Inertia

Luke 5:36-39
36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.
37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.
38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”

In some ways I believe this parable to be both prelude or prologue to all the answers that would come after this. Under that for the Jews God had promised them eternal life and freedom through the law and the old covenant, which Jesus had come both to renew and fulfill. Focus on those words for a moment: renew, fulfill.

As I said, when Jesus is approached with a question his response is "your assumption is wrong." In my mind this parable is in part a declaration that He is not here to patch up the holes in their theology. He is not there to answer questions. He is there to provide a whole new garment, a different way of looking at God. He saying that you can't take his teaching and patch up the holes in their theology because it will tear new holes, even larger holes, and burst the wine skins.

How annoyed must Jesus have been to come to earth to bring this new covenant, this personal relationship with God, and the pharisees are only asking him to clarify the old covenant. In my mind there is almost this sense of "Do you guys seriously still want to keep trying to live up to this standard?"

As we look over the entire bible we begin to see a relationship between God and Israel change, well not change as much as the focus widens.

In the Old testament God is seen as a king figure, their Lord of Heaven and Earth to whom they own their obedience, and we see that shift in the New Testament, the new covenant, into a glorious father whom we obey because we love Him.

And its amazing how we see that very shift reflected in the relationship between a child and their parent, or a student and their teacher.

When a child first enters school, what is he taught? Well, once he gets over those pesky things like reading and writing and which color is which (actually, even as he's taught these things) he is taught absolute truth.

Gravity: its that force that pulls down.
Electricity: is power.
Astronomy: planets in the solar system

and as they get older and begin to dive into these things in more depth:

Gravity: no one really understands why it works.
Electricity: no one really understands how it works.
Astronomy: it keeps growing.

But primarily as a student grows up he is able to stop asking how questions and start asking why.

In the same way, look at how a parent talks to their children:

At first: "Don't touch that, it's hot!"

As you get older what your parents tell you can't always be put into words that well, because they revolve around things that can't really be quantified very well. For example: yoga or Lily Doctor Who. But it is there will, and as you continue to get older you will reach a point where, believe it or not, where you don't have to listen to what your parents tell you.
Now at that point, what drives people to continue living by those standards?

And I believe that somewhere in that growing up, you are acting out of inertia, and there is a period that you could call "obedience for obedience's sake" where you know what you have been told and you don't really care about the why as much as you want to obey, and when you don't really understand why something is done (understanding the letter of the law vs. the spirit) the only standard you have is how close you can get to the exact wording of the rules.
And if you can do that then you are better than the person who can't.

And this period of inertia or obedience for the sake of obedience is where Jesus entered the stage, at the dividing point between king and father. Look here in Matthew 23, at the Pharisees, who excelled at nothing if not "obeying the letter of the law." and what Jesus had to say about them.

Matthew 23:16-24
16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’
17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’
19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Jesus goes on to say other things that make the above words seem rather mild, feel free to look it up later.
So, it would be fair to say that Jesus has some fairly strong views on this idea? Yes, I think it would.

Do you guys have any idea how big a cummin seed is? Its about the same size a grain of rice.
And have you guys seen a mint bush before? A decent size bush has roughly one bajillion leaves on it.

So imagine taking a bag of rice and sorting out a tenth of it to set aside.

Now imagine everything else you most likely could have been doing instead of that.

So, why would the Pharisees and the people of Israel choose that over what Jesus was offering?

Because it is easier to do that then the alternative.
Because it is easier to sit on your couch sorting grains of rice while a movie plays in the background than it is to help your younger sibling with their homework, or clean the kitchen for your mom, or forgive your friend for something the said. Or whatever you think justice, mercy and faithfulness would mean in your own life.

Because we can always point to that and say "I tithe on everything I own." or "check out the tassels on my prayer shawl." or "I fast three times a week while covered in ashes." and the people around us will go "oooh and ahhh, isn't he a wonderful person." and sweep away everything we do when people can't see us, the stuff that goes on in our heads and our hearts and our souls.

Luke 10:25-26
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

And the crowds shuffled off thinking to themselves "What about going to church, what about praying, what about worship?"

To which I would ask, why do you do those things?
Let's skip back to my earlier question: Why do people continue to follow what their parents tell them after they have grown up?

For the most part, its either inertia (I have done this, therefore I will continue to do this) or love, the knowledge that this will make your parents proud of you. You know that this is valuable to them, therefore you make it valuable to yourself as well.

And its the same way with God. We either follow him out of blind inertia, judging ourselves by our abilities to best follow his command, or its love. And one of those paths will lead to a lot of counting and measuring and the other will lead to freedom because what we do, we do because we want to do it, not because someone told us we had too.



Luke 5:36-39
36 He told them this parable: “No one tears a piece out of a new garment to patch an old one. Otherwise, they will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.
37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined.
38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”



In some ways I believe this parable to be both prelude or prologue to all the answers that would come after this. Under that for the Jews God had promised them eternal life and freedom through the law and the old covenant, which Jesus had come both to renew and fulfill. Focus on those words for a moment: renew, fulfill.

As I said, when Jesus is approached with a question his response is "your assumption is wrong." In my mind this parable is in part a declaration that He is not here to patch up the holes in their theology. He is not there to answer questions. He is there to provide a whole new garment, a different way of looking at God. He saying that you can't take his teaching and patch up the holes in their theology because it will tear new holes, even larger holes, and burst the wine skins.

