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Jesus said, “No one puts new wine into old wineskins; otherwise, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but one puts new wine into fresh wineskins” (Mark 2:22).
Jesus constantly overturned the status quo. Jesus relished broadening boundaries to include those on the margins of society, faithfully upsetting religious leaders. He healed on the Sabbath, talked with gentile women, touched lepers, liberated the poor, ate with sinners and spoke truth to power.
He was not the kind of Messiah the people expected. Our Jesus astounded people through his revolutionary teachings and unbelievable reversals. He proclaimed that in order to be the greatest, one must become the least. Jesus also insisted the first must be last and whoever desires to save her life must first lose it. Just imagine how stunned the original hearers must have been. Jesus came into their lives and upended nearly every facet of society. Jesus comes to us today with similar challenges. Reevaluating long-held beliefs often inspires profound transformation. After all, radical renewal is part of our theological DNA.
This message is excerpted from “Checked baggage” by Angela T. Khabeb from the July 29, 2016, faith reflection in Cafe online magazine.