THE OLD 

AND THE NEW

INTRODUCTION

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

We hear about both in today’s gospel - new wine, new wineskins, old wine, old wineskins. New cloth, old cloth.  [Cf Luke 5:33-39]

The old and the new.

In today’s first reading from Colossians - we have some mysterious words about Jesus. He is described as the first born of all creation. [Cf. Colossians 1:15-20]

That makes Christ forever old. Yet he is listed as the first born from the dead. That’s the theme of resurrection - which is the forever new. As soon as we die, because of Christ we who believe - we believe he’ll make us brand new all over again.

Bye, bye wrinkles. Welcome in new skin - the skin of a new baby.

It’s a win-win situation.

The title of my homily is, “The Old and The New!”

LIFE IS BOTH

Obviously, we know life is both.

We go into any house and we see the new and the old - and the older we get - the older the old.  Yet there’s always that something new - somewhere - a new TV, a new refrigerator, a new ramp that leads to the car - because of a wheelchair - a brand new metallic red wheelchair.

We spot a novel - the new - but we see the classics on a book shelf.  

We walk into a house and we say, “What’s new?”  And we get the latest news about each other’s family.  We don’t want old news - but after the new news, we revert to telling the old. We tell the old stories about the time we went to Barbados or Barcelona or Boston. We tell the story about how we almost won the state Spelling Bee in 1943. We talk about what our salary was in 1950.

Obviously, life is both the old and the new.

THIS  PLANET

The planets in our Solar System are dated from 5 to 15 billion years old. But what will we know in 4013 that we don’t know in 2013?

How old is old?  How new is new  Maybe new galaxies are being born this very minute, this very million years.

Yet on this old earth, each day mosquitoes and mice are being born - and there is a new song and a new dance and a new procedure for arthritis and aneurisms.  The newspapers give the new - the news - otherwise they go out of business. So too television….

Yet sometimes we love the old - TCM - Turner Classic Movies - present in Black and White - a great movie. I noticed at weddings when the Golden Oldies are played, the Golden Oldies get out on the dance floor.

I noticed at Baptisms of brand new babies, the joy in grandparents faces because the kid is going to be baptized in a baptismal garment that is over 100 years and it’s a family tradition to use it.

The old on the new…..

The Annapolis Historic Society sticks to it’s Rules and Regulations to preserve the past whenever someone wants to make new an old house.

And Williamsburg and Annapolis, St. Petersburg and Rome, keep featuring the old to new customers.

ANY NEW MESSAGES FROM ALL THIS:  SOME BEHOOVES

Are there any messages here?

I would think that it behooves us to carefully preserve our past - gather the pictures. Label them. Make sure they are passed down to someone who will also preserve them.  It behooves us to put in the will not only who we want to have a special table or sewing machine - but also it’s history and story. It behooves us to write our autobiography, our memoirs, our story, for generations to come.

I would think that it behooves us to listen to each other tell our stories - our old - not just to write them down - but to share them with each other.

I would think it behooves us to not become a broken record or an old cold cheeseburger on a soggy paper plate at a picnic, but to read, to think, to go figure, to take long walks, to use TV and lectures well, to get fresh takes on life - and discover areas of life and the planets we don’t know much about.

I would think it behooves us to talk to Christ daily - about out future eternity with him and those who have gone before him - to picture heaven as the great wedding banquet - in which all will dance before the Lord. Amen.  It behooves us to have faith - because of Christ - that these wrinkled skins of ours - holding old wine - will one day rise - body and soul - and become brand new bodies - Risen Bodies - filled with the Newness of the Eternal Christ. Amen.