Patrick M. Clark - "Awaiting New Wine" (February 27, 2000)
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| - | Gospel according to Saint Mark, the second chapter. | 0:03 |
| "Jesus went out again beside the sea. | 0:07 | |
| "The whole crowd gathered around him | 0:10 | |
| "and he taught them. | 0:12 | |
| "As he was walking along, | 0:14 | |
| "He saw Levi, Son of Alpheus, | 0:15 | |
| "sitting at the tax booth. | 0:18 | |
| "And he said to him, follow me, | 0:19 | |
| "and he got up and followed him. | 0:21 | |
| "And as he sat at dinner, at Levi's house, | 0:24 | |
| "many tax collectors and sinners | 0:26 | |
| "were also sitting with Jesus and his disciples, | 0:28 | |
| "for there were many who followed him. | 0:32 | |
| "When the scribes of the Pharisees | 0:34 | |
| "saw that he was eating with sinners and tax collectors, | 0:36 | |
| "they said to his disciples, | 0:39 | |
| "Why does he eat with tax collectors | 0:41 | |
| "and with sinners? | 0:43 | |
| "When Jesus heard this, | 0:44 | |
| "he said to them, | 0:45 | |
| "Those who are well have no need of a physician, | 0:47 | |
| "but those who are sick. | 0:50 | |
| "I have come, not to call the righteous but sinners. | 0:52 | |
| "Now John's disciples and the Pharisees | 0:56 | |
| "were fasting and people came and said to him, | 0:58 | |
| "Why do John's disciples | 1:00 | |
| "and the disciples of the Pharisees fast, | 1:02 | |
| "but your disciples do not fast? | 1:04 | |
| "Jesus said to them, | 1:07 | |
| "The wedding guests cannot fast, | 1:08 | |
| "while the bridegroom is with them, can they? | 1:10 | |
| "As long as they have the bridegroom with them, | 1:14 | |
| "they cannot fast. | 1:16 | |
| "The days will come when the bridegroom | 1:18 | |
| "is taken away from them | 1:20 | |
| "and then they will fast on that day. | 1:22 | |
| "No one sows a piece of un-shrunk cloth on an old cloak, | 1:24 | |
| "otherwise the patch pulls away from it, | 1:28 | |
| "the new and the old and a worse tear is made. | 1:31 | |
| "And no one puts new wine into old wine skins, | 1:34 | |
| "otherwise the wine will burst the skins | 1:37 | |
| "and the wine is lost | 1:40 | |
| "and so are the skins. | 1:41 | |
| "But one puts new wine into fresh wineskins. | 1:43 | |
| "This is the word of the Lord." | 1:47 | |
| - | Thanks be to God. | 1:49 |
| - | Well, yesterday I lost my voice. | 2:00 |
| So I apologize to y'all for that. | 2:02 | |
| But what I have to give you, I will give you. | 2:06 | |
| Sometime during the late 1950s, | 2:11 | |
| when my mother was 12 or 13 years old, | 2:14 | |
| she was baptized in a small Church of God | 2:16 | |
| in southern West Virginia. | 2:18 | |
| Here, she dedicated her life to Christ | 2:21 | |
| and accepted his call. | 2:23 | |
| On the first of September of last year, | 2:26 | |
| in a hospital room in Seattle, | 2:29 | |
| her lungs were too bloody and ravaged | 2:32 | |
| by chemotherapy drugs to function any longer. | 2:34 | |
| Here, she dedicated her death to Christ, | 2:37 | |
| and he accepted her home. | 2:40 | |
| These two defining moments of her life, | 2:44 | |
| Paul might refer to as, "Her burial and resurrection." | 2:46 | |
| Dying in her baptism | 2:50 | |
| and rising again through her faith in God's power to raise. | 2:52 | |
| Such a backward way to look at life, isn't it? | 2:57 | |
| To begin with burial and end with resurrection? | 3:00 | |
| It's hard to completely understand. | 3:04 | |
| Yet I sense Paul's words hold within them | 3:07 | |
| a clue to a puzzling thing she told me before she died. | 3:09 | |
| She was in the hospital by this time | 3:14 | |
| and was several days past her bone marrow transplant. | 3:15 | |
| One day as I was reading in the corner of the hospital room, | 3:19 | |
