In today’s Gospel Jesus comes preaching a new message, a message with authority, a message of love and forgiveness. This new message, this new wine, cannot be contained in old wineskins: “no one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the skins are ruined. Rather, new wine is poured into fresh wineskins.”
While this new wine needs fresh wineskins it also contains the best of the old wine of the Old Testament and Judaism. We see in the Old Testament, especially in the prophets, this same message of love and forgiveness. These Old Testament prophets, like Jesus, call for social justice and proclaim that love of God must be joined to love of neighbor. Samuel the prophet in today’s first reading, proclaims that God desires love and justice more than sacrifice and liturgy: “Does the LORD so delight in burnt offerings and sacrifices as in obedience to the command of the LORD? Obedience is better than sacrifice, and submission than the fat of rams.”
Today we celebrate the birthday of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. Like the prophets of old, Dr. King called for social justice and an end to hatred and racism. This was his dream as we hear in his stirring words:
“I have a dream that my four little children will one day live in a nation where they will not be judged by the color of their skin, but by the content of their character.”
This dream must be the dream of all of us as Christians who follow in the footsteps of Jesus and are commanded to love one another as God has loved us. Sadly, and sinfully we see racism and hatred rising up again in our country and in the world. Groups, some even professing to be Christian, blasphemously espoused such hatred and racism. Like the prophets of old we must confront and condemn such hatred and injustice. Let this new wine of God’s love burst these old wineskins of hatred and racism!