Word to the Wise
Friday, September 7, 2018 - Friday in the 22th Week in Ordinary Time
[1 Cor 4:1-5 and Luke 5:33-39]"No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one. Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak. Likewise, 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. Rahter, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins. And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, 'The old is good.'"
The scribes and Pharisees were devotees of the old wine of the Mosaic Law. Jesus was bringing a new wine. Once the old wine was consumed, the wine skins could not be used for the new. New skins were necessary. The early Christian community had to develop new "wine skins" to meet the challenges of new membership from non-Jewish backgrounds. The old skins were unsuitable for the new wine.
This challenge continues in our own day. How do we preach the gospel of Jesus Christ to a culture that can no longer fit in the old wine skins, no matter how good the old wine was? In order for new wine to mature, it has to sit in its own skins for a long time, just as the older wine did. The Second Vatican Council took place barely fifty years ago. That is not a long time in Christian history, and despite advances in communications and science and theology, the human faithful are still coming to terms with it. New wine takes time, just as the old wine did.
Jesus' images in the Gospel According to Luke will challenge us to imagine our own lives in their light. Pour a glass of old wine or new and think about it. AMEN