New Wineskins
Series: Parables - Small Stories, Big Truths
Brad Bailey – June 20, 2021
Intro
Well good morning to each of you joining today...and a warm welcome to those connecting at another time. I’m excited to launch us into a NEW series and focus for this summer season. Today we are going to begin a weekly focus on the Parables of Jesus.
The parables are some of the most dynamic teachings of Jesus. And I imagine everyone has some idea what parables are. Parables are short stories... or illustrations...that capture a significant truth. Or as our series title says...they are small stories with big truths.
That’s essentially how Jesus made use of parables. In fact... so potently that it is actually where the word “parable” came into common use.
No one had bigger truths. As Jesus brought the news of a new Kingdom... of God’s Kingdom... he told some parables to capture the truth of this new Kingdom and the nature of the life that it bears. They tell us what God’s kingdom is like... how it comes... who is truly loving their neighbor.... what true righteousness and faithfulness are like.
One of the common qualities about Jesus’ parables is the brilliance in connecting things that were commonly understood...to convey spiritual truth. For example...everybody understood the position of a farmer waiting on a harvest... or what it would be like to discover a treasure on property you were working.
The Parables of Jesus use what is familiar to convey truth that is not familiar.
What Jesus brings... he brings to all... he brings for all to understand...and in the parables we see the power of connecting the most common elements in life to understand the major truths.
But... in the parables there is no sense of over-simplifying truth. Anyone could follow the story... even today we don’t need too much cultural background to have a sense of the illustration or story...but they can leave us with a wow... a whoa...or a “what ?”... and always with a sense that they speak to something significant.
A second thing for us to remember, is that...
The Parables of Jesus capture how to see, understand, and then live life.
They are more than fables that simply convey a new moral rule. We may be use to how fables are known to end stating...”So the moral of the story is...” Each of Jesus’ parables does have a similar sense of a truth to be grasped...but they are not merely “morals” in the strict sense. Jesus is not just adding new moral rules... he is explaining how to see and live life.
And so the Parables of Jesus have captured the minds of all who hear them. We can hear some referred to across all of western civilization. It’s not uncommon to hear people refer to the “good Samaritan” or the “prodigal son.” So there are some that may be familiar...and some less familiar if one hasn’t read the Gospels in full. In total... there are about 40 parables known from Jesus... and this summer...each week we will focus on one of 10.
And today we head right in with one engaging a moment early in the ministry of Jesus in which we see growing confusion and conflict... to which Jesus provides an explanation that involves a parable.
Like all of the Bible... if we want to understand what is being said...it’s important to know what is happening... it’s important to see the larger context of what’s being responded to. And we get a great example here... in the Gospel of Luke... one of the accounts drawn from those directly engaged with Jesus. [1] So lets engage the Gospel of Luke... chapter 5... verses 27-39.
Luke 5:27-39
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance." 33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." 34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast." 36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins. 39 And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'"
ON SCREEN – NOW SHIFT TO:
Luke 5:27-32
After this, Jesus went out and saw a tax collector by the name of Levi sitting at his tax booth. "Follow me," Jesus said to him, 28 and Levi got up, left everything and followed him. 29 Then Levi held a great banquet for Jesus at his house, and a large crowd of tax collectors and others were eating with them. 30 But the Pharisees and the teachers of the law who belonged to their sect complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" 31 Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. 32 I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
Let’s connect to the conflict that’s arising. Jesus... deemed a new rabbi type figure... has just called a tax collector to be one of his disciples... his life students. This was a wildly bold move for a person who was gaining respect throughout Judea as a great Rabbi and Teacher. Rabbis would only pick those who had been immersed in the teachings of respected rabbinic views...and whose moral reputation was respected by the whole religious leadership. Jesus was choosing simple working lives... like fishermen... who dropped out of religious school long ago. And now he chooses a tax collector... someone deemed a traitor by his fellow Jewish lives. If that’s not crazy enough... this tax collector Levi decides it’s a great occasion to throw a party... and Jesus is right there in the middle of it.
Imagine, such a party... eating and drinking ...and in the midst of it reclines the Master and his disciples. On the periphery of the scene are the Pharisees and several disciples of John the Baptist who had prepared the way for Jesus.
They become so perplexed so they “complained to his disciples, "Why do you eat and drink with tax collectors and 'sinners'?" Jesus answered them, "It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick. I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners to repentance."
