Good Old Wine...Brand New Skin (as sermon based on Johh 15:1-5 & Luke 5:37-39

“Good Old Wine… Brand New Skin”
 (a sermon based on John 15:1-5 and Luke 5:37-39)

by

Rev. Dr. Paul A. Lance, Pastor
Los Altos United Church of Christ
5550 Atherton Street, Long Beach, California  90815

August 1, 2010

    Today we have two “vineyard” images (allegories or parables) that serve as the backdrop to our Communion Sunday.  The first was that of the vine and the branches.  Broken off from the vine, a branch withers…  It bears no fruit.  “Abide in me,” says Jesus to his disciples, “and I will abide in you, and together we will bear much fruit.”

    I love that image of old stock vines, rooted in rich soil, perhaps holding fast to a sunny hillside for some fifty years or more.  But always putting out new branches -- new spurts of life -- reaching toward the sun, unfurling new leaves, tendrils, blossoms, and eventually clusters of grapes.  Good fruit makes for good wine, given the right conditions and enough time to mature.

    The second parable is the next step in the process.  Those “good fruit” grapes are harvested, crushed, and its juice collected – some to be Welch’s sweet grape juice, others to lager and ferment and turn into wine.  Jesus speaks of “new wine” fermenting in skins and of “old wine” being savored.

    At first glance, this parable does not seem to be about “life” in the way that the vine & the branches & the fruit-producing image was.  Plants are alive!  On the other hand, generally, we think of wine as a “thing.”  We keep bottles of it on a shelf.  We drink it sometimes with dinner; no more “alive” than (say) iced tea is alive.  You see, “life” is a “happening.”  Life connotes action!  Life is an event, a performance over time.  Life is full of changes -- adaptations -- and stresses & struggles.

    There is some of that lively energy when Jesus says “I am the vine, and you are the branches, and God is the vinedresser, and together we produce much fruit!” But where is the liveliness after the grapes are crushed to juice?

    Come to think of it, we actually had a third symbol regarding the “fruit of the vine” in today’s service. The cup that Jesus blessed at the Last Supper!  Here he said the wine represented his blood -- blood that would be shed as a sacrifice, poured out as a sign & seal of a new Covenant for the forgiveness of sins.  It is as though the life-giving vine, the fruit-producing branches, and the desire of God (the vine-dresser) is uprooted; cut down in its prime!

    We know the story of the Last Supper, the subsequent Crucifixion… and Easter.  Yes, Jesus was crushed (like a grape) he was killed, poured-out like wine, buried.  But death was not the end after all!  The world had not counted on resurrection, that there would be (for Jesus, and for us) life after death, that life in God is by definition “eternal”!  That new covenant (sealed in Jesus’ life-blood) is still alive & working, forgiving, & saving the world!

    But to speak of Easter & Resurrection is getting ahead of the story.  For today, let’s focus on the wine itself (the new wine “fermenting” and the old wine being “savored”), as Jesus does in his parable.  He speaks of the wine as though it were still alive and growing, even after having been harvested, crushed, and contained.  That new wine was still performing its dance of life!

“No one,” he told them, “puts new wine into old wineskins.  Otherwise the new wine will burst the skins and will be spilled, and the skins will be destroyed.  New wine must be put into
fresh wineskins.  And no one, after drinking old wine, desires new wine, but says: ‘The old is good.’”  (Luke 5:37-39)

The church is an old institution – older than America, by far; older, in fact, than most states, nations, or federations of states.  We are a global-wide institution – almost as old as the family or the tribe.  The Church takes great pains to maintain its “traditions” – that body of teachings, liturgies, rituals, and stories that date back (like the Last Supper itself) to the time of Christ. 

Patterns & beliefs have been handed down for nearly 100 generations (of which our Los Altos United Church has been the recipient for some 60 years here in Long Beach). The church (as an institution) is an old grapevine (one might say), rooted in good old Gospel stock.  That’s the “seed” (the germination and deep “tap” roots) from which we have come. 

