"NEW WINE - OLD WINESKINS"


Christ the Lord is risen! Death has been defeated! The grave has lost its grip! The power of sin is broken! Hope is reborn! Life is eternal! Love is invincible! Thanks be to God for His inexpressible gift! Christ IS risen! He is risen indeed!

Eastertide is here. Last Sunday, we worshiped and celebrated and sang about the most important event in all of human history: Christ’s victory over all the things listed above! Sin and death and evil, and the devil himself!

But now what? Were the joyful smiles and exuberant feelings on Sunday just one more emotional high to be enjoyed? Was Easter Sunday just a tender time of children and chocolate, bunnies and eggs, and a time to shed an emotional tear--with a bit of Christian tradition tossed in? Is Easter simply another excuse to busy ourselves with springtime decorating and activities? Has anything of the power and meaning of Christ’s resurrection impacted our daily lives this week? Really penetrated us and upset our “normal” outlook, attitude, and routine? Did Sunday change anything for us? How can we ever be the same after everything this incredible event did to all of creation? Read again the first paragraph above! We are to be completely transformed by the reality of the resurrection!

But is this true in our lives? Or does the grip of uncertainty, fear, and change, the need for comfort, safety, and security, and the individualistic priority of our culture rob us of the power of the resurrection to transform our lives? For in His rising from the dead, Jesus Christ makes ALL things new!

“No one sews a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. If they do, the new piece will pull away from the old, making the tear worse. And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If they do, the wine will burst the skins and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined. No, they pour new wine into new wineskins.” (Mark 2:21-22)

Recently in my Bible read-through program, these verses were part of the gospel reading for the day. What leaped out at me was the word “new;” a “new” patch of cloth and “new” wine. Which presumes that the “old” things (cloth and wineskin) are no longer servicable, relevant, or effective.

Immediately, my mind jumped to “Veritas,” the Covenant’s resource for assisting older, struggling churches to face the difficult realities they are in today and help them become “healthy” (pursuing Christ) “missional” (pursuing Christ’s priorities in the world) revitalized congregations once again. I’m serving on our Veritas Team here at Hilmar Covenant, and we are very much absorbed with these issues of “new” and “old:” tradition, change, history, new realities, familiar appreciations, fresh approaches, and difficult things like the “cost” and the “pain” that must be embraced if, indeed, we want to become a revitalized church. The question is: what, exactly, will this look like, feel like, and how will the difficult things be received and acted upon?

Everyone knows that change does not come easily for most human beings. Certainly the majority of people are threatened by change, especially when it means having to think in new ways, develop new patterns of behavior, give up familiar appreciations and habits, and attempt things that have never been tried before. Change collides with a CRASH with our deeply held American values of comfort, safety, and security, and most of us thwart with a vengeance any attempts to be changed.

(Which strikes me as particularly odd, and at odds, with the essence of our relationship with Jesus. We say He has changed our lives and that we are following Him. But then, Jesus constantly wants to move us into discomfort and insecurity in our lives so that we will rely on Him alone, not on our own capabilities and not on the world’s values. Veritas puts it this way: “Do we understand the radical nature of the message and mission of Jesus that continually deconstructs and reconstructs a person’s life?” Ouch! Why, then, do so many Christians buck change, avoid discomfort, and scramble for security instead?)

All of this is apparent in the Mark text too. Jesus’ words about “new” things--fabric and wine--come right after some interesting experiences and teachings that are recorded earlier in Mark 2. First, Jesus has called a man named Levi (Matthew), a hated tax collector for the Romans, to follow Him. Why would the Lord ever consider such a dishonest, unscrupulous person to become one of his disciples? Not only that, this rabbi, Jesus, goes to Levi’s home--and actually eats and socializes with all kinds of “sinners”! Something that broke just about every Jewish custom and religious purity code on the books! This was completely new; unheard of, and very difficult for people to understand and accept. Next, Jesus is questioned about another important religious tradition/requirement: fasting. John the Baptist’s followers fasted, and the meticulous Pharisees and their disciples adhered to this practice, but Jesus did not insist that his disciples fast. This also disturbs the religious people; the strong, committed Jewish believers who knew everything about the practice of their faith. Jesus simply isn’t complying. He is bringing not only new ideas and teachings but also new actions into play. To make His point, Jesus uses these images of fabric and wine, the point being that old ideas and ways of being just won’t work with the new realities and perspectives that He is inaugurating. The whole scenario will fall apart. Check out this commentary by noted biblical scholar, William Barclay:

“Jesus knew that he was coming with a message which was startlingly new; and he also knew that his way of life was shatteringly different from that of the orthodox rabbinic teacher. He also knew how difficult it is for the minds of people to accept and to entertain new truth. He speaks of the danger of sewing a new patch on an old garment. There comes a time when the day of patching is over and re-creating must begin. There are times when we try to patch, when what is needed is the complete abandonment of the old and the acceptance of something new.


