Old Wine into New Wineskins

One of my favorite things to do these days is to visit the new wineries that have sprung up like weeds in the Hill Country of Texas. Nothing like sitting out on a patio, enjoying the beautiful countryside, maybe listening to some local musicians, enjoying a new wine. Of course, some of these new wines are pretty dreadful, some our delicious. You never know what you're going to get when it is a "new" wine.

Jesus talked about new wine. He warned us about putting new wine in old wineskins, which might burst. He was referring to how new understandings or new teachings cannot fit in our old paradigms. We must shift our paradigms to allow for new understanding. I see his wisdom and agree, but I am also I'm struggling with understanding how something that Jesus said 2000 years ago can still be so "new" to us today.

Even in Jesus day, his teachings weren't really new. The prophets, stretching back over a thousand years had been telling the people of Israel and Judah many of the same things - love God, love your neighbor, do the right thing for the poor and the marginalized. This stuff is "old wine", not new.

I've been reading the prophets lately, ancient and modern, and there is an obvious thread of God's truth running through all of their teachings. What you are doing now is not what God had in mind for you. Elijah to Ahab - Turn away from idol worship and come back to the one true God. Amos to Israel - Quit ignoring the poor and the marginalized and seek God's economic and social justice. Dorothy Day to the capitalists - Stop exploiting your workers. Every human being is ennobled by Christ and deserves to be treated fairly and justly. Martin Luther King, Jr. to the white majority - Racism is a sin. All people, regardless of color are loved equally in the sight of God and should be accorded dignity, justice and equal treatment under the law.

The prophets can be boiled down to these essentials:
Stop worshipping idols, from Baal and fertility idols, to money, fame and power.
Love God
Love others, from the neighbor next door, to the refugee, to your enemy
All people are equal and deserve social and economic justice, regardless of color, national origin, gender or sexual identity or anything else that tries to separate us into tribes.

These teachings are not new. They are ancient. From the very beginning of our history as people of God, we have been commanded to love God, love others and treat them fairly. Jesus talked about new wine but I believe that he wasn't referring to the actual teachings, but our commitment to them. In order to follow these teachings we must become new. Our old attitudes and understandings have to be replaced with new ones. It's a paradigm shift.

I recently had a discussion with a friend about gender identity. We agreed that for us, who were raised with only two binary genders (male and female) and two sets of singular pronouns (he or she), it is difficult to wrap our heads around the idea of non-binary gender. It's hard for me to use "they" when referring to one person. But, despite any personal awkwardness, I am called to love others, to treat them as I would want to be treated, to respect the dignity of each human. So, I will try my best to be inclusive in my language. I'm updating my wineskin once again to accommodate that old, old wine of love.

Jesus was right. You can't pour new wine into old wineskins. The fermentation of the new wine will cause the old skins to burst. And, you can't try to place new ways of treating people with fairness and compassion on top of old attitudes of racism, sexism and homophobia. We must become new. We must learn to think in new ways. Our new wineskins must be strong enough to hold all of that old wine for the world.