We get the gist of the response. God has called sinners to repent...so why not choose those who are clearly sinners. But he is declaring a very different paradigm altogether than was common. They had developed a way of seeing the world as divided between good and bad people. Jesus saw the whole world as sinners who needed forgiveness...and restoration...and the only division was between those who grasped that need and those who turned away from it. What is at hand is not the presence of another divider... but the one who can heal all who know they are sick.
SHIFT ON SCREEN TO...
Luke 5:33-35
33 They said to him, "John's disciples often fast and pray, and so do the disciples of the Pharisees, but yours go on eating and drinking." 34 Jesus answered, "Can you make the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is with them? 35 But the time will come when the bridegroom will be taken from them; in those days they will fast."
As the meal progresses, the Pharisees began to ask Jesus’ disciples some questions such as, "How often do you fast?" The disciples are unable to answer with their mouths full, so they shrug and look at Jesus.
Why were his disciples .... his followers ...not fasting like the other disciples. [2] You may recall how the religious leaders regularly raise problems with what Jesus and his disciples did on the Sabbath... a day which had become heavily regulated. And now they don’t see the usual degree of fasting. To be clear... Jesus embraced the significance of both the Sabbath....and of fasting...but they were a means beyond themselves... and his presence changes the role they play. And here Jesus takes things to a whole other level....as he speaks of them having the bridegroom with them.
Jesus asked what we call a rhetorical question, that is an obvious question with an obvious answer. “How can the guests of the bridegroom fast while he is still with them?” [3] The answer is obvious. They can’t. Fasting was a fitting practice ... it was part of the somber and sober call to sorrow and self-denial. There were times for such soberness...and times for celebration...and no time of celebration was greater than when the bridegroom comes to wedding. Jewish weddings were particularly joyous occasions. Celebrations could last up to a week, and fasting was unthinkable, since fasting was associated with sorrow. Jesus is equating his presence with such a time. And in doing so... he is saying something striking. For God had spoken of himself as Israel’s bridegroom. God had been in a covenant relation with Israel. Jesus is saying that he has come as the bridegroom of God. It’s similar to when he declared forgiveness of sins... something else that represents the position of God. So the identity and nature of Jesus is emerging in a radical way. He had been identified as God’s Son... anointed by God’s Spirit. And now he is identifying that the purpose and prerogatives of God are present in his presence. So what was Jesus saying by all this? Jesus is saying that he is the bridegroom! He is the one that Israel has been waiting for all these years.
And he now chooses to convey the larger truth of what is at hand. There’s a conflict between the old and the new... which no one yet could understand. ...so he explains what is at hand using a parable. As we read in verse 36...it says... “He tells them a parable...”
He draws upon something common to everyone at the time... the nature of new and old garment...new and old wineskins...and new and old wine.
SHIFT ON SCREEN TO...
Luke 5:36-38
36 He told them this parable: "No one tears a patch from a new garment and sews it on an old one. If he does, he will have torn the new garment, and the patch from the new will not match the old. 37 And no one pours new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins, the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. 38 No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins.
First, he uses the illustration of the unshrunk cloth. Most of our clothing today comes preshrunk, but it was different back in Jesus’ time. So, if you had an older garment that had been washed multiple times, it would already have shrunk as far as it was going to shrink. But let’s say you got a hole in that garment, and you sewed a patch of unshrunk cloth over the hole. Your garment is not going to shrink anymore when you wash it, but the patch will. And when the patch shrinks, what is it going to do? It is going to tear an even bigger hole in the garment. What is Jesus saying here? The old is incompatible with the new. No one would sew a patch of unshrunk cloth on an old garment. It wouldn’t make sense.
The second illustration has to do with wineskins. Here Jesus is talking about the goatskin containers that people used to hold water or wine in those days. When these wineskins were new, they were flexible and still had the ability to stretch. So, if you had a new wineskin, and you filled it with new wine that was still fermenting and still expanding, no problem. You could fill it right up, and the skin would expand right along with the wine. But you can only stretch a goatskin so far. As the skins got older and all stretched out, they became more brittle. So if you took an old wineskin and filled it with new wine, as the wine expanded it would burst the wineskin and you would lose both the skin and the wine as well.