Wine was kept in wineskins. When these skins were new they had an elasticity; as they grew old they became hard and unyielding. Jesus is pleading for a certain elasticity in our minds. It is fatally easy to become set in our ways. When our minds become fixed and settled, when they are quite unable to accept new truth and to contemplate new ways, we may be physically alive but we are mentally dead. As they grow older, almost everyone develops a constituitonal dislike of that which is new and unfamiliar. But if we are really to rise to the height of the Christian challenge, we must retain the adventurous mind.” (Daily Study Bible - The Gospel of Mark; p. 60-62)

What does all of this have to do with Hilmar Covenant, and with Veritas? A flash of insight came to me after I read these two verses from Mark. It caused me to ask the question: Will the methods, attitudes, and perceptions needed to reach “this generation” (20’s/30’s) and others in our drastically shifting culture with the gospel of Jesus be able to happen through the “old wineskin” of Hilmar Covenant? Can the new situations, conditions, understandings, needs, cultural trends, means of communication, relational realities, and myriad other factors that form people’s lives today be contained in the “old wineskin” of our church? Will the “new wine” that we as a congregation say we desire actually be able to fit into the old familiar Hilmar Covenant Church container that we know and appreciate?

It seems to me that this is just not possible. Nor is it advisable. This teaching of Jesus confirms it too. Other “critical moment” Covenant churches are facing this unsettling situation as well. The realities of today cannot be contained within the framework, structure, and nature of our churches as we have known, loved, and appreciated them for all these years. We are hitting smack up against some drastic, radical re-thinking of ourselves in ways we have never done before as congregations. The problem is, “there is pain involved with change,” which we humans tend to avoid at all cost! Even worse, “there is no resurrection without death.” The crucial question, then, is: what has to die? If we sincerely want to become revitalized “resurrected” churches, what are the habits, dynamics, expressions, attitudes, behaviors, etc. that characterize our congregations that we will have to change, give up, repent of, and let die?

What might the “new wineskin” of Hilmar Covenant look like? One that can receive the new wine of today’s realities and become a wonderfully incubating place for this new wine to ferment, mature, and become a delight to our Lord?

Perhaps the various attempts we have made in recent years to stem the declining interest, attendance, and commitment in our church has been like putting new wine into old wineskins. We have tried to make small, easy, palatable changes, expecting this alone will bring more new people into church, but at the same time we have tried desperately hard not to upset anything or offend anyone--i.e. to keep the wineskin the same.

In reality, maybe we have just been more concerned about trying to accommodate ourselves in this process, continuing to hold on to everything that we enjoy, appreciate, find meaningful and relevant--to the “church culture” that is familiar to us who have been raised within the Christian community.

If we are completely honest with ourselves, can we admit that this is, after all, what we really want to happen? That we really would prefer--even do expect--that when people come to Christ, they will “do church” as we know it? That they ought to assume our customs, our understandings and expectations (especially our definitions of a “good” or “committed” Christian), appreciate our habits and routines, accept our traditions and values, embrace what is meaningful to us, receive our patterns and beliefs, affirm our policies and procedures, and become part of the “Hilmar Covenant” culture that is customary to us--in short, the “old wineskin” of HCC? Aren’t these assumptions and unspoken preferences what lie behind the resistance and “push back” to the new understandings and ideas we have tried to teach about and implement over the past few years? We certainly do want people to follow Jesus--but we don’t want to have to re-formulate our routines and thinking and appreciations. This is simply too upsetting, too stressful, too uncomfortable. We like the “old wineskin” just the way it is. Don’t tamper with it!

Why is this? Because it means the end of things as we have known them to be at Hilmar Covenant. The schedules, the activities, our attitudes, the way we relate (or don’t relate) with one another, how we handle (or avoid) conflict, what “church” will look like, the priorities and focus of our ministry, and of our individual lives, our reputation and image (good or poor, depending on who you talk to)--all of this and more will have to shift, change, even die. This is just too much to consider. The cost is simply too big for us who are inside the safe, secure, comfortable, and familiar confines of the “old wineskin.” There is too much at stake.

It is too painful to create a “new wineskin” to receive the new wine that we say we want to fill us.

