HOMILY WEEK 22 05 – Year II
New Wine, New Wineskins
(1 Cor 4:1-5; Ps 37; Lk 5:33-39)
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“The new wine will burst the skins.”
In ancient Israel, the juice from pressed grapes immediately went into a container to ferment into wine. If the wine was going to be transported a long distance, the container was often a goatskin sewn into a bag, or “wineskin.” The initial gaseous stage of fermenting the grapes caused the wineskin to stretch out. “Old wineskins” had already been stretched once, so if they were used again, the fermentation process would cause them to burst.
Jesus told this parable to ask his followers and his detractors to try to become more like new wineskins. He told them the new life he was proclaiming could not be fitted into old ways of thinking and doing. Life in the kingdom of God required people who had the capacity to stretch along with the movements of God’s Spirit.
Not all of Jesus’ hearers accepted these words, but those who did were stretched – and were blessed for it! For example, they had to expand their concept of the Messiah: he was the crucified and risen Son of God, not a temporal king. They had to accept that the Gentiles were their brother and sisters, not pagans who would make them unclean. Because the first disciples’ pliability helped them to respond to the “fermentation” of the Holy Spirit, the Church continued to grow dramatically.
These are ways of being new wineskins. But just what was that new wine of Jesus that was so powerful? I think it is made up of many ingredients – the first being the inauguration of the kingdom of God among us (Lk 17:21) – we can now share to a great degree, through faith and love, in the very same eternal life of the saints in heaven, here on earth. A second would be the new commandment Jesus gave us – to love others as we love ourselves, placed on a par with the commandment to love God with our whole being. Another would be the teaching to love our enemies and do good to those who harm us. That is very new. The Beatitudes are also part of that new wine of Jesus, a whole new way of thinking, feeling and acting.
By his presence on earth, Jesus offered an entirely new, more intimate relationship with God, through the indwelling of the Holy Spirit of the Risen Jesus. He worked miracles, healed diseases, and forgave sins – things only God could do. In Christ, God was standing before them, offering them new hope in the form of a mercy they could touch and experience. Jesus overcame every obstacle that keeps us from God: our sin, our weakness, even death itself! Jesus offers us new closeness, intimacy, freedom and power.
According to The Natural Family, an International Journal of Research and Policy, this new wine includes a revolutionary new way of viewing marriage as a new creation, much more than a mere association of persons: “The word union denotes the creation of a new unit, a new entity. It is, by its very nature, comprehensive. It contemplates a welding, sealing, joining of two individuals with an independent nature and purpose – a new organism. Its elements of permanence, complementarity and fidelity flow from its nature. It facilitates belonging and security and a true equality since both the wife and husband are necessary to its existence. As the British philosopher F.H. Bradley wrote, ‘Marriage is a contract … to pass out of the sphere of contract.’ Its discipline is demanding but, for that reason, transformative. For these reasons and more, it is a sure foundation for procreation and child-rearing” (Vol 31, p. 287)
Like every believer in the time of Christ, we, too, are a wineskin and the Holy Spirit is stirring within us. The important thing is to be willing to “be stretched” as the Spirit moves us. Pope Francis, with his encyclical Laudato Si, is stretching us to have greater care for all of God’s creation, as well as to be less clerical, reach out to the poor and take on the smell of the sheep.
For example, we might have an innate dislike of a co-worker or neighbour, but maybe God is calling us to see that person in a more compassionate light by getting to know and understand him or her better. Or God might want to stretch us by giving us a new gift or by asking us to use a gift long dormant. Perhaps caring for a new baby or an elderly or sick relative has stretched us. These kinds of situations push us to rely on God’s Spirit more so we can expand and not burst.
Is there an area of our life in which we feel we are being stretched? Ask for the grace to be “stretchy” so that we can share God’s love and presence just a bit more today.
The Eucharist is designed to stretch our faith – we hear the Word of God, and receive the very body and blood of Jesus, the new wine of the kingdom. May our celebration stretch us up to receive that new wine and empower us live it out in loving action.