Once again, Jesus’ point is exactly the same here. The old is incompatible with the new. Jesus’s basic point is fairly clear. He was bringing new wine... a new work... a new reality.... and it bears a level of change that can’t simply fit into the old form. [4]
So what is Jesus referring to? There’s a good general principle here. In fact those familiar with this language will sometimes speak of the need for new wineskins when referring to needing to make changes to structures. And it really is a principle that can apply to life today. But Jesus was speaking about a far more ultimate change.
God is bringing a new covenant. As God had said through the prophet Jeremiah:
Jeremiah 31:31-33
"The time is coming," declares the LORD, "when I will make a new covenant with the house of Israel and with the house of Judah. 32 It will not be like the covenant I made with their forefathers when I took them by the hand to lead them out of Egypt, because they broke my covenant, though I was a husband to them," declares the LORD. 33 "This is the covenant I will make with the house of Israel after that time," declares the LORD. "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts. I will be their God, and they will be my people.
God said, “The time is coming when I will make a new covenant.” Jesus is saying, “The time has come.” [5] Now the Old Covenant primarily hinged on adherence to the law of God and to meet the standards of holiness and righteousness to approach God. And the temple provided the people with the opportunity to sacrifice animals for the sins of the people. Such sacrifices captured the reality that sin separated us from God... and led to death. The sacrifices captured the cost of that death... a cost the people could not pay themselves and survive. And the whole nature of God providing a means to which he would be present through the temple and required sacrifices... revealed the reality of their sin and separation... which could never be truly overcome.
It’s important to see that this is not simply a matter of the old being bad ...and the new being good. The old covenant was not bad... but it was intentionally in preparation for what was to come. The people of Israel stood distinct from all others... because what defined them was not their ideas... but what had been revealed by the one true and living God. But what was not different...was that they were like all human lives. They could never fulfill the bonds of relationship. The old covenant wasn’t bad...but it was inadequate...it was never meant to be an end in itself...but to point beyond itself... to point towards the new.
What is at hand is the fulfillment of what God had spoken of long ago. The New Testament is clear... the writer of the Book of Hebrews quotes this very passage from the prophecy of Jeremiah to declare that the new covenant had now come in Christ. (Hebrews 8:8-10) Everything that had come before... was now being fulfilled in a new and better way. The old covenant would lead to a new covenant. The former would reveal the need for the latter. The time of the old covenant is over. It is finished. It is done. The book of Hebrews says the old covenant is “obsolete, and what is obsolete and aging will soon disappear.” (Hebrews 8:13) And that is what Jesus is communicating in this parable... the old is incompatible with the new. When Jesus comes, everything changes.
So to be sure, this is not a change of God’s nature itself... nor of what God has wanted to bring. Rather, it’s bringing to fulfillment God's plan and purpose revealed in the Old Testament but also beyond what anyone could have fully understood about God. Jesus was not simply a revolutionary, smashing everything that had gone before, but bringing it’s fulfillment. [6] That is why Jesus says that he has “not come to abolish the Law and the Prophets but to fulfill them.” (Matt. 5:17)
So more specifically...
Christ brings...
New provision... fulfilled by his own life
What emerges is the profound way in which Christ embodies the temple... the place where God and man can meet. He embodies the Torah... the teachings of God... as he embodies and explains the true meaning of God’s words. He is the ultimate Priest... and the final sacrifice.
In Christ... God is fulfilling the need to provide a way for human life to be reconciled with God. The purposes of Israel could not be fulfilled in themselves. But God had come to save the people...all people... by providing a life who was truly united with God...and who would become a sacrifice on our behalf...a sacrifice that would allow all who receive him to be accepted. He atoned for our sin. We had all gone astray. But he was the one eternally united. His life will be exchanged for ours if we receive him as savior and king.
So Christ brings a New provision... fulfilled by his own life. And...
Christ brings the...
New common life... uniting all who receive
The old had only been able to find their sense of righteousness by diving the world between good and bad people... by focusing on being better than the common lives around them. Jesus came because God loved the whole world. Jesus had come to bring God’s reign over all and in all. He was coming for all who would turn and join him.
In Christ....there would now be no separation between Jew and Gentile... or any other means to define and divide His children. He is creating a new community in which all can be united in Christ. He needed followers who could join such a movement... who could see the world in it’s common need.
Christ brings the ...
New law of love... true righteousness of the heart
We could describe this as a change from religion to relationship... or from rules to relationship. But the old covenant was not just about rules and rituals. These were connected to relationship. But their hearts... like all human hearts... were left to their own nature of going their own way. God was now going to establish a relationship based on his own provision and the pouring out of His Spirit. As God said through Jeremiah... "I will put my law in their minds and write it on their hearts.” (Jeremiah 31: 33) What Jesus is bringing is not a change in God’s mind but His means.
