Today’s Scripture Readings

Gospel Reading

NRSV

Then the disciples of John came to him, saying, ‘Why do we and the Pharisees fast often, but your disciples do not fast?’ And Jesus said to them, ‘The wedding-guests cannot mourn as long as the bridegroom is with them, can they? The days will come when the bridegroom is taken away from them, and then they will fast. No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak, for the patch pulls away from the cloak, and a worse tear is made. Neither is new wine put into old wineskins; otherwise, the skins burst, and the wine is spilled, and the skins are destroyed; but new wine is put into fresh wineskins, and so both are preserved.’

When the disciples of John asked Jesus about fasting, I bet they were expecting a much simpler answer! Through the analogies of a bridegroom, cloth and wineskins, Jesus directs their attention to the incompatibility of new and old things. We might mistakenly think he is saying that anything that’s ‘old’ is not good. We know that can’t be the case as earlier in Matthew’s Gospel, Jesus says, “Do not think that I have come to abolish the law or the prophets; I have come not to abolish but to fulfil”. (Matthew 5:17)

In both instances Jesus reveals something new is happening. God’s grace is breaking in, and a hardened heart simply cannot receive it. Like old wineskins, rigid hearts cannot stretch to hold the life He offers. A life where the law and the prophets find their fulfilment!

The one who trusts God and longs for His presence becomes receptive, like a new wineskin, open, flexible, ready to receive the ever living and moving grace of God. In God’s presence, even dry valleys are transformed.
Together with the first reading in Amos, these scriptures remind us that God is always doing something new, yet He does not discard what is good; He brings it to fulfilment. The question is not whether God is acting, but whether our hearts are ready to receive.

Where might my heart have become rigid or resistant to God’s new work?

Am I clinging to familiar practices instead of opening myself to deeper relationship?

What would it mean for me today to become a “new wineskin” for God’s grace?