Pouring the Spirit's new wine into renewed lives

Every time I travel to Fort Wayne, I pass a gas station/convenience store that had a makeover a couple years ago, changing its Route 66 classic look into the ambiance of a warm and inviting café. The new look suggests a Starbucks coffee house, but with gas pumps in the front.

Usually I just pay at the pump, but I remember the first time I walked into the all-new facility. The employees may have missed the makeover memo. The youth behind the counter wore a new uniform that matched the warm, inviting appearance, but she had the same sullen look as before. She looked bored, checked her watch in anticipation of her next smoke break, and seemed miffed that a customer walked in the store to disturb her inattention.

It reminded me of how we try to put new wine into old wineskins. Jesus says it invites catastrophe because "the wine will burst the skins, and both the wine and the wineskins will be ruined." (Mark 2:22 NIV)

Over the years, I've been in a lot of church meetings and ministry settings in which the image of new wineskins flows as freely as bad coffee and doughnuts between services. We apply the concept within church structure, however, discussing the "new wineskins" of programs, strategic plans and denominational ideals.

I rarely hear the concept of new wineskins applied to a life, as in your life or my life. Don't we often try to put new wine into old wineskins when it comes to our Christian journey?

This is an example: We place a new wine of "slowing down the pace of our lives" and pour it into an old wineskin of "extreme busyness."

The good news is that God pours the new wine of the Holy Spirit into the new wineskin of our renewed lives, and that sets us steady on our kingdom walk.

But too often we reach back into our closets and pull out our old wineskin, trying to put it back on and make it work as part of our new life in Christ.

Recently, I went on a silent retreat with some of my college students; I reflected a great deal on making changes in my own life. That meant I needed to consider some things about new wine and my old wineskins. I realized there are new wines that we try to pour into our old wineskins that leave us on the verge of calamity because we haven't allowed the Holy Spirit to give us new wineskins. These are a few examples:

• The new wine of unconditional love poured into the old wineskin of hatred.
• The new wine of worship poured into the old wineskin of idolatry.
• The new wine of humility poured into the old wineskin of conceit.
• The new wine of forgiveness poured into the old wineskin of bitterness.
• The new wine of "others first" poured into the old wineskin of selfish ambition.
• The new wine of joy poured into the old wineskin of jealousy and factions.
• The new wine of peace poured into the old wineskin of discord.
• The new wine of dependence on God poured into the old wineskin of independence.
• The new wine of "trying something new" into the old wineskin of "running through the motions."
• The new wine of dreaming into the old wine skin of worrying.

Congregations and schools across the United States, including Fort Wayne, have been dealing with a great deal of strife and challenge - from staff cuts to unbalanced budgets due to the current economic situation to a slowdown in congregational growth and vibrancy because of the changing face of life in our world.

The answer can't be to pour the new wine of a building makeover, new programs, or strategic or denominational ideals into old wineskins. The answer is more personal. It's going to take changing individual lives. That means you and I must open ourselves up to the new wine God wants for us in our day-to-day lives and the new wineskins that only His Holy Spirit gives.

by Bob Henry

First appeared in the February 2011 FWLutheran