New wine

Matthew 9:16-17 is where we find our next parable. It speaks of sewing, cloth, wine and bottles. By now, I sincerely hope that all of us know that the language of a parable is symbolic. Parables are not merely quaint; parables use what we already understand to help us understand things we don't understand – things we're not even thinking about.

I bundle myself tightly in my work. I sit in an easy chair with my computer in front of me, my legs up, and a mouse and keyboard in my lap. It takes about a minute if I need to get up or reach something. Sometimes, what I need to reach is frustratingly just out of reach. Fortunately, I have a back scratcher sitting on my portable office nearby. It is about a foot long, and with it I can easily extend my reach.

Those things that are taught in a parable are just out of reach. The parable is a tool that extends our reach – so when Christ tells us about sewing a new piece of cloth onto an old garment, he is speaking of a common problem that many of us are already acquainted with. We, then, become equipped to reach the higher spiritual problem he wants us to pick up.

He tells us the same thing a second time using a variant, but still common problem: putting new wine into old bottles. There is a problem in both of these scenarios. It is a problem that hinges on the difference between success and failure.

What is the meaning of putting new cloth on an old garment? Firstly, it is an attempt at repairing a problem – it is a cheap fix realized through chewing gum and paperclips. The problem not only remains unresolved, it actually gets quite bad. In the illustration, the rent is made worse: the breach opens wider, and the new cloth is lost. Loss, here, is the point. Had an old piece of cloth been used, and the tear opened again, both fabrics were suitable as they were both already closer to loss than the new.

The old garment must run its course. It is meant to be lost. Old can never be made new – but new can be preserved. Adding new to old in an attempted rescue is a waste of the new. It is like casting pearls before swine. Then, there is the wine. Some cheap souls might attempt to reuse an old wine bottle, but the pressure of the new will always prove to powerful. As the Luke 5:37 variant of the parable goes: “the new wine will burst the bottles, and be spilled, and the bottles shall perish.”

New goes in new, and both are preserved. Meaning: a thing is meant to reach its end; it cannot be unnaturally preserved past its time and purpose. However, it may be renewed, by which I mean something new is spawned from the old. Something new is made to replace the old. Saving is not about the old garment, but about the type of it. Life, and eternity is not about dragging the old bottles along. Its about something totally new, and totally different.

There is a contention between success and failure – between the new and old. Success is keyed into the new and failure is keyed into the old. We naturally want to patch our favorite old jeans. Luke 5:39 tells us that our very nature strives to hang on to the old, the dear, the comforting – what we have had for so long, and invested so much of ourselves into. Any one who has tasted the old wine, will resist the new, and say the old is better.

So then, that spiritual problem just out of reach. Let us extend our reach, and take hold of it. Christ is a messenger with a new message. To put it in the old invites certain failure. Christ is life communicating life –how then can we hope to make it fit in a thing that must perish? If sight for the blind is preached, it must be preached to seeing eyes. That is the paradox. The definition is this: a way is opened only to those who are open to the way. New light for new eyes, a new message for new ears, new life for a new body. Salvation is that way. What will you make of it, failure or success?