Dr. Dale Miller, September 3, 2006

What's This Talk About Wine?

Mark 2:18-22

Jesus said, "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins; but new wine is for fresh skins."

A few years ago I read about a thirty-five-year-old man who was employed on the staff of a weekly business publication. One fall Saturday he was sitting comfortably at his desk in the pleasant surroundings of his home when he wrote the following:

"I suspect there are a good many persons like me who are irritated more than soothed by the flow of life around them. I am up against a blank wall in a sense far more real than I care to admit…It seems to me that the essential source of my trouble is a need for some unshakable conviction of the importance of living, and of the way a person should live."

Now add to that story my wedding counseling experience with Megan. Megan was a recent college graduate, intelligent and already successfully employed. She was mature, self-assured but concerned about her present, even more concerned about her future. She talked to me of her planned marriage to Phil. It was one of those conversations full of energy and enthusiasm. She caught me up short when she asked, "What keeps marriage from becoming boring, monotonous, and uninteresting?" And, of course, she wanted me to provide her a quick answer.

The question, however, is bigger and broader than marriage. It is not just, "what keeps marriage from becoming boring?" but it is also "what keeps your job, your studies, your vocation, your avocation, your friendships, your life from becoming boring?"

Recall the words of the 35-year-old man: "My trouble is a need for some unshakable conviction of the importance of living." Add to that the question of Megan: "What keeps marriage, or life, from being dull and boring?" I think God's word in the Gospel of Mark speaks to both of these concerns.

We are given an image about new wine and old wineskins, and an image about new wine and fresh wineskins. The image speaks about love and sin, about God and us and life. The wine and wineskins are symbolic. The wineskins are you and I. The wine is the life-giving, life-changing, life-renewing presence of Jesus Christ.

There are biblical scholars who would point out to us that Jesus is talking here of the gospel as the new wine. The old Jewish customs and laws and the religion of the Israelites are the old wineskins. The new wineskins are the new followers of Jesus, those who will receive and believe and live the Good News our Lord is and brings. This interpretation is mostly accurate but I think we can make this passage more personal.

I would suggest that we seem to be afraid of the wine, the Good News of Jesus Christ. At times, I am afraid. The full power and impact and force of the wine of the gospel, of the real presence of Christ, may be too much for me. So I water it down; I diminish the demands. That is what I need for this parable to be personal. "No one puts new wine into old wineskins; if s/he does, the wine will burst the skins, and the wine is lost, and so are the skins."

It is amazing to me how quickly we become old wineskins, even at the age of thirty-five, or twenty-four, or fifty-eight, or whatever age we choose. New wineskins in Jesus' day were soft and pliable and flexible; when they became old, they were hard and crusty and brittle, easy to crack and break.

Think for a moment of those areas in our lives where we are already set, fixed, rigid, immovable, impenetrable: our views of the Bible; our attitudes about the poor and the wealthy, and our approaches with the multi-racial, multi-cultural world in which we live. Sometimes we know all we want to know and do not want any new teaching to come in that may disturb what we have now. It is as if we have put on ourselves, a giant "Do Not Disturb" sign - "Do not wake up"; "Leave me alone." How quickly we become set in our ways of thinking. It is amazing to me how easily we become hard and fixed. We do not have to work at it. As a matter of fact, if we do not work at preventing it, it will happen anyhow - quietly, subtly, easily.

The late United Methodist Bishop, Calvin McConnell began one of his sermons by asking, "The dinosaur? The dinosaur? What happened? What destroyed him?" He continued by answering his own questions: "What destroyed the dinosaur? Nothing! The climate around him changed. He didn't. He died!"

How easily it is for new wineskins to become old and tough and brittle and worthless. What does the church do with a new idea, a burning concern, a passionate conviction, a fresh insight, or a bold and imaginative and creative way of doing something significant and important and helpful? The institutional church responds: "Ignore it as long as possible!" The church that seeks to be a living, breathing collection of discipleship responds: "Bring it on! Let's find out where God could be taking us."

I realize that I am painting this picture with broad-brush strokes. In actuality, while some people are hopelessly stuck in every area of their lives, other people are very open in some areas of life and very closed in others. We may be very open to new ideas but very closed to meeting new or different people. I am open to most new experiences, except for new foods!