| she awoke and told me she wanted to talk. | 3:21 | |
| She wanted to discuss what life might be like | 3:25 | |
| if she should be gone. | 3:27 | |
| She probably knew that my fear | 3:29 | |
| prevented me from discussing this within myself on my own | 3:31 | |
| and through all those barriers however, | 3:37 | |
| one piece of that conversation still remains with me. | 3:42 | |
| She took my hand, | 3:46 | |
| and looked at me with a motherly warm firmness, | 3:48 | |
| and said, "Patrick, I want you to know | 3:50 | |
| "that even if I'm not cured of this disease, | 3:53 | |
| "I have already been healed." | 3:57 | |
| She said it like a creed, | 4:00 | |
| like a battle cry rising from a soldier already fallen. | 4:02 | |
| She held it in her voice like a treasure, | 4:05 | |
| a pearl swallowed up to keep away from the thieves. | 4:08 | |
| It was the way she said it that still burdens me. | 4:12 | |
| I've explained it away 100 times over | 4:16 | |
| but none of my solutions | 4:18 | |
| seems to quite capture the light that was in her eyes. | 4:20 | |
| What were those words in those eyes trying to say? | 4:24 | |
| Even though I may not be cured, I have already been healed. | 4:28 | |
| I tell you all this today | 4:33 | |
| because I believe Jesus has something to tell us | 4:34 | |
| through the story that was just read | 4:37 | |
| about healing and curing. | 4:38 | |
| And in the cracks between my words, | 4:40 | |
| I pray God might reveal it to us. | 4:42 | |
| The story is set in the late time of Capernaum, | 4:45 | |
| in first century Palestine. | 4:48 | |
| There swirled a rumor there that a local lame man | 4:51 | |
| was dropped through a roof by his friends | 4:54 | |
| of a building in town | 4:56 | |
| and that he walked out its door. | 4:58 | |
| Not only that, | 5:01 | |
| but his sins were forgiven as well. | 5:02 | |
| Those who heard about this story | 5:05 | |
| wondered which was the greater miracle. | 5:07 | |
| That he walked, or that he was forgiven. | 5:09 | |
| One of the people who must've heard about this story | 5:14 | |
| was Levi, a toll collector on one of the nearby roads. | 5:16 | |
| He must've been intrigued by what he heard | 5:20 | |
| and especially by the questionable company Jesus kept, | 5:23 | |
| company like himself. | 5:26 | |
| Passing along one day, Jesus called him to follow. | 5:29 | |
| With no explanation or justification | 5:32 | |
| but only the words, "Follow me." | 5:36 | |
| Do you ever wonder what it was about Jesus's eyes | 5:39 | |
| or about his voice, or about the way he moved | 5:42 | |
| that would draw Levi out from his booth? | 5:46 | |
| Levi had no handicaps or diseases, | 5:49 | |
| what could Jesus offer him? | 5:52 | |
| The pharisees and doctors of the law, | 5:55 | |
| the religious right of that day, | 5:57 | |
| were also perplexed with why Jesus chose Levi. | 5:59 | |
| "Why does he eat with tax collectors and sinners?" | 6:03 | |
| they said. | 6:05 | |
| "What kind of priest concerns himself | 6:07 | |
| "with the rouges and the whores? | 6:08 | |
| "With thieves and charlatans?" | 6:11 | |
| "A man truly of God would gravitate toward his own, | 6:13 | |
| "the strong, the rich, the devout and the accepted." | 6:16 | |
| What was he trying to do with these sinners? | 6:20 | |
| Jesus told him his reason for keeping the company he kept. | 6:24 | |
| But as with so much, | 6:28 | |
| it seemed to escape their understanding. | 6:29 | |
| Jesus was challenging their conception of God | 6:33 | |
| and was threatening their security. | 6:36 | |
| Such a threat gave birth to reactionary condemnation. | 6:39 | |
| "Look!", they said. | 6:42 | |
| "The righteous are fasting, | 6:44 | |
