Old Cloth

February 25

(Luke 5:36 NIV) ““He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old.””

(Matthew 9:16 NIV) "No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment, for the patch will pull away from the garment, making the tear worse.”

Before wrinkle-free, perma-press, synthetic cloth came along, garments would often shrink when washed. When clothing was torn, a patch would be sewn on to mend the garment. Sometimes the new patch would not match the old cloth very well. And if an old garment was patched with a piece of new cloth, the patch could shrink when washed, tearing the old cloth even more. In addition, a new garment would have been ruined when tearing it to make the patch for the old garment. Jesus was speaking of the Pharisees here, and everyone knew it. He was saying that they were old cloth. Trying to “patch” them with new teaching was a waste of time. As we age, we can become set in our ways, making it harder to learn new things. As we become more and more religious, we can grow resistant to change and new ideas. And if we are not careful, we can become the “old cloth”. Beware! -- Friar Tuck’s Word of the Day