Embracing Change: The Journey of Transformation and Love

"And the context is that there was an afternoon where some Pharisees were talking with Jesus, and they asked him specifically a pointed question about fasting. And they said, why don't you and your disciples fast? And they pointed back to like John the Baptist and other people who were trying to live sort of within the confines of the religious traditions of the day. And they said, why don't you fast? Why don't you do the rituals and do all the right things like we would expect a good religious person to do?" [00:55:59]

"And Jesus had a particular response to them. And in that response, he told two two parables, two short ones, one about, well, you wouldn't want to use a new piece of cloth to patch over a hole in an old garment. And then he said this, he said, and you don't want to put, nobody puts new wine into old wineskins. If they did, the new wine would burst the wineskins, and the wine would spill, and the wineskin be ruined. So instead, new wine must be put into new wineskins." [00:56:59]

"The boundaries that were once safe to us suddenly became restrictive, and we had no choice but to then go beyond it. But none of us, I would wager, I could be wrong, but I'm going to guess that none of us were safe and warm inside these old wineskins. For me, that would have been like ages 17 through 24, safe and warm inside these wineskins, where everything was humming along quite nicely. Our belief system worked. Our faith felt strong." [00:59:04]

"Instead, it seems like we are in what for a while seems like a nice, safe, adequate container, and then we expand and we bump up against the edges. Maybe it's jobs that used to give us so much life and we love, and now they drain us, or they demand too much of us. Or maybe it's relationships that used to give so much life and we love, and now they drain us. And now they seem to hold us back or keep us down." [01:00:11]

"What I'm saying is that growth and transformation happen within the wineskin that we already have, or the ones that we were given. So when we grow, when we expand, we crack. We're threatened to crack the containers around us, and as I'm sure you know, leaking out of this old, And there's a sense in which we can look at these narratives and feel like, oh, breaking out of the wineskin, that's a good thing, right? Because then we have freedom and liberation and expansion on the other side." [01:00:56]

"Maybe, maybe sometimes that's our experience. Oftentimes, I think it's like we're trading in the anxiety of the walls that are closing in around us. We're trading that in for the anxiety of the void beyond. Like, I don't know what's out there. A couple years ago, I gave a sermon about the story of Jesus and disciples in a boat, and a storm comes, and Jesus is sleeping, and the disciples wake him up, freaking out. Storm, Jesus calms storm, then turns to the disciples and says, why are you so afraid?" [01:02:09]

"And I remember being struck by the order of that. Storm, calming of storm, asking a question, why are you so afraid? And I remember thinking, oh, that makes sense, because sometimes the only thing more scary than the storm is the calm after the storm. Because even though the storm is unsettling and disturbing and painful, oftentimes we at least grow familiar with it, accustomed to it. We know who we are in the context of it. We know the roles that we got to play." [01:02:47]

"And he said this to me. He said, for me, when I hear that phrase, it all belongs, he says, I prefer to think of it as nothing is wasted. He went on to say, because how can we tell people who've endured horrible tragedy in life that it all belongs? We can't, because those things, they don't belong. That kind of suffering and trauma and harm, that doesn't belong. But maybe we could say nothing gets wasted." [01:04:13]

"But because everything is energy and energy cannot be destroyed, then everything that happens or that happened to us can be and will be reused and repurposed. And I think he's right. I think that one danger in saying it all belongs is that we can paper over the most painful parts of life. But that hard thing that happened to you or is happening to you, the job that you lost, the bankruptcy you filed, the loved one who died too soon, the cancer that took your friend, the sickness that's now eating your own body, the marriage that fell apart, the child that broke your heart, the horrific crime perpetrated against you, it's not really okay to say that those things belong." [01:04:43]

"And yet, isn't it also true? Somehow the great paradox is that if enough time passes, sometimes if enough time passes between these events in our lives, there can be these moments where we turn around and look back at what has transpired since the tragedy befell us. And it's not uncommon to see how the new life grew precisely out of the place from which the old thing died." [01:05:36]

"So if we say it all belongs, if when we say this we also hold on to this idea that nothing gets wasted, might we be able to sometimes see, how the hardest trials of our lives become the seeds for our greatest fruit? And I say that, and I also just need to name that not always. I grant that. Not always. Sometimes there maybe isn't really a way to redeem our pain. At least not entirely, maybe." [01:06:09]

"A hope that really fully leans into this belief that darkness doesn't get the final word. For me this is the, This is the foundation in the sentiment of it all belongs. That there's nothing in this universe that can ever be outside of God, which means there's nothing in this universe that can be outside of love. When St. Paul once wrote that, quote, trigger warning, God works all things together for good, the church quickly turned it into a bumper sticker platitude to offer quick and easy comfort." [01:07:10]