An old story tells of a little boy who grew up far out in the country in the early 20th century. On one of the family's infrequent trips to town for supplies, he saw a poster announcing that a circus was coming to town. Never having seen a circus, he saved his money and counted the days. He was so excited on the last night that he could hardly sleep. By the crack of dawn he was on his pony riding toward town. Standing along the street in the crowd, he watched the circus parade. Amazed at the tigers, lions, and bears, his eyes grew even wider as he saw the elephants, acrobats, jugglers, clowns, and the circus band. When the end of the passing drama came into sight, he stepped out of the crowd, handed the money he had saved to the last marcher, got on his pony, and rode home. It wasn't until a couple of years later that he realized he had missed the main event in the big top. He had gone to see the circus but had only watched the parade. In this case, the boy wasn't against something new happening in his life; he just wasn't ready for all the new experience could bring to him.

In all probability, most of us live lives partly closed and partly open, partly taking a chance and partly holding on to what is comfortable. You may have noticed the sign in front of our church this morning. It reads: "Change is inevitable, Growth is optional." If we were like old wineskins, we would break and fall apart before we would accept and live with change or newness.

Two conclusions, I think, can be drawn as one reads this parable of Jesus. One, we are not to mix the old with the new. And if we do, be prepared for the consequences. Two, we do not pass judgment on either the old or the new.

The word "judgment" is very important. We do tend to pass judgment, and whether it is new judging old, or old judging new, usually depends on who is in which category. Whichever side we are on, we tend to think that is the right and proper, the best and appropriate side. We would best follow the example of Jesus here, however: he did not judge the old wine or old wineskins, the new wine or fresh skins. He simply said new wine would not work, except in fresh skins.

How, then, do we keep marriage or family life or school or work or friendships or life from becoming boring? I have a quick word for us, as to how we can be fresh skins, ready to receive new wine. First, we can hear the new wine of Christ in the fresh sounds of our lives.

Archibald Rutledge writes in Life's Extras:

There are very few sounds in the natural world that are harsh. Even the massive rolling of thunder has about it something of solemn beauty. In anthems the sea rolls on the beach; and in the sunny shallows there are water-harps forever making melodies. The wind is a chorister. Many a wild bird can warble like an aerial rivuley. The world is really a melodious place, full of soft sounds and harmony.

The sounds we hear from one another - a sob, a laugh, a sigh, a tender word, a joke, a cry of help, of peace, of love - all these may be God's effervescent wine of life being offered to the wineskins of our very souls. Will we be fresh and receptive to hear the sounds of life?

We will also be able to see the new wine of Christ through the fresh insights of our eyes: the beauty of a flower, or the splendor of a storm; dreams that come in the midst of rest and ease, the dreams that erase old hurts and failures and start a kind of healing, dreams that make us better for our having seen them.

Fresh sights of life can be seen by any of us, at any age, if Jesus Christ comes alive in us - as we work and dream, suffer and hope, love and live, pray and play, grieve and wonder. It is just as true today as it was in Jesus' day; those who have eyes to see can really see.

We can also be fresh wineskins for the new wine of Christ in the totality of our lives. We can receive the wine into lives that are open, desperate, hurting, ready, caring, fresh, pliable, flexible, tender, sensitive, willing, or real. Receive the loving Christ into all of your life; let his love and presence and grace fill up the wineskins of your life all the way. That is what I need today. How about you?

Let us be renewed. Then we can sing and live a song of life to which these words call us:

Mend a quarrel. Seek out a forgotten friend.
Dismiss suspicion and replace it with trust.
Write a love letter. Share a treasure.
Give a soft answer. Encourage youth.
Manifest your loyalty in word and deed.
Keep a promise. Find the time.
Forego a grudge. Forgive an enemy. Listen.
Apologize, even if you were right.
Try to understand. Flout envy.
Examine your demands on others.
Think first of someone else.
Appreciate. Be kind; be gentle.
Laugh a little. Laugh a little more.
Take up arms against malice.
Deserve confidence. Abandon complacency.
Express your gratitude. Welcome a stranger.
Gladden the heart of a child.
Take pleasure in the beauty and the wonder of the earth.
Speak your love. Speak it again…
Speak it still once again.
Life is a celebration!

Jesus was so smart. If he told people they had to change, they would have resisted. He knew that change is greatly disturbing when it is done to us. Instead, he told a story. He also knew that when change is done by us, it is a life-giving joy. When we decide to be open to the wine of Christ's new and life-giving Spirit, God will speak a word too absurd to be anything but true, a word of unconditional love and grace, new wine in fresh skins for you and me. Amen.