Fitting Jesus into our way of being is clearly not the way to go.

Jesus wants to transform our way of being - rather than fit into our old lives.

Mark 2:21-22 ²¹ "No one sews a piece of unshrunk cloth on an old cloak; otherwise, the patch pulls away from it, the new from the old, and a worse tear is made. ²² And no one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins."

I went to see a congregant who was upset with me.  "Upset" is really an understatement - she gave me quite a tongue lashing.  What it boiled down to is that she didn't know how I voted and that really bothered her, because she wanted me to preach her political view from the pulpit.  I am not inclined to preach any political view from the pulpit - nor am I inclined to support certain candidates from the pulpit.  I believe as soon as a pastor associates themselves with a political party, they spend their time defending that party.  And since no party is all good or all bad, it puts you in a spot where you start to tailor the gospel to support your political party.  I am far more interested in teaching the truths that Jesus taught rather than trying to make Jesus support my politics.

So I refused to take a political side.  I have political opinions and I vote, but I keep them to myself.  However, she believed (and she'd heard on tv) that if a pastor didn't support her political party that she should leave that church and find one that does.  And she'd been a member at that church almost her whole life.  So when her pastor wouldn't take a stand for her political views, she became unraveled.

I talked to her about Jesus' message to the world - how he came to transform everything about us so that together with other transformed people, we could reach out and care for a world that needs him.  He taught us to live in a way that demonstrates his love to outsiders - always inviting them in - to become part of our community.  This way of being doesn't depend on a certain political party being in control.  Jesus' community is not of this world.  We can be followers of Jesus in any political climate.  So my goal was to teach my congregation about Jesus and they could vote however God led them to vote.

But what she said to me next - I will never forget, because it sums up our human condition.  She said, "there is more to the Bible than just Jesus."  In other words, I had convinced her that Jesus' teachings weren't about supporting the right political party.  And she didn't like it - suddenly she really didn't like Jesus or me.  So when Jesus didn't fit into her way of being, her wine skins burst and she decided she didn't need Jesus.  She would find support for her politics from somewhere in the Bible that Jesus hadn't gotten his hands on.

In the text today, people want Jesus to affirm their way of being.  To tell them that the way they are (their culture, their rules, their theology) is right.  That is like putting a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old coat or  new wine into old wine skins.  It won't work.  It will come unraveled.  This is because Jesus wants to transform us - not fit into our old way of being.

Give Jesus permission to transform every part of you.  This is scary.  But it is the way of Jesus' followers.  We don't try to get Jesus to support the way we are - we let him change us - take us to places that aren't comfortable - that are hard.  Following Jesus is about being transformed not getting Jesus to support us the way we are.

Do we ignore Jesus' teachings that he didn't come to support our old ways, but to change us completely?