Jesus has contributed to the richness of many languages, English included. Some of his sayings are just so powerful and insightful that people down the ages have found unequalled wisdom in them. We can think of the phrases “love your enemies” or “turn the other cheek” or “walk the extra mile”, all examples of phrases borrowed directly from Jesus. 

Our passage for today also has one. “Put new wine in old wineskins” may not be a very commonly used phrase, but it comes to us from Jesus. Unfortunately, as is the case with most of Jesus’ most profound statements, like the ones I just mentioned, this one too has become obscured by sentimentality and misunderstanding.

Actually, in this case we will see that the reason for confusion is the fact that we are trapped within time. We experience things sequentially and so interpret things also as having significance in their sequentiality. So first let us see what the common way of looking at this passage is. 

Luke tells us that Jesus was approached by some Pharisees and teachers of the law about the failure of his disciples to fast.

Fasting was one of the pillars of Jewish religion and we see Jesus address the practice in the Sermon on the Mount, where he advocates fasting as a celebration rather than as a demonstration of one’s piety and austerity. This was contrary to the common practice in which people tried to show their spiritual superiority by fasting more often and more rigorously and making it known.

From the question posed to Jesus here it seems that Jesus did not encourage his disciples to fast – at least not publicly. To the question of why his disciples do not fast, Jesus asks if anyone fasts while there is a wedding celebration. The joy of the wedding supersedes any practice of fasting because a wedding is a once in a lifetime event. “Can you make the bridegroom’s friends fast?” he asks. In other words, even expecting them to fast is an impossibility. But he tells them that there will be a time of sorrow when his disciples will fast.

Then he proceeds to tell them two short parables. Who would mend an old shirt with a patch of cloth from a new one? The colors would not match because the old shirt would be faded. And the new shirt would be damaged in the process. 

And no one puts new wine in old wineskins. The new wine is newly fermented and so quite potent. The old wineskins, however, are worn with use and cannot handle the potency of the newly fermented wine. Jesus says that new wine should be put into new wineskins.

The common understanding is that Jesus is saying that the old wineskin of Jewish religion cannot handle the potency of the Gospel. And that, if we tried to mend Jewish religion with a part of the Gospel, both would be destroyed.

All of this seems well. But… 

Yes, there is a but. This approach seems ok, but it cannot take into account the sentence with which Jesus concludes his parable. And knowing how parables work, we know it’s the last sentence that holds the key. The ending provides a twist in the tale and forces us to reevaluate how we understood the parable. 

Unfortunately, in this case, we often simply overlook this concluding sentence. And as a result we misunderstand what Jesus is saying. 

So what is the concluding sentence? Jesus ends by saying, “No one after drinking the old wine wants the new. For they say, ‘The old is better.’”

Wineries and breweries go through a lot of effort to age their products carefully. A good wine that has been aged two years instead of one will cost much more than double what the newer wine costs. This is because the wine mellows with age and assimilates the flavours of the barrel and develops a smoother and more pleasing taste.

So, as Jesus observes, “The old is better.” This is true of our clothes too. How many of us hang on to one old shirt or top? It may be too worn out to be worn out. But we just decide that, since it’s worn in, we’ll just wear it in. Why? Why don’t we just discard it and wear another one? Simply because through continued use, it has begun to fall over our shoulders just the way we like it. We feel free in it. We are clothed but not constrained, unlike with a new shirt that is still too stiff.

Yes, as Jesus observes, “The old is better.” This is how he ends the two parables. In the case of the shirt, he seems overly concerned with the fact that the patch from a new shirt would not match the old one. Why? It’s already tattered! Who cares if it matches?

And in the case of the wine, he seems quite saddened not just that the new wine is wasted but that the old wineskin is ruined. Why is he so concerned with these old things that have evidently been used too long? He says, “No one after drinking the old wine wants the new. For they say, ‘The old is better.’”

The old is better. The old is better. The old is better. But the common interpretation says that the Gospel, which is new, is better than the Jewish faith, which is old. What is Jesus saying?

Our mistake is that we think Jesus is juxtaposing the older Jewish faith with the newer Christian faith. And we say things like, “The Jewish faith, like the old wineskins, cannot accommodate the new Christian faith, which is like new wine.” But Jesus says, “The old is better,” which should give us pause when we interpret in this manner.

But what if Jesus is not contrasting the Jewish faith and the Christian faith? After all, Jesus was born a Jew and he died a Jew. From his words in the Gospel of Matthew it is clear that he saw his work not as an annulment of Jewish faith but as a fulfillment or continuation of it. For him to now contrast the two would be quite strange.

