Humankind Ever In Need Of Alterations

Have you heard the joke about the tailor who had a religious conversion? He put this sign in his shop window: “Repant! Your end is in sight!”

The old joke came to mind recently as I was reading one of my favorite sources of spiritual insights, the comics page. On this day, the parents of “Cathy” had a discussion.

Dad: “You’re going to Cathy’s at this hour?”

Mom: “She’s met someone new, Dear! It’s an emergency! She needs her pickiness taken in. … She needs her patience lengthened and evened off. … She needs a new zipper on her anxieties, a patch on her insecurities and a nice, strong double seam over each and every preconceived notion!”

As Dad sees Mom off on her makeover mission, he ponders: “Motherhood: nine months of creation followed by 60 years of alterations.”

If Dad thinks mothers are involved in alterations of their children, think of the alteration duration God faces!

“Full-time alteration” is the real name of the game where humanity is concerned. Alterations are needed everywhere, all the time, in everyone and through everyone.

But personality and attitude alterations are rarely easy. Usually they’re quite difficult.

Even when welcomed, change is tough. And it seems especially difficult in the church.

Maybe that’s because we keep confusing the truth of “Jesus Christ the same today, tomorrow, forever” with the subtle heresy of “The Church the same today, tomorrow, forever.”

When a local church’s true mission statement is “We’ve never done it that way before,” that congregation has lost its real mission. It may have even lost sight of its real God.

Many churches are well-intentioned when they tweak and tinker with worship styles, educational ministries, or whatever. They might even do good planning. But good planning and wonderful intentions don’t guarantee the alterations done are the alterations needed.

It might be like this: A seam is taken in when two worship services become one. Yet, is there still enough material to cover all who want to worship? It’s a hard question for many churches.

The old zipper is strained to a breaking point when an unspoken conflict is allowed to fester unattended. But the conflict isn’t really dealt with simply when a stronger zipper is put in.

Pleats are added to the fellowship hall curtains for effect. But what happens in the fellowship hall isn’t really impacted by pleated curtains.

Do you get the idea? Alterations may be little more than trying to keep the same pants by letting out or taking in the seam, but the material continues to wear out. So what’s the point of keeping the old pants?

I don’t know.

What’s the point of altering old, worn-out religious techniques and ideas when, even after the altering, those techniques and ideas are still worn-out?

I don’t know that, either.

Jesus seems to be asking, “What’s the point?” when people challenge him and his disciples about ignoring the religious tradition of fasting. (I refer to Luke 9:33-39 rather than the nearly identical story in Matthew and Mark. I like the alteration-by-addition Luke offers in the last verse.)

If fasting is good enough for the Pharisees and other righteous Jews, why isn’t it good enough for Jesus and his buddies? In his often infuriating way, Jesus answers the question by talking about something else entirely.

He speaks of the foolishness of sewing a new piece of cloth on old clothes. He speaks of the foolishness of putting new wine in old wineskins.

The fermentation would burst those old skins. New wine must be put in new, flexible wineskins.

But then Luke reports that Jesus said: “No one wants new wine after drinking old wine. They say, ‘The old wine is better.”’

What if Jesus is suggesting that the holy discipline of fasting is not the old wine but the old wineskins? What if the old wine is the truth of God, and fasting is intended to move a person toward experiencing that truth? This old wine (God’s truth) can still be drunk out of new wineskins (new ways).

Could Jesus and his friends deeply connect with God by choosing to eat and drink together rather than fast? At certain times, under certain circumstances, he believed so. (Are you still with me here?)

We must be careful to distinguish between the things we do as the church and the truth that those things are meant to demonstrate.

Our actions may be “religious” in that they bind us together. But they may not always be “spiritual,” connecting us to God in the way we think they will.

Sometimes that distinction is helpful for me. Perhaps it is for you, too.

The alterations we engage in may only be patching old cloth with new material. Check the quality of the wine you’re using first, friends.

That’s the important task always before us!

If it is true and sweet and of God, then consider making alterations to keep the wine fit to share with others who need its nourishment and refreshment. Besides, sharing that wine with another could alter your life for the better, too!

xxxx