The Problem with New Wine

Scripture – Luke 5:33-39: 33They said to him, “John’s disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking.” 34Jesus answered, “Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast.” 36He 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. 37And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, ‘The old is better.’”

Reflection: This describes the tension we feel in the church today – in any church. The word of God is new and fresh. It bubbles up every day. And so the nature of the church is in flux all the time as we constantly are re-shaped by this “new wine.”

There’s a natural part of our human nature that prefers the “old.” What we forget is, even the most contemporary expression of church today will one day be the “old wine.” Whether we’re talking about our style of worship, our form of organization or our attitude, we look to Christ to keep transforming the old wineskins into new so we’re ready for today’s new wine.

That’s something most all of us resist. And so I can only open myself anew to Christ’s transforming work. For if I let the new wine into the old wineskins, both will be ruined.