How annoyed must Jesus have been to come to earth to bring this new covenant, this personal relationship with God, and the pharisees are only asking him to clarify the old covenant. In my mind there is almost this sense of "Do you guys seriously still want to keep trying to live up to this standard?"

As we look over the entire bible we begin to see a relationship between God and Israel change, well not change as much as the focus widens.

In the Old testament God is seen as a king figure, their Lord of Heaven and Earth to whom they own their obedience, and we see that shift in the New Testament, the new covenant, into a glorious father whom we obey because we love Him.

And its amazing how we see that very shift reflected in the relationship between a child and their parent, or a student and their teacher.

When a child first enters school, what is he taught? Well, once he gets over those pesky things like reading and writing and which color is which (actually, even as he's taught these things) he is taught absolute truth.

Gravity: its that force that pulls down.
Electricity: is power.
Astronomy: planets in the solar system

and as they get older and begin to dive into these things in more depth:

Gravity: no one really understands why it works.
Electricity: no one really understands how it works.
Astronomy: it keeps growing.

But primarily as a student grows up he is able to stop asking how questions and start asking why.

In the same way, look at how a parent talks to their children:

At first: "Don't touch that, it's hot!"

As you get older what your parents tell you can't always be put into words that well, because they revolve around things that can't really be quantified very well. For example: yoga or Lily Doctor Who. But it is there will, and as you continue to get older you will reach a point where, believe it or not, where you don't have to listen to what your parents tell you.
Now at that point, what drives people to continue living by those standards?

And I believe that somewhere in that growing up, you are acting out of inertia, and there is a period that you could call "obedience for obedience's sake" where you know what you have been told and you don't really care about the why as much as you want to obey, and when you don't really understand why something is done (understanding the letter of the law vs. the spirit) the only standard you have is how close you can get to the exact wording of the rules.
And if you can do that then you are better than the person who can't.

And this period of inertia or obedience for the sake of obedience is where Jesus entered the stage, at the dividing point between king and father. Look here in Matthew 23, at the Pharisees, who excelled at nothing if not "obeying the letter of the law." and what Jesus had to say about them.

Matthew 23:16-24
16 “Woe to you, blind guides! You say, ‘If anyone swears by the temple, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gold of the temple is bound by that oath.’
17 You blind fools! Which is greater: the gold, or the temple that makes the gold sacred?
18 You also say, ‘If anyone swears by the altar, it means nothing; but anyone who swears by the gift on the altar is bound by that oath.’
19 You blind men! Which is greater: the gift, or the altar that makes the gift sacred?
20 Therefore, anyone who swears by the altar swears by it and by everything on it.
21 And anyone who swears by the temple swears by it and by the one who dwells in it.
22 And anyone who swears by heaven swears by God’s throne and by the one who sits on it.
23 “Woe to you, teachers of the law and Pharisees, you hypocrites! You give a tenth of your spices—mint, dill and cumin. But you have neglected the more important matters of the law—justice, mercy and faithfulness. You should have practiced the latter, without neglecting the former.
24 You blind guides! You strain out a gnat but swallow a camel.

Jesus goes on to say other things that make the above words seem rather mild, feel free to look it up later.
So, it would be fair to say that Jesus has some fairly strong views on this idea? Yes, I think it would.

Do you guys have any idea how big a cummin seed is? Its about the same size a grain of rice.
And have you guys seen a mint bush before? A decent size bush has roughly one bajillion leaves on it.

So imagine taking a bag of rice and sorting out a tenth of it to set aside.

Now imagine everything else you most likely could have been doing instead of that.

So, why would the Pharisees and the people of Israel choose that over what Jesus was offering?

Because it is easier to do that then the alternative.
Because it is easier to sit on your couch sorting grains of rice while a movie plays in the background than it is to help your younger sibling with their homework, or clean the kitchen for your mom, or forgive your friend for something the said. Or whatever you think justice, mercy and faithfulness would mean in your own life.

Because we can always point to that and say "I tithe on everything I own." or "check out the tassels on my prayer shawl." or "I fast three times a week while covered in ashes." and the people around us will go "oooh and ahhh, isn't he a wonderful person." and sweep away everything we do when people can't see us, the stuff that goes on in our heads and our hearts and our souls.

Luke 10:25-26
25 On one occasion an expert in the law stood up to test Jesus. “Teacher,” he asked, “what must I do to inherit eternal life?”
26 “What is written in the Law?” he replied. “How do you read it?”
27 He answered, “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your strength and with all your mind; and, ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’”
28 “You have answered correctly,” Jesus replied. “Do this and you will live.”

And the crowds shuffled off thinking to themselves "What about going to church, what about praying, what about worship?"

To which I would ask, why do you do those things?
Let's skip back to my earlier question: Why do people continue to follow what their parents tell them after they have grown up?

For the most part, its either inertia (I have done this, therefore I will continue to do this) or love, the knowledge that this will make your parents proud of you. You know that this is valuable to them, therefore you make it valuable to yourself as well.

And its the same way with God. We either follow him out of blind inertia, judging ourselves by our abilities to best follow his command, or its love. And one of those paths will lead to a lot of counting and measuring and the other will lead to freedom because what we do, we do because we want to do it, not because someone told us we had too.