| "even John's disciples are fasting, | 6:45 | |
| "but you, you are here feeding your belly. | 6:47 | |
| "Where's your purity that you can make others pure? | 6:50 | |
| "What makes you worthy? | 6:53 | |
| "Why don't you fit?" | 6:55 | |
| Christ's justification | 6:59 | |
| is simply that he and his band of followers | 7:00 | |
| were celebrating. | 7:03 | |
| Now, Jesus claimed that he and the shabby bunch of his | 7:05 | |
| crammed into an old dusty house, | 7:08 | |
| eating an ordinary meal, | 7:10 | |
| were celebrating a wedding | 7:11 | |
| of which he was the bridegroom. | 7:13 | |
| Strange. | 7:16 | |
| I'm not sure I would've had the eyes | 7:21 | |
| to see the celebration there. | 7:22 | |
| Could it have really been more than just a meal going on | 7:25 | |
| at that table of sinners? | 7:27 | |
| Could it have really been the solemn | 7:30 | |
| and joyous commemoration | 7:31 | |
| of a coming victory and reunion? | 7:33 | |
| I have to leave that to your eyes. | 7:36 | |
| But Jesus gives a further answer, | 7:40 | |
| "No one sews an un-shrunk piece of cloth on an old garment | 7:42 | |
| "and no one pours new wine into old wineskins." | 7:45 | |
| What does this mean? | 7:49 | |
| What is this un-shrunk patch, this new wine? | 7:51 | |
| What do the two even have to do with one another? | 7:54 | |
| Jesus leaves us no answer key for these questions. | 7:58 | |
| And I can't explain to you what this new wine is | 8:03 | |
| but I also can't help sense its burning importance. | 8:06 | |
| Perhaps this could be that elusive thing we seek | 8:10 | |
| in the depths of our hearts. | 8:12 | |
| Perhaps this could be that object of longing | 8:14 | |
| for which we can never find full description. | 8:16 | |
| But where do we even start to look at it? | 8:20 | |
| Most likely, you will all see wine | 8:23 | |
| before you leave here today. | 8:25 | |
| This is Christ's blood shed for you. | 8:28 | |
| If an old garment is repaired with an un-shrunk patch | 8:33 | |
| or if an old wineskin is filled with new wine, | 8:35 | |
| they both tear. | 8:39 | |
| Here we have common ground in tearing. | 8:41 | |
| Funny how Jesus gives us no notion | 8:45 | |
| of how to fix old garments, or use old wineskins | 8:47 | |
| but only how not to. | 8:50 | |
| He only speaks of tearing. | 8:53 | |
| It seems as if he's more concerned about | 8:56 | |
| describing the problems than the solutions. | 8:57 | |
| All he gives us is a protest | 9:02 | |
| directed at the self-assured, | 9:03 | |
| whose hearts have been stiffened and narrowed | 9:06 | |
| by the rituals, laws and methodical habits | 9:08 | |
| of their mapped out faith. | 9:11 | |
| Jesus directs his protest not at the known sinners, | 9:14 | |
| but at the sinners in denial. | 9:18 | |
| Everyone in this story has empty places in their souls, | 9:21 | |
| both the pious and the thieves. | 9:25 | |
| All of us here today | 9:28 | |
| have useless wineskins lying empty inside us. | 9:29 | |
| We all have gaping holes in our hearts' garment. | 9:33 | |
| And Jesus here tells us merely | 9:39 | |
| what not to do with these places. | 9:41 | |
| You see, the Pharisees' patch was religion | 9:45 | |
| and the tax collectors covered themselves with wealth. | 9:48 | |
| We all have our own patches | 9:52 | |
| to cover the emptiness inside us | 9:54 | |
| but those patches aren't good enough. | 9:57 | |
| They cannot hold the grace God intends | 10:00 | |
| and they lull us into a false security | 10:03 | |
| and lead us away from true freedom, risk, fulfillment | 10:07 | |
| and the keeping or saving of our souls. | 10:12 | |
| The world today tells us | 10:17 | |
| that if you want spiritual cleansing, | 10:18 | |
| you must go to a mountaintop and stay there. | 10:19 | |
