Word to the Wise
Friday, September 5, 2014 - Friday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 4:1-5 and Luke 5:33-39]No one pours new wine into old wineskins. Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, "The old is good." [Luke]
As I write this reflection I am on the coast of the state of Oregon with the Pacific Ocean on one side and the Cascade mountains on the other. More particularly, not far to the north of here is the Oregon wine country. My hosts enjoy good wine and so I see a good selection of the local vintages. I can't say I keep up with what has been a "good year" for this or that kind of wine or locale, but I do know that the passage of time does help some wines to "improve" or "mature." And some folks do look forward to certain kinds of "new wines," like the French Beaujolais Nouvel, etc. Clearly, Luke has Jesus commenting on the process of "bottling" (I can't say "skinning!") wine with the particular challenge of the use of animal skins to contain the wine! The image is meant to reflect the tension experienced between the "new" Christian approach to life and the "old" observance. In this case, the fasting and praying of the scribes and Pharisees is contrasted with the "eating and drinking" of the disciples of Jesus!
The Gospel of Luke was composed after the destruction of the temple, and was directed at a community that would contain gentile converts. There is a more "Mediterranean" attitude, which may explain Luke's choice of the wine image from Jesus' sayings! What, indeed, was the new community to do with "former" observances under a whole new direction in Judaism as well as a whole new direction under Jesus? The scribes and Pharisees seem to come across as "sourpusses." Jesus does say that the old wine is good wine, but he does want his "new wine" put into those old wineskins!
We have experienced some of this tension in recent years in the contrast between the last two popes. There was a clear preference for "old wine" in the pontificate of Benedict XVI. At the conclave to elect his successor, the cardinals expressed an equally clear desire for new wineskins for new wine, and the pontificate of Pope Francis has provided some startling new vintage and wineskins, both. Pope Francis' call to all the baptized to become "missionary disciples" challenges us to know the quality of the wine we are being given by Christ and to share it, old and new, with the world. It is time to "eat and drink." AMEN
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