COMPARISONS:

THE OLD AND THE NEW

INTRODUCTION

The title of my homily for this 22 Friday in Ordinary Time is, “Comparisons: The Old and the New.”

Today I’d like to briefly reflect upon three things: comparisons, the old and the new.

We think and deal with all three every day.  

All three  have their pluses and their minuses.

All three have an, “It all depends.”

TODAY’S GOSPEL

I thought about all three as I read today’s gospel [Luke 5: 33-39].

The Scribes, those who could write, the educated, and the Pharisees were always finding fault with Jesus didn’t like his “new!” They compared what he was saying with their “old”.

They weren’t happy campers.

So Jesus gives a great comparison. Look at people faces at a wedding and look at people’s faces when it’s a religious season of fasting. Compare faces. My disciples are celebrating life. I’m the bridegroom and this is a time of celebration.

Then he talks about new cloaks and old cloaks.

You don’t cut a piece off a new cloak to patch an old cloak.

Nope! Old goes with old and new with new. You find that out when you wash either.

It’s the same with wine: there’s new wine and there’s old wine. There’s new wineskins and there’s old wineskins. Don't mix them up - otherwise you'll have leakage.  Old people in old skin must have laughed when Jesus said this!

I don’t know wine, but I’ll accept what Jesus is saying.

THE NEW AND THE OLD

How are you with the new and with the old? For starters the answer has to be, “It all depends.”

For the sake of transparency, I’m old. I’m 72. Do us old folks tend to favor the good old days and keep saying, “It ain’t like it used to be”?

I prefer a new car to an old one. I’m not into collecting antiques.

I like the new High Definition TV monitors. I don’t like the new translation of the prayers into English.

When I go out to eat, I like what I like. I remember going on vacation in the late 60’s with my mom, dad, and my sister Peggy. We went out to a restaurant every evening - 6 nights straight. 6 nights straight I got veal parmesan. I like veal parmesan - and I was comparing how it came out in 6 different restaurants.

Somewhere along the line I also discovered Cobb Salad - so if I see that on the menu, that’s what I’ll get.  Cobb Salad has a plan: bacon bites, bacon bites, bacon bites, hard boiled egg slices - ummm!

Some people when they eat out get the same thing every time; some people listen to the waitress or waiter giving the house specials - and often risk taking something they have never had before.

COMPARISONS

A beautiful woman walked into a room and I said to her husband, “Who’s better looking: this gal or your wife?”  He paused, smiled and said, “No comparison.”

Perfect answer.

Let me go deeper than skin.

Comparisons can crush. Comparisons can challenge us to move it and be more creative.

We can miss out on a decent veal parmesan meal or Cobb salad, because we’ve tasted better.

We can sit there in traffic or at a dull sermon, because we’re comparing what we’re experiencing with the best or a traffic free trip.

Do people with long faces - non-looking like they are at a wedding faces - crush themselves because they are comparing being in the present moment with a non existent other moment?

A wedding is not a funeral.

Be where you is, because if you be where you ain't, then you ain't where you is. 

CONCLUSION

The title of my homily is, “Comparisons: The Old and The New.”

Take a few moments when you have a few moments to reflect upon these 3 realities: comparisons, the old and the new.

Compare your life to the life Jesus calls us to. Compare both. Feel the call to the New and go for it. And in time, the New will become old hat. Amen.