| Maybe a mountaintop resort. | 10:22 | |
| Stay away from the noise of the city | 10:25 | |
| where the homeless lie drunk and dying. | 10:27 | |
| See, like the Pharisees, | 10:31 | |
| we want more to appear healed than to be healed. | 10:32 | |
| We would rather be freed from our weakness | 10:37 | |
| than be freed by our weakness. | 10:39 | |
| Our nature tells us the lie | 10:42 | |
| that peace comes with a change of the external. | 10:44 | |
| More money, more security, more experiences | 10:46 | |
| but Jesus warns us | 10:51 | |
| that filling the heart with things | 10:52 | |
| it was not made to contain, | 10:54 | |
| will only tear it even more. | 10:55 | |
| He invites us, he challenges us, | 10:58 | |
| to live a life without anesthetic. | 11:00 | |
| He tells us that the problems of this world | 11:05 | |
| cannot be solved with the solutions of this world. | 11:07 | |
| Our ways are not his ways | 11:10 | |
| but our wounds are indeed his wounds, | 11:13 | |
| and by those wounds we are healed. | 11:17 | |
| Our hope is his presence within us | 11:21 | |
| and in the triumph of the cross | 11:25 | |
| which that presence constantly proclaims. | 11:27 | |
| If we could gather up our holes, | 11:32 | |
| our wounds, our sin and our pain, | 11:34 | |
| and have the courage enough to simply wait in the silence, | 11:37 | |
| I believe that the strength we need | 11:40 | |
| to hope for our healing will find us. | 11:42 | |
| If we could only trust enough to wait for the new wine | 11:45 | |
| instead of all the wine that the world offers us, | 11:49 | |
| we might find that in our expectation | 11:52 | |
| our old wineskins may become new as well. | 11:55 | |
| And this is the substance of our hope. | 11:59 | |
| We must cling to that hope, | 12:02 | |
| we must cling wildly to that hope. | 12:03 | |
| On Friday, the 13th of August, | 12:10 | |
| I realized that my mother was sick beyond cure. | 12:12 | |
| Only a few short strands of her remained | 12:16 | |
| and I stood stroking them back | 12:20 | |
| as she looked up at me, | 12:21 | |
| with her eyes now filled with blood. | 12:23 | |
| I sang her that alphabet song. | 12:26 | |
| ♪ A, B, C, D, E, F , G ♪ | 12:30 | |
| Like she used to sing to me in the bathtub | 12:32 | |
| as she washed the shampoo from my hair stroking it back. | 12:35 | |
| Her face lit up with joy amidst my grief | 12:42 | |
| and she told me how she remembered singing it to me. | 12:45 | |
| At that moment, I first began to understand what she meant | 12:50 | |
| when she talked about the difference | 12:53 | |
| between healing and curing. | 12:54 | |
| As I stood there fighting through the fear, | 12:58 | |
| I also felt healing begin to seep in. | 13:02 | |
| At such a painful farewell, | 13:07 | |
| there was strange joy | 13:09 | |
| because I saw that she believed that in her baptism | 13:11 | |
| her wounds were no longer merely hers. | 13:14 | |
| They became trophies of her redeemer's victory | 13:19 | |
| and her goodbye became a celebration of grace. | 13:23 | |
| You see, death never really was the enemy. | 13:29 | |
| The real enemy is fear. | 13:33 | |
| Fear that the new wine will never come. | 13:35 | |
| But we are surrounded by a cloud of witnesses | 13:40 | |
| that urges us on in our expectation. | 13:42 | |
| I know my mother's in that cloud | 13:46 | |
| and I'm sure many of you know some others there as well. | 13:49 | |
| They stand at the end of this hard journey | 13:55 | |
| and call to us from the feast of sinners at Christ's table. | 13:58 | |
| You are invited to that table today. | 14:04 | |
| Come. | 14:07 | |
| And see if your eyes can catch a glimpse | 14:09 | |
| of that celebration for which we wait. | 14:11 |