But what if he is contrasting two other things? Let us look at our text more closely and without the antagonism we often witness from Christians toward the Jewish faith and by looking at the larger context.

After Jesus calls Peter, James and John, we read that he heals a man who had leprosy. And he tells the restored man, “Don’t tell anyone, but go, show yourself to the priest and offer the sacrifices that Moses commanded for your cleansing, as a testimony to them.” He is asking the man to be subject to the law given by Moses.

Then we read that Jesus forgives and heals a paralyzed man. At his words of forgiveness, the Pharisees and teachers of the law accuse Jesus of blasphemy asking, “Who can forgive sins but God alone?”

Then we read that Jesus had a meal at Levi’s house. The Pharisees and teachers of the law take offence at his mingling with tax collectors and sinners. And Jesus says, “It is not the healthy who need a doctor, but the sick.”

Jesus asks the man healed of leprosy to subject himself to Moses’ law, but then faces two situations that are contradictory. On the one hand, he is told he should not announce forgiveness because only God can do that. And on the other hand he is told that those who need forgiveness should be shunned.

And Jesus comes to the conclusion that something is seriously wrong, not just with the Jewish religion, but with all systems of religion. Religious systems mediate divine presence and divine blessings through the traps of holy practices, holy times, holy places and holy people.

The Jews had their holy practices of prayer, almsgiving and fasting, their holy periods of Passover and other feasts, their holy places like the temple in Jerusalem and their holy people like the priests and Levites.

And lest we point a finger at them, we too have our holy practices of daily devotions and bible studies, our holy periods of Sunday services and prayer marathons and healing services, our holy places like our churches and cathedrals and our holy people like our priests, pastors and bishops.

And, like the Jews, we too point a finger at those who happen to go against the norms of these holy practices, holy periods, holy places and holy people. We beat ourselves and others over forgetting to read the bible or falling asleep without praying. We accuse people who do not come for the all night prayer marathons we may have. We slight those who are not regular attenders at church. And we think that, if there is a holy person around, he or she must pray or must announce the benediction.

Where, in all of this, is the freedom that Jesus promises us? By insisting that our life of faith is mediated through holy practices, at holy periods, in holy places and by holy persons, we keep ourselves away from the immediacy of God in our lives. And we keep ourselves from the spontaneity of a relationship with this God who surprises us daily.

It was not so at the start. When God first created us, there was no mediation. Our relationship with him was immediate – that is, without a mediator. That is how it is meant to be.

When Jesus talks about the old, he is referring to this, to our original state, in which we were able to approach God as a friend, without the trappings of what is religious. And when he talks about what is new, he is referring to our current preference of having our relationship with God mediated by all that we consider holy – practices, periods, places, people.

Like new wine and unshrunk cloth, this new understanding of what is holy destroys and damages the old understanding. But it is the old understanding that is better. It is the immediate relationship with God, what we were originally created for, that is better than all the religious systems we have now adopted. But the old way – the immediate way – fits us just right, just like an old shirt. And it is smooth and flavorful, just like well aged wine.

But the immediate relationship is uncomfortable. God cannot be fooled, even if we fool ourselves. Rather, he is the one that shines his light to dispel all the darkness in our lives.

And like Adam and Eve, we can no longer bear the unnerving immediate presence of the living God. And just as they tried to hide themselves, so also we hide ourselves behind all the religiosity – the holy practices, periods, places and people – that allows us to think we are having a genuine relationship with God when in fact we are hiding.

So if we came today because worship would be mediated by Suvi or because the message would be mediated by Deepak, we need to ask ourselves why. Why is it that certain conditions must be met before we can encounter God? All of these are temptations to lure us to embrace the counterfeits. 

We Christians are guilty of this as much as the Jews were in Jesus’ day. We encourage the development of various personality cults and follow this preacher or that worship leader as though these people have some special powers of ushering in God’s presence. 

We still call the land of Israel the Holy Land and try to make pilgrimages to it, when the New Testament is clear that any place where two or three are gathered in Jesus’ name is automatically holy. 

Attending Sunday worship services has become a duty rather than a celebration and we look with disapproval on those who are not as regular as we are or who happen to arrive late.

The irony is that we engage in all of these practices and convince ourselves of our true and deep spirituality when in fact we are being only as shallow as the practices themselves. For if I cannot encounter God through my normal activities, at any place and at any time and without the mediating presence of someone else, then I have forgotten what the old wine tastes like and have accepted the new. I have forgotten the genuine article and have embraced the counterfeit.

But as Jesus teaches us here, we can only recover the vitality of an authentic relationship with God if we recognize these counterfeits and realize that ‘the old is better.’