As an institution, we’re not the same today as in bygone centuries, of course, because (like any living thing) the Church has had to respond to the stimuli of its environment. 

The Church has had to adapt many times over the past 2,000 years in a wide variety of ways: Reformations and Schism, Enlightenment education, scientific modernity, multicultural exploration… The Church has had to “keep up with the times” or risk utter irrelevance!  We Christians gathered here in Long Beach, at the Los Altos UCC in the year 2010, do our best to keep producing good Gospel fruit on these old vines, and we do what we can to keep the wine of our ministry fresh!  (I’ll admit, it’s not always easy.)

The Apostle Paul called the Church “the Body of Christ” and that image suggests that we are “alive!”  The community of faith that gathers here is a “living thing” not dead.  We are simply the current crop of “wine skins” filled to bursting with the same Gospel Spirit that quickened Jesus and that emerged on the world stage at Pentecost.  We are today’s “vintage.”  That’s why we ask the Holy Spirit to “come” and re-vitalize us for this new day.

Because we are a living thing, not dead, our worship & ministry (both when we gather here and when we go out to do our daily work) should have some of the dynamism, the vitality and zest of a “living process,” as we face the changes that life brings our way.  If it doesn’t, then we’re in trouble!

We are not wine “bottles;” we’re wine “skins.”  Our nametags are not “labels” with vintage dates, lined up in these pews like so many bottles on a shelf, getting dusty with age. No, we’re “skins” filled with the Spirit of God!

Wine (as Jesus speaks of it) is a life-force – life is a performance; it’s a doing, an event, an action.  There is a “ferment” to life – a yeasty, bubbling, sparkle. 

Since life cannot be “contained” at any one stage of growth, Jesus warns the “vintner” not to put NEW wine (fresh from the harvest, rich and sweet with sunshine and sugar, alive with bacteria, ready to begin its fermentation) into OLD wineskins. – And, why not?

It would be cheaper, wouldn’t it? …much easier and cheaper to re-use a wineskin that you already own, rather than have to go out and get another goat, tan its hide, and stitch it into a new “bota-bag” wineskin.  In this frugal age, are we not told to “re-use” (or at least to “re-cycle”) things?  In the short run, I suppose, it would be a quick & easy solution (“expedient”) to re-use an old skin. But it won’t work in the long run, says Jesus.  You see, lively things (like fermenting wine) needs a “flexible” container, not a stiff one.

The dynamic changes that are coming into the church as new, younger people (different people from us “old timers”) begin to come to visit (and eventually to take on leadership!) cannot be simply stuffed into the patterns of their parents & grandparents.  To try to do so will bring on some bursting.  The new wine will probably be lost and gone, and the old container (already stretched to its maximum in an earlier era) will be lost as well.  An old wine skin could be re-used to carry water, perhaps, but not the vibrant new wine.

It may be a handy short-cut to “re-use” something that has, after all, proven its worth by standing the test of time – like that good old wine       (mm-mmm… That was a good skin of wine, a vintage year!) – but to do so  may short-change the future success of the entire venture.  It’s okay to savor the old -- old friendships, old rituals, old traditions -- the ways we’ve always done it before… But we must also be flexible to attract & include the new.

I think that Jesus understands our temptation to “settle down” with the status quo – our desire to stay within our comfort zone and to limit ourselves to the “familiar” – in short, to settle for less than what we could become.

“No one, having drunk old wine, immediately desires the new; for he says: the old is good!”

It is only when we admit that Jesus is right – that it is our natural tendency to resist changes – that, by nature, we value the “good old” as actually “better” than the new…  we like the way things “used to be.”

It is only when we admit that we are, most often, satisfied with what we have already experienced of God’s love & power & presence in our lives – we don’t come to church expecting anything radical or “new” or different!

