Sermon Tone Analysis

By Pastor Glenn Pease

In his book Like A Mighty Army, Halford Luccock tells an interesting story about theatrical history.

In the middle of the 19th century the right to produce dramatic performances was limited to a few theaters which had been able to develop a monopoly.

Some bright boys of the theater found a loophole, however, and made a break though.

The law said plays were forbidden, but it did not apply to operas.

Plays with music were permitted.

So when they began their play one of the staff would give one loud bang on the piano.

That made it an opera, and they could go safely ahead with their play.

This is one way that progressive people overcome the obstacles of the establishment.

They find a loophole and the basis of a technicality they worked their way on to the stage of history.

Others take a more radical approach in which they ignore and defy the laws of the establishment.

This was the approach that Jesus took.

Jesus was a revolutionary who told the leaders of the establishment right to their face that His business was to put them out of business.

When they approached Jesus about His disciple's lack of conformity to the laws of fasting, Jesus told them that He had no intention of making His movement a patch on their old garment, nor did He intend to poor His new wine in to their old skins.

Jesus did not come to be a reformer of Judaism, or to patch it up and give it new life.

He came to revolutionize the relationship between God and man in such a way that Judaism would become obsolete.

Jesus was a revolutionary, but not in the same sense that many think of it.

No Christian can condone the tactics of extremists who are violent for violence sake, and who attempt to destroy the establishment, but who offer nothing better to replace the old they seek to eliminate.

Jesus offered something new that was so much better that the old was no longer needed.

Jesus was revolutionary in the same positive way that we use the word in industry.

Many men are hired to spend all their time trying to come with something new.

They are looking for some new process, product, or technique.

They want something that will revolutionize the industry, for this kind of revolution builds, and is profitable, even if it does render the old obsolete and useless.

Harold Bosley tells of a man who perfected a new process in the manufacture of pigments.

In a twinkling of an eye he made millions of dollars of equipment in his employers plant obsolete.

Did they fire him for this radical change?

No! They made him vice president.

Even though he destroyed their old machinery just as effectively as if he would have blown them up with dynamite.

The difference between the revolutionary who blows up the plant, and the one who invents something new is that the man who comes up with something new makes it so the old is no longer needed.

The destructive revolutionary eliminates something that is still needed, for there is nothing new and better.

Men recognized the value of the revolutionary in the world of industry, for the prophets speak loud and clear, but when it comes to ideas and religious values, men are not progressive.

Moncure Conway said, "It is the darling delusion of mankind that the world is progressive in religion, toleration, freedom, as it is progressive in machinery."

It is clear to anyone who studies history or human nature that there is perpetual tension between the old and the new.

It was the greatest tension Christ faced, and also the early church, and it is still the primary cause of tension in the world today.

The old strives to grow older by making sure the new does not survive.

It is Herod killing all the babies to make sure there was no new king.

The crucifixion was the answer of the old to the new.

The Pharisees hoped that the cross would preserve the status quo, but instead it shattered the foundation beyond repair.

The supporters of the old never learned, and they continue to fight the futile battle to suppress the new.

When lady Montague brought back to England from the East the practice of inoculation she was roughly spoken to by medical men who were angry, for that practice was not in their books.

This story is repeated thousands of times in the history of new ideas.

They always have to fight for survival, because men who have lived long and well with the old ideas oppose them.

Their theme song is, "Come weal or come woe, My status is quo."

Everyone tends to fall into one of two categories: Those who strive to preserve the old, and those who struggle to promote the new.

All of history is a battle between the liberal and the conservative.

One of the most fascinating paradoxes of Scripture is that Jesus was both a liberal and a conservative.

Much Scripture supports His conservative nature.

He came not to destroy the law, but to fulfill it, and He is the same yesterday, today, and forever.

In this passage, however, Jesus is fighting the conservatives of His day, who were the hardened Pharisees bound by old tradition.

Their traditions were so strong on trivialities that they have survived even into this modern age among Hasidic Jews.

These extremely orthodox Jews, like the Pharisees, are so concerned to make sure they do not work on the Sabbath that they have invented a device called the Sabbath Watcher.

