New Wine in Old Wine Skins

Todays gospel (Luke 5:33-39) we have Jesus offering an image that is lost to most of us.  The image I speak of is:

No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.
Otherwise, he will tear the new
and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.
Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wine skins.
Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins,
and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined.
Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wine skins.

Now, some sewers might understand the first part; about new cloth on old but the whole wineskin thing gets lost.  Let me explain.  With the cloth, in an age before preshrunk material the seamstress would patch the hole with new material only to have it shrink with the first wash and with that pull away from where it was patching.  Most of us can understand that.  We buy a new sweater and forget to read the washing instruction.  We throw it in the wash and when we go to put it on it fits like a sausage skin… tight and binding.  Now imagine if that sweater was attached to something that didn’t shrink. 

The wineskin is a bit more complicated.  Think of leather.  Wine skins, in the time of Christ, were made from animal skins.  Leather, when it is new and fresh has some elasticity to it… it stretches — not much but enough to deal with the gases that new wine that is still fermenting gives off.  Old wine skins or old leather is stiff and brittle, has very little give to it.  So, when new wine is poured into it, as it gives off gas there is no where for it to go and the wineskin bursts… just like an over extended balloon.  Now does that make sense?

Lets take it a step further.  This parable is placed in the midst of Jesus being challenged because they are not keeping the traditional fasts.  His response is:  “Can you make the wedding guests fast
while the bridegroom is with them?”  He is of course referring to himself as the bridegroom and the period of his life as being the time of the wedding feast.  He is challenging the Pharisees, the learned men of the synagogue, to realize that a new time has arrived; a new way to live has come.

Our faith, our choice to live out Gospel values means that we must do more then just patch our old ways of being and doing things.  If we do not reform our lives completely then there will be tearing and great holes are created that we don’t know what to do with.  Another way to look at it is to imagine trying to be different people in different situations.  You are one way with your family and a completely different way with your friends or co-workers.  What happens when the two world collide.  Depending on how different your worlds they could end up imploding all over you.  Just like the old wine skins explode with the gas of the new wine.

Jesus ushered in a new era; a new way of looking at life and living in the world.  For those who are raised with values of fair play; common courtesy and kindness to others there may not be much difference as they take on a Christian life.  But all of us at some point are challenged with realizing that the way we have handled something in the past is no longer healthy for us, no longer working for us.  As we become new wine we too must change our world; change our environment so that the process of becoming can continue in healthy and healing ways.  Just writing this blog helps me to come one more step closer to living with the decision to divorce.  My marriage was like the old wineskin.  As I admitted my problems and struggled to cope and change I became a new creation.  I invited my now ex-husband to join me in creating a new marriage (new wineskin) but he said absolutely not.  I left before I literally exploded all over everybody.

If things aren’t working for you look at what new skills, attitudes, changes you are trying to incorporate into your life are being stalemated because of old habits, environments or relationships.  Maybe in making a choice to become better it can only happen when you place this new life in a new environment. Its worth a try.  You’re worth the effort.  Stop tearing yourself apart.  I remain, your servant in Christ

Theresa

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Tags: change, failure, growth, Luke 5:33-39, new life, new wineskins, old wine

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