Old Wine, New Wine, Good Wine; Matthew 9:14-17

What’s the difference between Episcopalians and Baptists? The Episcopalians will acknowledge the Presbyterians in the wine aisle. I enjoy a glass of wine every now and then, but I am picky. I tend to like NC native grape wines, and in my opinion, if it’s dry, it’s only good for cooking. That being said, I never want to make light of alcoholism. Alcoholism runs in both my family and my husband’s family. It has been present in every church I’ve served, with some folks admitting their problem and practicing sobriety, many having successfully achieved sobriety for a number of years, some who have openly lived with times of sobriety and times of relapse, and a few who refuse to acknowledge what everyone else knows, but no one will talk about, which is a great failure of the church. That which is brought into the light can be healed. We are called to hold one another accountable, and we are called to support one another in our struggles. Addiction is why we use grape juice instead of wine at Communion, even though we know that Jesus used real wine. Wine has played an important part in many cultures in history and still does today. It was important in Jesus’s time. These two parables are probably familiar to most of us, but I’m not sure we’ve given enough thought to what Jesus is really talking about. Too often, I think we assume that Jesus is saying the new is good and the old is bad, but I don’t think that is at all what Jesus is saying here. Jesus is saying we don’t want to lose the old or the new, but the old and the new what? How many of you grew up having patched clothes? I did my mom actually made a lot of our clothes growing up. It was cheaper than buying store bought clothes. But when it came to pants, I tended to wear out the knees riding bikes, climbing trees, and playing. Clothes are so cheap now, you can just throw old ones away and buy new ones, and then there are those who pay ridiculous amounts of money to buy the holes that wore into my clothes. If you sew an unshrunk patch over a hole or if you use a different kind of material for the patch, you find that the next holes you get are right above and right below the patch because the garment has threaded out. The patch ended up not doing a whole lot of good because you can’t keep patching the same place over and over for very long. In Jesus’s day, all clothing was of course, handmade, so you would want to be able to use a garment as long as reasonably possible. Notice that this parable doesn’t mean we should throw out the old garment. Otherwise, we’d just be left with patches. Correctly patching the old garment will preserve it so it can be useful again. The same is true with the parable of the wine and wineskins. New wine goes into the old wineskin and the old wineskin breaks, and the new wine is lost. To preserve both the wine and the wineskins new wine must be put into new wineskins. Jesus cares both about the wine and the wineskins being preserved. Note that old wine can go into new wineskins just fine. Eventually, old clothes and old wineskins do wear out, but new wineskins and new patches also eventually become old. So what is Jesus getting at? The context of these parables stems from a question about fasting that was asked not by the Pharisees, but by the disciples of John the Baptist. This questioning probably took place at the feast at Matthew’s house or just after it, which are the verses prior to today’s reading. It is quite possible that Matthew held his feast on what the Pharisees considered a fast day. John the Baptist and his disciples followed a rather ascetic life, so fasting was a practice they followed as well. Not only that, but by this time, John was in prison. It would be very appropriate for his grieving disciples to fast. Jesus does not condemn the practice of fasting at all, but He does say that it is not appropriate for His disciples to fast at this time. In fact, Jesus had already taught about fasting in the Sermon on the Mount. He preached that when you fast, fasting was an appropriate act of worship, don’t do it like the Pharisees, where you act like you are miserable just so everyone will know you are fasting, but do it in such a way that people can’t automatically tell. Wash your face, look decent, and go about your day. Now certainly there would be times when people knew you were fasting, like corporate fast days, such as the day of Atonement, but again, the emphasis was on the fact that fasting is an act of worship, a sign of repentance, not a indication that you are starving and can’t wait until you can eat again! But in this case, something new was happening, and it was so wonderful, Jesus likens it to a wedding. No one fasted during a wedding. People were coming to know Jesus. The disciples were introducing their friends and colleagues to the Bridegroom, Jesus. Then Jesus predicts His own death by saying the bridegroom would be taken away from them, and then they would fast. Fasting was an act of worship proscribed by God in the Law on the Day of Atonement. Later leaders and prophets ordered times of fasting for corporate repentance. But at the time of Jesus, the Pharisees had established a pattern of fasting twice a week. It was a new thing that had now become commonplace, but its time was up. Fasting still had its place and still in the way that God originally intended, but these rituals no longer served the people but enslaved them. When the Pharisees started this practice, I do not believe they intended to use it to enslave people. They developed practices over concern for keeping and honoring God’s Law, but over time, their ways of worship became burdensome and not meaningful. In addition, the Pharisees began looking down upon and treating differently those who did not go along with their rules. What once, perhaps, had value, served only now to divide worshippers. How often we judge people based on our own worship preferences rather than trying to understand where someone is coming from? Jesus does not criticize John’s disciples for asking the question. Matthew Henry points out in his commentary that we don’t know what someone’s devotional life is like just by looking from the outside. We must be careful not to judge based on appearances. We can ask curious, caring, and committed questions—questions that are non-judgmental, which we ask to honestly understand someone else with whom we want to develop a closer relationship, not questions that you are using to try and distance yourself from a person or group of people. Jesus values the old clothing, the old wineskins and the new wineskins. Jesus values fasting and feasting. What makes the difference is the appropriateness of the act. What is the context? Is fasting truly an act of humble worship or mere ritual? Is feasting a celebratory act of worship or mere gluttony? We need to remember that everything new becomes old. Take worship music for example. I have heard a lot of “We want to sing the old hymns.” So I pull out something from the 1400’s and inevitably I will hear, “We’ve never heard this before,” despite the fact that it is still sung in churches around the world. What they really mean, is we want to sing early 20th Century American songs, not even early American music. But that stuff was brand new at one time. I hear, “We want to sing contemporary music.” And I will pull out something from Keith and Kristen Getty, but what is really meant is “We want to sing praise choruses from the late 80’s.” New, old, it doesn’t matter to me, and it doesn’t matter to Jesus. To me, it’s important that it have solid theology and a decent sound, even if we have to learn it. To Jesus, the worshipper’s heart is what is important. Remember that Jesus did not come to abolish the Law but to fulfill it. He wanted to make evident God’s original intentions in the Law that had been lost through tradition. It took some stripping away to regain what was really intended, like cleaning the layers of dust and soot on off of an old masterpiece painting. An old reality was being expressed in new ways, but we can also use old ritual to express a new reality. Paul did not give up his Judaism when he encountered Jesus. He fulfilled a Nazarite vow and made a point of returning to Jerusalem again and again to celebrate the festivals. But Jesus was now very much a part of what Paul did. These ancient rites were all about celebrating and glorifying Jesus. Jesus values the new wine and the old wine. Jesus values new believers and long-time faithful saints. We cannot expect new and not yet believers to be “just like us.” We do need to appreciate the energy, gifts, and ideas that new believers bring. Like new wine, they are joyous and effervescent. Remember that old wine can go into new wineskins, but new wine cannot go into old wine skins. We need to remember that we are all growing and changing. The disciples were learning. They didn’t stay in the same place. Wine aficionados will tell you that aged wine is often superior. It has more depth and character. We need the wisdom and experience of those who have been walking with Jesus not simply longer than we have, but more closely than we have, and we need to keep allowing ourselves to be stretched. That means getting into some new wineskins, every now and then. The most important thing is for us to make sure that what we do is much more about honoring Jesus than our personal preferences. How do we connect with the tax collectors and sinners of our world today? What do we need to change so that we can introduce them to Jesus? What do we need to keep so that we can remain grounded in the ancient Truth?