You switch it on before the Sabbath and it turns the thermometer on and off in the refrigerator periodically so that when you open the door at an incorrect time it sets off an alarm making you guilty of work on the Sabbath.

This same ultra-conservative attitude characterizes some of the old leaders of the Catholic church.

Cardinal Ottaviani had embroidered on his robe the Latin words semper idem which mean always the same.

He was expressing the attitude that the Catholic church was right from the start, and never needs to change, for you can add nothing new to the changeless truth.

This is the attitude that Jesus fought, and was, therefore, a liberal in His philosophy of life concerning progress.

Jesus believed in the new.

He came to establish the new covenant, and to make all things new in the lives of men who received Him.

Jesus came to do radical work in men.

Paul says, "If any man in be Christ he is a new creation.

Old things are passed away and behold, all things are become new."

If conservatives in theology faced what Jesus does through the Gospel, they would realize that they, by proclaiming that Gospel, are real liberals, and the liberals are the reactionary conservatives, for they are the ones who want to make Christianity a patch on the old life.

They are the ones who spread the patch work Christian theory of getting a little religion into all areas of life.

There is nothing new about this, for it is as old as paganism, but the man who believes Christ makes all things new is as liberal and radical as they come.

He is for doing away with the old man completely.

We have a revolutionary theology, but we are not as wise as Jesus.

We do the very thing He said He would not do because it is foolish.

Let us examine these parables and learn His attitude so that we too might be wise and not foolish in how we relate the new and the old.

First consider-

I. THE PARABLE OF THE GARMENTS.

Jesus is saying that no one is so foolish as to ruin the new in order to preserve the old.

Anyone who would cut up a new garment to patch and old one is in need of some common sense.

Jesus is saying He will not link His new teaching to the old forms of Judaism, for Judaism was worn out and old, and it would be folly to ruin the new by trying to patch up the old with it.

If Jesus would have encouraged His disciples to fast, wash their hands ceremonially, and keep all the Sabbath laws as did the Pharisees, He would have guaranteed that Christianity would have gone to the bottom with the sinking ship of Judaism.

Jesus is telling the Pharisees that His movement is no mere reform of the old, it is a totally new religion designed to replace Judaism.

It is a new religion of joy and a marriage atmosphere where fasting and solemn trivialities are completely out of place.

You can see why the Pharisees hated Jesus, for this was a challenge to a duel unto death.

He said they were old and worn out and obsolete, but the old does not go down without a fight.

Even after the cross some of the Apostles such as Peter had a hard time becoming disengaged from the old ways of Judaism.

So radical and new was the Gospel of grace that even its top promoters had a temptation to be reactionary, and tie Christianity to Judaism.

Christianity was a whole new garment, and not a patch on Judaism.

Jesus encouraged His disciples to defy the old traditions in order to protect the new from entanglement with the old.

A.B. Bruce wrote, "..in accustoming His disciples to disregard existing Jewish religious customs in certain particulars he was educating them for the ultimate abandonment of the whole system."

The principle that Jesus is teaching is that the new must be kept independent and free from entanglement with the old to be preserved.

If this is not done, the new becomes a mere patch on the old which ruins the new and does not improve the old.

In marriage, example, God says a man shall leave his father and mother and cleave to his wife.

Marriage is to be a whole new garment in life, but so many make it merely a new patch on the old garment.

Parents look upon their son or daughter as still basically theirs.

The marriage just adds a new patch to their old family life.

Sometimes a couple themselves feel this way.

There is no radical new life developed independent of the old, and, therefore, the best things of marriage are lost.

One of the greatest perpetual tragedies of history is the patch work theory of Christianity.

It is the theory of being religious in some areas of life make up for deficiencies in other areas.

When the Franks were baptized, whole armies went into the water at once.

Many held their right hand above the water so they could use that hand for evil, since it was not baptized.

This is the patch work type of Christian.

It is not a radical new and beautiful garment like Jesus meant it to be, but an old garment patched up.

It is a little patch of prayer, and possibly even a patch of Bible reading, with a patch of church attendance added to the old life.

The patches do not have a powerful influence, for the old is dominate.

The patch work Christian is no different than the non-Christian.