The Problem with Wine and Wineskins Luke 5:27-39 In Luke chapter 5 we read of Jesus meeting up with a man by the name of Levi, better known as Matthew. Levi was a tax collector, just like Zacchaeus. Tax collectors were despised, especially by religious people. But nonetheless, Jesus asked Levi to be one of his disciples. Levi was so excited to get this opportunity that he threw a party in his home and invited Jesus. But he also invited a few of his not so holy friends. Luke 5:30 says, But the Pharisees and their teachers of religious law complained bitterly to Jesus disciples, Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and sinner scum like this So, let s recap on just who these tax collectors and sinners were! In Palestine at the time of Jesus, what we know as middle class was rather small. It was made up of professional people such as shopkeepers, tradesmen, fishermen, and educated people such as the Pharisees and scribes. Being a carpenter, Jesus most likely belonged to this class. Even smaller than the middle class was the upper class. This class included the very wealthy such as the aristocratic families of the Herods, the high priests in the temple, and the rich nobility that owned most of the land including the Sadducees. The majority of the people in Palestine belonged to the lower class, known as the poor. All sorts of people belonged to this class, such as labourers, weavers, stone carriers, slaves (non- Jewish person taken into slavery because of debt),orphans and widows and the unemployable (lepers, blind, the mentally ill, the crippled, etc.) Having no other means of livelihood, people with physical and mental handicaps became beggars. To this class also belonged outcasts. You could be an outcast without necessarily being poor economically. Such were tax collectors and sinners. The tax collectors were Jews who collected taxes from fellow Jews for the Roman Empire. They made their living by charging an extra amount over and above what the Romans demanded. Some of them made more than a living. They exacted any amount they could and thus became wealthy at their fellow countrymen s expense, and were considered traitors because they were collaborating with the enemy Rome. The sinners who are grouped with the tax collectors, these were not ordinary sinners. Because even the Pharisees would admit that everyone is, after all, a sinner and in need of God's mercy and forgiveness. But the sinners associated with tax collectors were in a special class. These were people who deliberately and persistently transgressed the requirements of the law.
Included in this group would be money- lenders who charged interest on loans advanced to fellow Jews. This was a clear violation of the law of God stated in Leviticus 25:36-38. Also in this group of sinners might be prostitutes who made their living by their ill- gotten gains. These were individuals who sold themselves to a life of sin in deliberate disregard of the law of God. And Jesus associated with such people at dinner parties. Later in Luke s gospel we read that the Pharisees charged Jesus with being "a glutton and a drunkard, a friend of tax collectors and sinners" (Luke 7:34). Even though Jesus belonged to the middle class, he reached out to people of the lower class. On one occasion Jesus said to some religious leaders in Jerusalem, "The tax collectors and the prostitutes are entering the kingdom of God ahead of you" (Matthew 21:31). It's not hard to see why the Pharisees and others were upset that Jesus was partying with people who were morally questionable. These individuals were profiting by disobeying the command of God and betraying their own people. They were what the Old Testament calls the wicked, unworthy to be part of the people of God. Now, if Jesus had fellowship with tax collectors and sinners in order to preach to them, the Pharisees would not have fussed. After all, who would have objected that tax collectors and sinners were turning away from their sinful lifestyle, making restitution, and seeking to put their lives right? The Pharisees certainly believed that God offered forgiveness when sinners repented. But what infuriated the Pharisees was that Jesus was not explicitly or directly asking tax collectors and sinners to do any of this. Some of them no doubt did repent, such as Levi (Luke 5:28). But Jesus seems to have accepted them as they were and was freely having dinner with them without requiring that they first clean up their lives. Of course, Jesus did have a message to proclaim to them. But his message was not, "Straighten up your life and keep the law." Rather, his message was, "The kingdom of God is yours; you are included." By eating with them, he was extending to them the kingdom of God. And Jesus answers the Pharisees criticism of his company, Healthy people don t need a doctor sick people do. I have come to call sinners to turn from their sins, not to spend my time with those who think they are already good enough. (Luke 5:30-32). Mark Twain once said, After having spent a lot of time with religious people I understand why Jesus preferred to spend time with tax collectors and sinners. Their problem came in understanding why Jesus didn t push his disciples to fast and pray more. They said, John s disciples often fast and pray and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking. (Luke 5:33, NIV) Fasting in the Old Testament is associated with mourning, sadness and sorrow.