However, we can never contain this “new wine”--whatever it is going to be and look like--inside the skin that defines our church as we know it. New Christians, by and large, will have no appreciation or understanding of the format, order, and values that characterize HCC--or any other church, for that matter. Too many people today have not been brought up with the values, beliefs, and patterns that most of us in church have been raised with. Perceptions of “Church” and “Christians” and “Scripture” and other aspects of faith are skewed and negative to the majority of those who have not been raised within the Church (and, unfortunately, even by some who have been raised in the Church). Christian culture is as foreign to many of the people living around us as Muslim or Hindu or Buddhist culture is to us. How will people ever be attracted to Christ if we expect or insist that they come to Him through the ways and methods that have been customary within Christian culture; ways that have been primarily intellectual, reductionistic, and modern in approach? How will people ever come to Jesus if we expect or insist that they embrace the preferences and assumptions that are normative to us within the Church? This is like the Jewish believers in the early Church insisting that Gentile converts be circumcised and observe the sabbath in order to follow Jesus (a blog topic for another day)!

I’ve said it before: if we truly want to reach people around us today, we must begin thinking and acting like missionaries! This means letting go of all our affinities and appreciations and immersing ourselves in the context of those we say we want to reach with the gospel of Jesus Christ. It means spending time with people who “aren’t like us;” among those who are not in the Church/the faith/the “Christian bubble” that surrounds most of us. It means building relationships with people who don’t understand or even care about our values, our beliefs, our habits and routines, and who don’t understand our language. It means imitating what Jesus Himself did: spending time with “sinners!” Socializing, eating, playing, talking, enjoying life, building trust and genuine friendship with the “tax collectors” and “gentiles” and “lepers” who are all around us, in our neighborhoods, work places, schools, businesses, and so forth. It means “pursuing Christ’s priorities in the world” too. What does this mean? Not only “winning souls.” Christ Himself did not just do this. It means being deeply concerned for the poor and struggling, the confused and mixed up and depressed, acting against injustice (racism, persecution, oppression), standing up against evil issues (sex trafficking, slavery, abuse of all kinds), speaking out on behalf of those who have no one to advocate for them, seeking to help manifest the Kingdom of God “on earth as it is in heaven” until Jesus finally comes and makes all things new for eternity. It means being proactive in life, not reacting to events or resisting struggles, difficult realities, and the messiness of life.

I’m sure these are scary things to hear. These are certainly hard things to say. These issues are very emotional for people. These are challenging things to voice. The whole thing can sound so risky, critical, negative, and hopeless. However, they must be expressed! The times we are in call for “veritas!” For truth. I am simply sharing with you here how things appear to me right now, in the present, and what the implications for the future seem to be.

These can also be exciting opportunities and possibilites to entertain! Do I have the answers? No; nor does the Veritas Team at this point. There is no program or successful model or “Five Easy Steps” on becoming a “new wineskin” kind of church. Perhaps that’s why so many older churches are struggling these days. We have no book or method or guru to show us how to be “successful” in this new paradigm in which we find ourselves. In the past, we have relied on experts and models and successful trends to show us how to become dynamic and successful congregations, like those megachurches with thousands of people in them.

Now, we must simply rely on the Holy Spirit, and prayer, to show us the way forward. To release us from anything that holds us back or that hinders the Spirit’s new work. To help us grasp what exactly the “new wine” of today is, and to free us up to become a “new wineskin” that can receive this delicious fresh libation without bursting apart. To be a new garment, not an old one, to which the new patches of today’s realities can attach and not tear away, so we can shrink and expand and grow together, patch and cloth and garment, as one. A beautiful new raiment that displays the radiance of our Lord! A strong and effective wineskin full of delicious and satisfying drink that everyone will want to taste!

Am I taking the analogy too far? You decide. I’m ready to let the old garment go. I’m ready to become a new wineskin, prepared by the Holy Spirit. I pray that we can freely and intentionally, with the apostle Paul, “become all things to all people so that by all possible means (we) might save some.” (I Cor. 9:22) Easy? No. But when we decided to follow Jesus, He told us that a cross was in store for us, just as it was for Him. Perhaps this is our cross to bear, in our day, as a 107 year old congregation that truly does desire to reach people for Christ. Perhaps we are being called to “lay down our lives” (meaning the forms and habits, traditions and appreciations that have been so meaningful to us) for the greater good of helping people discover the Kingdom of God. Perhaps this is how we are to display “no greater love” and to sacrifice ourselves so others can make a break-through and discover Christ today. Perhaps in this way we can participate in the resurrection of our Lord in a brand new way, finding new life in our church as well. We can trust that this will happen.

For “Christ IS risen! He is risen INDEED!”