This explains why Jesus spoke of the need to be born again... to receive the work of a new life within... to be given life by the Spirit of God again... to have a new nature at work within us that works to want what God wants....to have a new heart within. The problem wasn’t simply the Law... the problem was the nature of the human heart. This what the Apostle Paul described as the difference between following the letter of the law and the Spirit of the law. (2 Cor. 3:6) The letter of the law is about definition of behavior; the spirit of the law is about the intention of the heart.
In Jesus we have the new law of Christ....which is the law of love.
Don’t just claim to have not murdered.... seek to find true compassion more than contempt.
Jesus tells us - Don’t just do what is religious to meet the expectations of others... create a relationship with God that is your own...that’s in secret.
The Pharisees thought that they stood justified before God because they “did the right things” because of their “sacrifices,” but their hearts were far from God. [7]
I think we know something about the difference in our earthly parent-child relationships. How many parents begin to teach their children some rules... hopefully rules that will serve safety... respect for others... responsibility... and then at some point.... we realize that rules can never form the heart.
No law has ever made a person truly good in itself. And we begin to see that real formation can’t simply be taught. Real formation is in the heart... it’s more relational than propositional. And many of us realize the challenge. We’d rather have a heart connection...than mere obedience.
On this Father’s Day... there’s a word to fathers... as well as their children. We all want to get past outward rules and be joined in the same heart. I imagine every father has known something of the difference ... of having sensed that the efforts to make a rule clear... didn’t find the heart connection. And I sense every child of a father would rather get beyond rules...and have relationship.
Maybe today...on this Father’s Day...we can all appreciate that God is a God of the heart. He wants obedience that flows from relationship. [8]
Jesus is calling each of us to be those who can welcome this.
When we look at the context of this parable...we can see that the confusion and conflict initially arose because of who he was choosing as his followers. As we noted before, he could have chosen from so many that had studied the Law and it’s meaning. Why was he choosing these who weren’t familiar with the great opinions about how to apply the Mosaic Law? Jesus was explaining how those who clung to their self-perceived faithfulness to the old covenant ... wouldn’t grasp what was unfolding as God was making a new covenant. Those who were not bound in their old religious beliefs could receive the news of the Kingdom. [9]
And so Jesus concludes this parable making this comment in verse 39:
And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for he says, 'The old is better.'" Luke 5:39
It’s an ironic comment on people's resistance to what is new. The longer people get used to their ideas about what to expect...and what they should do...the less they can accept change. The new just doesn’t seem right. People become familiar with what they have. [10]
CLOSING
So let’s conclude letting Jesus’ challenge us. Few of us were raised as those who may have identified with the old covenant. But we can share in some of the ways we identify with the religious nature which is rooted in our own pride.
What Jesus is capturing... is that God is after your heart. He is looking for those who can transcend the religious nature. He is looking for those who want relationship... those who are responsive to him. He is looking for those who understand how to come home to him to the Father’s heart ...(as we will engage next week in the most beloved of parables).
So let me ask each of us to consider...
Do we still divide world between those who are good and those who are bad? Or do we see the world as a field of sinners like ourselves... to whom Jesus has come to welcome all who receive?
Do we find hope that we are better than others... or do we embrace that we are fundamentally sinners saved by grace?
Do we care more about having the right position... or being right with God?
Do we tend to live in relationship to the rules... or to responsiveness to God?
Let’s stop and have a moment to pray. I invite us to stop and bring ourselves before God’s presence....to close our eyes and center our souls on him...as I lead us.
PRAYER
Resources: D. T. Lancaster (New Wine and Old Wineskins); Ray Fowler (Leaving the Old Behind - here
Notes:
1. This Parable is found in all three Synoptic Gospels: Matthew 9:14-17; Mark 2:18-22; Luke 5:33-39
2. As one described, “Now the Pharisees in Jesus’ time fasted twice a week, on Mondays and Thursdays, like clockwork. They considered this to be a religious act of outward piety, and they often went to great lengths to make sure that other people knew they were fasting. Jesus described them as purposely looking somber and sad and disfiguring their faces to show men they were fasting. He said of them, “I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” [“When you fast, do not look somber as the hypocrites do, for they disfigure their faces to show men they are fasting. I tell you the truth, they have received their reward in full.” (Matthew 6:16)]
John the Baptist’s followers practiced fasting, too. But their fasting was a little different than the Pharisees’. John’s message was a message of repentance in preparation for the coming of Christ. And so their fasting was an expression of repentance for their sins in preparation for Christ.