It is only when we admit that we find pleasure in maintaining the status quo, and that we don’t really feel the NEED to refresh our thinking anymore -- or to renew ourselves by intentionally inviting and welcoming newcomers in our midst… that the warning light should go on:

Uh-oh… we’re getting stuck in the past!  Watch out: our wineskins are hardening, becoming dry & brittle, inflexible. We are stretching ourselves no more. We’re falling into a routine, taking fewer risks. Watch it: we’re slip-ping back into yesterday’s familiar patterns of thought.  “The old is good…”

Let’s not forget that, since it is God’s Spirit that is filling your life, the “wine” in you is forever new, alive, and growing.  Even after it’s been harvested, crushed, and contained, the life forces in you go on!  You and I are “new wine” with new ideas and new values – surprisingly new ways of behaving and relating to one another, because it is Jesus who sets the agenda.

It doesn’t hurt to remind yourself (occasionally) that we are branches on an old vine stock; we are rooted in the Gospel and drawing life from it. 

At a recent meeting of UCC ministers, I was told that at the Redlands United Church of Christ, everyone’s membership is only for one year; and every person has to decide whether or not they want to join again at each annual meeting.  They don’t want people to coast into inactivity, to forget what they are about as a church, or why they exist in their neighborhood. 

It is good and healthy to ask yourself, from time to time: What is the purpose for which God (the vineyard Owner) has invested all the time & energy in creating us…?  Certainly not to have us fill ourselves up and then just sit there, savoring our blessedness!  Not to have us grow so stiff & stale over time that we risk splitting when something new comes our way. No!

The purpose for which Jesus Christ (the Vine) was “planted” – the vine that nourishes us who are its living branches... is so that we can bring forth much fruit...  Good fruit!  (Okay, that’s another metaphor, and it means we must decide for ourselves what we think “good fruit” may be in God’s eyes.)

If the “fruit” is not going to be counted in terms of “more members” – because we UCC-folk do not like “evangelism” (if it means outreach to our neighbors to invite them to come to church with us) – then at least we should be intentionally growing “fruit” that deepens your own spirituality. Namely: let there be more love among us… measurably more!  Let there be more joy.  More peace…  Because those are the “fruits of the Spirit of God” that are spreading & multiplying in us… even if no new members ever join us.

    It's fruit like that (in your lives and in the lives of others we deal with) that God expects of us.  That's the only kind of "rent" God requires of us -- we who carry the name of "Christian"… We who draw upon God's strength, who invest ourselves in this church.  (More members and more money would be nice, too, but we’re just not into that here at Los Altos, it seems to me.)

    Let's imagine that it's harvest time, and God (the Vineyard Owner) has come to collect what we've produced.  What do we have to show for all the generous investment of energy and work over all those 60 years of our congregation’s existence, those nearly three generations of active members & hundreds of thousands of dollars donated & spent here at Los Altos Church? 

      I would hope we would say: we’ve produced deeper love for one another, and for “strangers” (visitors) who quickly become included in our circle of faith.  We don’t want to leave anybody out!   We say: “Whoever you are, and wherever you are on life’s journey, you are welcome here!”

If God the Vinedresser comes to harvest our produce, I hope we could say we’re “bearing fruit” in greater care for our neighbors in need … as demonstrated by offerings such as One Great Hour of Sharing & O.C.W.M. (Our Church’s Wider Mission), and financial support for all those many other Outreach efforts here at Los Altos UCC -- such as school supplies for needy children, working with Habitat for Humanity, preparing lunches for the Campus Ministry at CSULB, supporting the Rescue Mission & Salvation Army, “Undie Sunday” for Homeless men, “Holy Joe Café” for our soldiers. 

    When the harvest time comes, I trust that God will find in us more patience and forgiveness.  More joy.  That's what we bring as "fruit" in return to the One who planted us, who nurtures us -- feeding us from our roots up through the good old vine to which we are attached -- for the purpose of God's Vineyard is to produce good fruit.   

May our harvest be bountiful! 

And may our congregational system here at Los Altos be flexible enough of a container to give the “new wine” (that God has in store for us, whoever they may be!) space to join in with us and room to grow with us. 

May our branches flourish with abundant good fruit, to the glory of God in Christ Jesus.
                                    Amen.