares spiritual life to a liquid. A container is absolutely essential. But containers get old and need to be changed.

Religion—the formal statements of our creed, the specific practices that help us remember and celebrate God's grace, the rules that we formulate to express how to live a godly life in our specific life setting—these things are essential for a healthy spiritual life. And all these things are subject to change over time.

The answer to the question raised by my friend, Jack, is not obvious. It is not easy. Good life, wise life requires us to answer it. Finding the best answer calls for prayer, thoughtfulness and careful listening to one another.

Jesus words affirming new wine skins and warning about the hazards of trying to confine vital spiritual life in old forms and traditions stands in stark contrast to those in Christianity and in Adventism who think the way of life is found in some mythical golden age in the past.

God calls us to continual reshape the forms of religion to make sure they are true to the Spirit of God and the needs of our own specific life situation. We should encourage every generation to reinvent the forms of religion trusting the same Spirit who has actuated us to guide them.