Fasting means to abstain to stop doing something, and on certain days Jews abstained from eating, drinking, bathing, anointing themselves with oil, wearing sandals and having sexual intercourse. They fasted from these things, they abstained from these things. But, actually there was only one fast declared by God in Judaism. Yom Kippur, the Day of Atonement, the holiest of days. Pretty soon however, one fast was not enough and the Jews brought in more fasts. They held national fasts, a morning fast and an evening fast, and very soon their religion became a series of fasts, a series of rules concerning what they were not allowed to do. As he often did, Jesus responded to their question with a question of his own. He said, Do wedding guests fast while celebrating with the groom? Someday he will be taken away from them, and then they will fast. (Luke 5:34, NLT). In essence Jesus was saying, I m not here long and while I m here we ve got a lot to do. There will come a time in the not too distant future in which my disciples will fast but now s not the time It was at this point that Jesus had heard enough. These religious people were failing to get the picture and so he starts into one of his parables. He actually tells two, we re going to focus on the second. It s recorded in Luke 5:37. Jesus says and remember, he s speaking to a group of religious people, 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. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, The old is better. (Luke 5:37-39, NIV) Jesus is communicating in word pictures here. To understand the parable of the wineskins more fully, there are four items that we need to identify. 1. The Old Wine 2. The Old Wineskins 3. The New Wine 4. The New Wineskins. Firstly, the Old Wine Jesus is referring to the old covenant that God made with his people as found in the Old Testament with particular emphasis to obeying the law to show their faithfulness to God. Secondly, the old wineskin would be the traditions and practice relating to the Old Covenant. This would include a system of meetings they had in what we know as synagogues where they enjoyed fellowship and Bible teaching based around a system of rules, such as the multiple fastings,
Thirdly, the new wine refers to God s later plan of salvation through Jesus Christ. From then on God had established a new covenant when all people everywhere were to be given the opportunity to enter into a heart and soul connection with God, not based on rules and regulations so that only the good would enter heaven, but based on grace, giving all people who want it, a chance to receive for themselves a new beginning in Christ, no matter what they had done, including the gentiles, the sinners, the tax gatherers and the prostitutes. Therefore the new wine would have a much greater emphasis on sharing God s love with others, especially with those who don t know God. You don t see that emphasis much at all in the Old Testament. But in the New Testament we are told to go out into all the world, and share the love of God in Christ with others. Lastly, the wineskins this is any container that can contain and express fully the new wine that God has given in Christ and His Kingdom. And by using this parable, Jesus is telling the Pharisees that he is the new wine and They were trying to fit him into their old wineskin. You know, sometimes I think we are guilty of spilling wine on ourselves because we try to fit Jesus in a box. But Jesus and his church can t be contained in a box. They can t be held down by traditions and lifeless rituals. Jesus is fresh and new every day and he wants to pour his new wine into new wineskins we just have to be ready and flexible to collect that wine. If we allow our religion and our relationship with him to become stale and brittle we will not be able to contain him, the wine of the gospel is lost. And what Christ is saying is that we have some new wine here and we are not going to put this new wine into old wineskins. No, says Jesus, Read verses 38/39. Jesus is referring to the issue of change, and it has a negative connotation on human nature, particularly in verse 39 where he says that someone who has drunk the old wine doesn t want to try the new. There is something about human nature, that we resist change, we like to keep to the old ways, and that is very often bad news as far as God is concerned. It s bad news to people throughout the gospels, it s bad news in the book of Acts when the early Jewish Christians were being challenged by God to move out of their Jewish framework to include gentiles that is to give the non- Jews a chance to hear the gospel of Christ. They wouldn t do it! And there were huge debates and arguments about this whole issue all recorded in Acts and in some of Paul s letters.
People are resistant to change, and it seems that no- one is more resistant to change than religious people. Religious people seem the worst in this regard, and that becomes a serious barrier to what God is trying to do on earth. So, what do we do with old wineskins, repair them? Recondition them? Try to get them to do a better job? No, we need to get some new skins. This is not a revision of the old, God is doing a new thing and we need new wineskins to contain and use this new wine so that others can benefit, without spilling it all over the floor and losing the new wine altogether. In Jesus day that new wineskin was the early church. What Jesus was doing was not a patch for the old the new wine can t just mix nicely with the old wine, it just does not mix well. You cannot mix the grace of the gospel of Christ with the legalism of the Jewish religion. Judaism at the time of Jesus was so legalistic it was almost like the law of karma that you find in the eastern religions of Buddhism and Hinduism. Grace and legalism don t mix it is as different as chalk and cheese, water and oil. But I think we can extend this principle, because although it was a problem in the day of Jesus, it can still be a problem in our day too, namely that we create forms and structures through which the new wine, that is the gospel of Christ is communicated this would amount to church traditions in the various approaches that different denominations might have. Unfortunately many of the different forms of tradition that have been created not only are not prescribed in the Bible, but much worse than that may actually create a new barrier to what God is trying to do. Some of these traditions may have been good in their day, but over time have changed to become a poor wineskin for the gospel of Christ. This could be from the religious language that is used, the songs that are sung, a form of outdated liturgy, the way church buildings are used, the way a church building is decorated, anything we do which is a blockage to the gospel can be considered an old wineskin, and that becomes a serious matter when the wine is spilling on the floor and wasted, because the wine is what God wants to do. People, not being reached with the love of God that s really the heart of the issue.
