Matthew 9: 14-17

Theme: Change

Series: Parables of the Kingdom

AN OLD AND BROKEN WORLD

A man from the back mountains of Tennessee found himself one day in a large city. For the first time, he saw an elevator. He watched as an old, haggard woman hobbled on, and the doors closed. A few minutes later the doors opened and a young, attractive woman smartly marched off. The father hollered to his youngest son, "Billy, go get mother."

Apparently, there are some kinds of change that we find desirable. But, most people abhor change. We don’t like it and we don’t want it. In fact, change threatens us. Take for instance when the railroads were first introduced to the U.S. Some folks feared that they would be the downfall of the nation! Here’s an excerpt from a letter to then President Jackson dated January 31, 1829:

Of course we laugh at it now. Where would we have been without trains? What would this person think of fast cars and jets going 500MPH or the Space Shuttle going 17,000 MPH? Yet, we often will not change even if it is for our own good.

One definition of insanity is, you try to fix a problem and the solution does not work. But, you keep trying the same solution over and over again hoping it will work the next time. When a problem can’t be solved one way, we have to try another. Sometimes you have to change. Something new has to take place because the old structures are old and broken and will no longer work.

When Jesus came upon the scene, the old and the new clashed. Jesus showed that the inadequate and broken must give way to the new. Of course, the new was the kingdom of God. In a sequence of events, we see the shadows of the kingdom unfold and it was disturbing to the keepers of the old and broken world. While Jesus was teaching, some men bring a paralytic to him. Jesus forgives the man’s sins. Forgiveness of sin was a serious matter to the Pharisees. The Pharisees felt that they had worked so hard to be righteous that no one could just have their sins wiped away–they had to pay for them. And no one short of God could forgive sins. I think they doubted that God could forgive some sin. But, Jesus forgave sin and he healed the man immediately! This new kingdom was breaking through and the old could not handle it.

If the issue of forgiving sin was a problem, the people whom Jesus called to be his followers were downright scandalous. Jesus called Matthew the tax collector to become a disciple. This was scraping the bottom of the societal barrel. What kind of new world was this where such a sinner was sought out and embraced?

The first thing Matthew did when he became a follower of Christ was to throw a party. The guest list was notorious. It was made up of tax collectors and other disreputable personalities who were not often seen at the local church. No doubt the Pharisees were welcome, but they preferred to stand to the side and grumble. They asked one of the disciples "Why do you eat and drink with the tax-collectors and sinners?"

It must have shocked them, for certainly the Pharisee did not intend for Jesus to hear. But Jesus answered them. "It is not those who are well who need a physician, but those who are sick. I have not come to call the righteous but sinners to repentance."

But, it wasn’t just the Pharisees. The disciples of John asked, "Why do we and the Pharisees fast, but Your disciples do not fast?" They were a part of the old world. The old world could not understand this new kingdom that was coming.

The Pharisee’s religion was empty, torturous, and joyless. The Law called for one day of fasting only, that was the Day of Atonement. But the Pharisees sought to prove to the world their piety by fasting at least two days a week. They would whiten their faces and would put on a sad look and go out into the streets. They were solemn. Have you ever known someone like that? They think that piety means that the more miserable they are the more righteous they are.

Jesus told them that quite to the contrary, the coming of the kingdom is like a wedding feast. When a couple got married, they held a week long party. While the groom was with them it was to be a time of joy and celebration, it was inappropriate to fast. That is what the kingdom is like, it is like a feast. The bridegroom is present and it is inappropriate to fast.

Jesus went on to tell them two parables that explain that the kingdom he called into existence was new. The old could not contain it. It was like new cloth on an old garment. When the garment was washed, the patch would shrink and would tear the old garment even worse. The kingdom of God was like new wine. When the new wine was put into old, stretched wineskins, the new wine would ferment and expand and would tear the old wineskin and spill out. The old simply could not contain the new.

This was an explosive idea. The pharisees did not understand that the kingdom of God was so big, so radical that it changed everything. The old religion of law was simply too small to contain the new religion of Grace.

We are still trying to understand the radical nature of the New Kingdom. We sometimes think like the Pharisees. Us and them thinking–we are the righteous ones and they are the sinners. We can be solemn, reveling in our sufferings and our personal sacrifice, "I have given up so much for Jesus" kind of attitude. We get locked into the old world thinking of suffering as a form of penitence and works as the way to earn salvation.

I know that many today are searching for God. There seems to be a new spiritual hunger. The problem is, we seek to find a god who is comfortable to us, who does not call for radical change.

This week on VH1, there was a special presentation on Rock and Religion. It is interesting how much seeking of religion there is in rock and roll. But, it was noted that it was an eclectic interest. It is a cafeteria kind of thing, a little from Christianity, a little from Hinduism, a little from Islam, a little from New Age thought and a little creatively made up. However, all of it was manageable, attainable by us ordinary humans–very much in the old works tradition. In every case, it left the seeker in the same condition–the member of an old world that was heading toward destruction.

If we want to find the kingdom of God, then we must break with the old and seek the new. The old forms cannot contain what God has for us. If you really want to find God, then you must stop the insanity of trying the same thing over and over again as if the next time it will work. The world is old and broken and it cannot supply you with new life. You cannot find joy or happiness or completeness or love or righteousness or satisfaction. Pouring your life into the things of this world is like putting new wine in old wine skins. As the wine matures, it will swell the old skin and bust and waste the contents. The world cannot contain the kingdom of God. There is only one way to have new life, we must come to Christ by faith.

When we come to Jesus, he brings us into his kingdom that is new and progressive. When C. S. Lewis wanted to describe heaven in his novel, The Final Battle the children of Narnia who have gone to heaven have a slogan, "Ever upward, ever onward." That is what the new kingdom is like. Where the old world is suffocatingly small, always closing in on you, always inadequate, the new kingdom is always growing and becoming more and more real to us. In the old kingdom we work hard to become nothing. In the new kingdom, we are made new by the grace of God. In the new kingdom we are made the Children of God, we are given eternal life, we are given purpose and meaning.

The Kingdom of God is entered only one way, by believing in Jesus as our Savior. The price? Everything old dies. You become a new person in Christ and you have a new purpose, a new cause. You become a part of a new people called the Church. And you have a new future, not of destruction but of life everlasting.

An old and broken world cannot contain the kingdom of God. We are called to something new, we are called to follow Jesus Christ.