July 7th

     Mark, who scholars tell us wrote the first Gospel, depicts Jesus rebuking his disciples for their inability to let go of old ways of thinking.  “Do you not yet understand or comprehend?  Are your hearts hardened?” (8:17)  To make his point, Jesus compared people’s minds to old wineskins.  “No one pours new wine into old wineskins.  Otherwise the wine will burst the skins...Rather new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”  (2:21-22)  The message seems to be that we need to abandon old categories, old worldviews, in order to see with new eyes in the kingdom of God.
 
        Scholars also suggest that Matthew, aware of Mark’s Gospel, wrote in part to nuance it.  Matthew’s community wanted to preserve much of their Jewish heritage and way of life.  They did not feel they needed to discard completely their old mindsets, for Jesus did not come “to abolish but to fulfill the Law.”  (5:17)  As Matthew put it, everyone “who has been entrusted in the kingdom of heaven is like the head of a household who brings forth from the storeroom both the new and the old.”  (18:52)
 
        This apparent contradiction could serve today’s church well.  We need both Markan visionaries who call us to let go of old ways of thinking, as the Spirit is doing something new in our time.  We also need Matthean conservators who want to recast what is at the heart of older understandings and traditions so that they can function in our time.  What is not offered in either Gospel is the option of clinging to old understandings or traditions for their own sake — or for the sake of our comfort.  We are called to move on, to boldly go where the Spirit leads.