When we see this wine being spilt over the floor, it s a metaphor for God saying What I want to do is to reach the world with my love. The Bible says that,god was reconciling the world to himself in Christ, not counting people s sins against them, and that he has committed to us the message of reconciliation we are to continue that work, but while we are still using these old wineskins, that work is not progressing and people are not being reconciled to God. In my experience I have found that there are some people who like the old wineskins more than they do the new wine. They love their old wineskins, and to be spiritual as far as they are concerned is to go back to the old ways, the old hymns, the old ways of thinking about God. In some people s minds, if it is old, it is better and the new wine is never tasted because they think that we can t do things a different way because it has never been done that way before. What s wrong with the old ways! And, God has a terrible time convincing even his true followers that change is an essential and never- ending need in the church. Research has shown that the chief reasons for resisting change in church are any one or a combination of the following reasons. (Maxwell 1993:49-54) 1. Change is not self- initiated 2. Routine is disrupted 3. Fear of the unknown 4. The purpose of change is unclear 5. Fear of failure 6. The rewards for change do not outweigh the effort to bring change about 7. Being comfortable with the way things are 8. Negative thinking 9. Lack of respect for the Church leadership 10. The belief that change means personal loss 11. Change means more commitment 12. Being narrow- minded 13. Holding on to tradition But what if the change that the leaders are asking for is wrong? Should we just blindly follow? To this, I answer that change will always lead to errors and problems from time to time. The severity of the problems have to be weighed over time when evaluating the wisdom of given leaders. However, anyone who wants an error- proof system is also insisting on a change- proof system. But as soon as we refuse to take chances, we are also refusing to follow God. God is in the change business whether that is changing individuals like me and you, or changing churches. God is a God of new things, the Bible says He has made us new creations, given us new hearts, a new covenant, we are headed toward a new Jerusalem, and eventually a new heaven and a new earth. And God needs wineskins that are continually flexible enough for the new wine.
Not all change leads to growth, but without change the church will never grow. Not all change leads to improvement, but without change, improvement is impossible. What is wrong with leaders who call for change all the time? Nothing at all! There will never be a time when substantial and even sweeping changes will not be necessary. When we feel dismayed and upset by leaders perennially calling for change, we are subconsciously thinking, "If we made the right decisions in the first place, we wouldn't have to change." But this simply isn't true. No decision is so correct that it removes the need for subsequent change. With culture and the church's membership constantly changing, that which was right one decade will likely be wrong the next decade. A church that cannot change, even in deep ways, has erected an idol which offends the character of God. Jesus said, "You have a fine way of setting aside the commands of God in order to observe your own traditions!" (Mark 7:9) In our fleshly efforts to control our environment- - to derive a false sense of security from the "sameness" of our surroundings, we have put our personal comfort ahead of the needs of lost people outside the church. God is not pleased, and he will move on to find another group that is willing to change to do his bidding. As we move forward into a refurbished building, a re- focussing on the ministry with new ways of reaching out in mission, no one is suggesting we will always get it right. Certainly, we must be vigilant. But we must also change- - and after all the nuisance of this change, no doubt God will call us to change yet again. Let me suggest some ways for us to handle change: 1. Don t live in denial. We need to learn to accept that constant change is here to stay, and we need to be ready to commit ourselves to the new role change will demand of us. 2. Do not be angry at change an angry spirit will destroy your potential and cause you to behave in an irrational way and destructive actions and decisions. The Pharisees and Teachers of the Law responded with anger at the change that was being brought about by Christ s teaching, and they totally missed the Messiah. 3. Adapt to change and participate in the process instead of fighting the hand of God (acts 5:39). Embrace the work of God in your life and do not withdraw from the purposes of God. What God did yesterday was good! However, what He has planned for today is even better. And what he has planned for the future will not be understood. What He wanted to do through us yesterday may not be what He wants to do through us today We need to ask ourselves What are the structures of my old ways that are incompatible with God s New Ways?
When we read about the protest of the Pharisees, we are quick to condemn them and to side with Jesus. But if Jesus were physically present in our world today, would we as church people be comfortable if he spent his time with cheats and swindlers, sexually deviant individuals, gays and lesbians? Would we not be infuriated if he constantly went to their dinner parties and didn't come to ours? Listen God is doing new things among us! The knowledge we had yesterday was OK but the new revelations of today are better! The way we did church yesterday was good but we need new wineskins for a new generation of people. Let me ask you? Are you satisfied with what you were like in days gone past? No, a thousand times no, with God s help we can be a growing people. We are beginning to see breakthrough with the fruits of our labour on several fronts but we are really scratching the surface in serving and loving the people of Plymouth and beyond. Geoff, with the total backing of the Eldership has laid out the vision for this church at this time. We believe that in Restoring the Building, in re- focusing the ministry and in reaching out to others is the new wine for this time and culture. It is time for us to move on as individuals and as a church, to move forward in God in order to make an impact on this generation for Christ.