Fresh Wineskins

After this Jesus went out and saw a tax collector named Levi, sitting at the tax booth; and he said to him, “Follow me.” And he got up, left everything, and followed him.
Then Levi gave a great banquet for him in his house; and there was a large crowd of tax collectors and others sitting at the table with them. The Pharisees and their scribes were complaining to his disciples, saying, “Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinners?” Jesus answered, “Those who are well have no need of a physician, but those who are sick; I have come to call not the righteous but sinners to repentance.”
Then they said to him, “John’s disciples, like the disciples of the Pharisees, frequently fast and pray, but your disciples eat and drink.” Jesus said to them, “You cannot make wedding guests fast while the bridegroom is with them, can you? The days will come when the bridegroom will be taken away from them, and then they will fast in those days.” He also told them a parable: “No one tears a piece from a new garment and sews it on an old garment; otherwise the new will be torn, and the piece from the new will not match the old. And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine desires new wine, but says, ‘The old is good.'” Luke 5:27-39 


Fresh Wineskins

There are important times to recycle
for reusing, re-purposing, making do
there are other times when only new works
we are called to know the difference.

Starting over requires a new slate
new chalk, new ideas, new direction
leaving the old dance steps behind
the old habits, communities of destruction.

We are children of fresh wineskins
despite the desperation of these times
blessed with imagination, reason and skill
invited to build a new vessel for love.

Our old familiar ways are now obscured
our homes are burned down, covered up
the old songs have been taken from us
we must paint a new horizon with new paint.