And so here we have two different groups, each fasting for different reasons, but they both had something in common. They were fasting, while Jesus’ disciples were not. And John’s disciples wanted to know why.”
3. The reference to the “bridegroom”... is another form of illustration...but it’s really a simple analogy. As noted by Jonathan Mason (here)...
The bridegroom – The Messiah is not represented in the OT as a bridegroom. But God himself is. As Edwards (Pillar, Mark) says, ‘At the baptism Jesus is declared to be God’s Son and is endowed with God’s Spirit. His divine status and empowerment combine in his exousia, his divine authority, to defeat demonic powers (Mk 1:25) and even to forgive sins (Mk 2:10). The imagery of the bridegroom recalls not a messianic function but the person of God himself. In this suggestive metaphor Jesus continues, naturally and without arrogance, to presume the prerogatives of God to himself. The upshot of the wedding imagery is thus not unlike the forgiveness of sins in Mk 2:7, which invited hearers to supply their own answer to Jesus’ identity. Both episodes are provocations to see that the role and mission of God are now present in Jesus.’
Here, then, Jesus identifies himself with the OT bridegroom, Isa 5:1; 54:5–6; 62:4–5; Ezek 16:6–8; Hos 2:19, who is God in covenant relation with Israel. See also Mt 25:1-14; Rev 21:2. Jewish weddings were particularly joyous occasions. Celebrations could last up to a week, and fasting was unthinkable, since fasting was associated with sorrow.
4. As some have noted, if Jesus were making this point in today’s culture... he might speak of the problems of trying to play analog on a digital system. When broadcast television changed to digital signals... the old analog TVs... simply were unable to accept the new format.
5. Mark 1:15 (NIV) “The time has come,” he said. “The kingdom of God has come near. Repent and believe the good news!”
As this article from Jews for Jesus notes, “The first big question is, when will this covenant begin to take effect? Jesus, at the Last Supper – his final Passover meal – declared that it was going to begin with his sacrificial death:
Likewise [he took] the cup after they had eaten, saying, “This cup that is poured out for you is the new covenant in my blood.”
– Luke 22:20
In case there is any question, in Matthew Jesus clarifies that his death is indeed for the atonement of our sins:
This is my blood of the covenant, which is poured out for many for the forgiveness of sins.
– Matthew 26:28 (see also Mark 14:24)
6. Developed well by David Wenham in The Parables of Jesus (Downers Grove, IL:InterVarsity Press, 1989), cited in THE PARABLES OF JESUS By Ashby L. Camp - here
7. Isaiah 29:13
The Lord says: "These people come near to me with their mouth and honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me. Their worship of me is made up only of rules taught by men.
Matthew 15:8
"'These people honor me with their lips, but their hearts are far from me.
8. Psalm 51:16-17 (NIV)
16 You do not delight in sacrifice, or I would bring it; you do not take pleasure in burnt offerings. 17 The sacrifices of God are a broken spirit; a broken and contrite heart, O God, you will not despise.
Matthew 9:13 (NIV)
13 But go and learn what this means: 'I desire mercy, not sacrifice.' For I have not come to call the righteous, but sinners."
9. Some have found old Jewish proverbial teachings about new and old wine...and containers...that spoke to the nature of young learners and old learners to suggest that Jesus may have been drawing on elements more familiar than we might know. - New Wine and Old Wineskins - D. T. Lancaster
10. As noted by Jonathan Mason (here)... Best understood as “an ironic comment on Jews who rejected the new wine of the gospel and held that the old ways were better.’ (NBC)
Scholar William Barclay noted a related idea. “‘Don’t,’ says Jesus, ‘let your mind become like an old wineskin. People say of wine, ‘The old is better.’ It may be at the moment, but they forget that it is a mistake to despise the new wine, for the day will come when it has matured and it will be best of all.’ The passage is Jesus’ condemnation of the shut mind and a plea that men should not reject new ideas. - William Barclay, Daily Study Bible Series: The Gospel of Luke (Revised Edition). Louisville: Westminster John Knox Press, 1975, comment on Luke 5:36
