Reflection on Genesis 12:1-9; & Matthew 9:9-17
by Joy Kingsbury-Aitken,
“Is this a Time for New Wine in New Wineskins?”
Periodically God begins a new thing in the world. Such was the case when Abraham joined other members of his family in their migration north westward from the Sumerian city in Ur in what today is southern Iraq to Haran in what today is eastern Türkiye (Turkey), and who after his father’s death continued his journey south into the land of Canaan in the company of his nephew Lot and their entourage. Haran like Ur was a cult centre of the moon-god Sin. Abraham’s family were probably devotees of this deity, and Abraham may have perceived the God entering into a covenant relationship with him to be a new revelation of his family’s god rather than an unfamiliar divine being. That four centuries later the Israelites retained memories of the moon-god Sin is evident in the account of the golden calf apostasy at Mount Sinai. Why choose a bull calf to represent the god who had brought them out of Egypt? Probably because a bull with curved horns that formed a crescent shape like a horizontal new moon, which is the form the increasing moon takes when viewed from the latitudes of southern Mesopotamia,[1] was the cultic symbol of the moon-god Sin, and that the Israelites had not as yet distinguished between him and Yahweh. After all they measured the passing of time by the moon, each month of their calendar beginning at a new moon, and the most important festivals (Passover and Booths) occurring at the full moon, they had just journeyed through the wilderness of Sin on their way to Sinai, a mountain that was probably volcanic and possibly associated with the lunar deity,[2] and as God said to Moses, “I appeared to Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob as God Almighty, but by my name The LORD I did not make myself known to them.” God’s revelation of his name to Moses had only recently happened and was probably not yet well established.[3] God had begun a new thing, but so far the Israelites had failed to get with the programme.
The Bible’s gradual disclosing of who and what God is begins with the story of God’s covenant with Abraham and culminates with the life, teaching, crucifixion and resurrection of the fully human, fully divine man Jesus. We read the Hebrew Scriptures through the lens of the New Testament in order to fully understand the lessons God has preserved for us in the ancient texts, and we read with a perspective and knowledge not available to the patriarchs and matriarchs whose stories are recorded in scripture. For example, Abraham could not have made the distinction we make between pagan deities and the God of Jesus because the concept of paganism didn’t exist in Abraham’s day and we had to wait until the incarnation before we could know about the Father, Son and Holy Spirit of the Triune God. As Jesus said, “No one knows the Father except the Son and anyone to whom the Son chooses to reveal him.”[4]
God began a new thing when God delivered Abraham’s descendants out of Egyptian bondage and transformed them into a holy nation, with a law to guide them into living in harmony with equity, and a tabernacle and later a temple to be a place of national worship. God began to do a new thing when Jesus called twelve young men to be disciples. Today’s gospel reading tells the story of his calling of one of them, Matthew, and the dinner Jesus enjoyed with Matthew and some of his disreputable friends immediately afterwards. Normally a rabbi was chosen by his pupils, but Jesus did the choosing, and he chose something of a rag tag bunch. They weren’t Torah scholars or from the elite class who were the movers and shakers in society. Rather Simon Peter, Andrew, James and John were fishermen, as probably were Bartholomew (also known as Nathanael) and Philip. Matthew operated a toll booth. The other five likely each plied a trade of some sort before being invited to become students of an itinerant rabbi. From such unpromising beginnings came a global movement. God began to do a new thing at Pentecost, with the establishment of the Church, and God began a new thing when God called Paul to be the apostle to the Gentiles.
Is God beginning a new thing in our time? Prior to the Enlightenment, faith and science were not in opposition. As C. S. Lewis explained, people “became scientists because they expected law in nature, and they expected law in nature because they believed in a legislator.”[5] However, in the 19th century, when the writings of people like Charles Darwin, Sigmund Freud, and Thomas Huxley became widely accepted, religious scepticism began to prevail in western culture, compounded by the disillusionment with institutions arising from the horrors of two world wars. Now, as our understanding of the complexity of creation grows exponentially, many scientists are being confronted with metaphysical questions for which there can be no materialistic explanations. As early as 1978, astrophysicist and NASA scientist Robert Jastrow, who was a lifelong religious agnostic, wrote: “For the scientist who has lived by his faith in the power of reason, the story ends like a bad dream. He has scaled the mountains of ignorance; he is about to conquer the highest peak; as he pulls himself over the final rock, he is greeted by a band of theologians who have been sitting there for centuries.”[6] It seems Friedrich Nietzsche was somewhat premature in saying, “God is dead. God will remain dead. And we killed him?” He was, of course, referring metaphorically to the abandonment of the faith that underpins western morality. Yet that morality persists in spite of society’s agnosticism. The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is, for example, a reflection of the Judeo-Christian teaching that all humans are made in the image of God and thus are of great and equal value.[7]
For us Christians, who have struggled to find our place in a post-Christian, secular world, the suggestion that God is coming back into vogue is very encouraging. Matthew Arnold in his poem “Dover Beach”, published in 1867, speaks of the “melancholy, long, withdrawing roar” of the sea of faith, as though the tide would never turn. Perhaps it’s beginning to do so, which has implications for our future as a congregation. We have always been outwardly focused. We have witnessed to Jesus and his gospel by giving generously of our time, talents, and resources to people outside the church. Our lives have positively impacted the lives of those we have served. This way of being missional is our “old wine,” which has been and still is very good wine indeed, but do we need to learn new ways of preaching the gospel to reach new people.
Has the season arrived for a new harvest to be brought in, and new wine to be made from fresh grapes? Jesus’ response to the questioning of John’s disciples was that the religious culture they and the Pharisees had in common was not compatible with the new thing God was doing through him. Jesus didn’t tell the disciples of John that they should stop fasting. He said, instead, that the time for fasting had not yet arrived for his disciples. During autumn I read Tom Holland’s massive book Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, which is the story of Christianity’s impact on western thinking. What Holland demonstrates is that each time Christianity has had a huge impact, Christians have believed they were living in “an age of divinely ordained transformation.”[8] In other words, they perceived that God was doing a new thing.
Earlier I asked, is God beginning to do a new thing in our time? Is this a time for new wine in new wineskins that can withstand the pressure of the fermentation process? If the answer is yes, rather that cling to the past like the Israelites at Mount Sinai, we should participate in God’s new thing, in spite of how challenging it will be for us. We know how to live the gospel by meeting the physical needs of people outside the church. We aren’t as equipped to proclaim and explain the gospel to them. We should realise, however, that attempting to grow the church through our own efforts will not only fail, but will leave us exhausted and discouraged. We should remember that God alone calls people to faith. Even so, we have a vital responsibility to fulfil. If we do nothing, nothing will be the result. We recall that Jesus said, “The harvest is plentiful, but the labourers are few; therefore ask the Lord of the harvest to send out labourers into his harvest.”[9] It appears that our role is to gather into God’s barn the crop that God has already prepared for harvesting, and clearly before we begin such a task we must pray. While like me you may not know how to proselytise effectively, we all know how to pray. So we should ask God to teach us how to reap what God has grown. Every church member, not just those in church leadership, can participate in the Church’s prayer for divine direction. Imagine what this congregation might be like in 2027 if each of us every day for the remainder of 2026 asked God to bless and grow The Village. Christianity appears on the cusp of becoming confident again. The future of the Church is potentially very bright. Young people in particular are desiring connection and seeking meaning, which is what the Church offers. Let’s make that known, and let’s seek God’s guidance in how to effectively invite them and others into this worshipful community and make them feel valued. Amen.
[1] Therese Ghembaza, Under the Sign of the Moon: Sin the God of Abraham, Yah the God of Moses, https://www.academia.edu/45006368/Under_the_sign_of_the_Moon_Sin_the_god_of_Abraham_Yah_the_god_of_Moses
[2]Exodus 16:1; 19:2, see Science and the Miracles of Exodus, by Colin Humphreys. https://www.academia.edu/75936355/Science_and_the_Miracles_of_Exodus
[3] Exodus 6:3, compare with Exodus 3:13-15
[4] Matthew 11:27
[5] C.S. Lewis, Miracles: A Preliminary Study, page 106
[6] Robert Jastrow, God and the Astronomers, page 116
[7] Genesis 1:27; Galatians 3:28 – See Tom Holland, Dominion: The Making of the Western Mind, pages 521-522
[8] Holland, page 173
[9] Matthew 9:37