Aged Wine Is Better
Aged or Just Old?
I’m not a wine guy, but “aged wine” is better, or so I’m told. Old wine is not necessary aged wine, although I don’t know the difference. Old wine is just, well, just “old.” The one distinction, and it’s a biggie, is that aged wine started out good.
I wonder if a difference between someone who is “old” and someone who is “aged” has to do with wisdom. I remember a story told by Kathleen Norris. Her husband was a bartender in a small South Dakota town. One night a young man had a bit too much to drink and was cussing his “old” English teacher. “Yeah, she made us read books. Since I left high school I haven’t read one book and I’m never going to.” That young man will grow “old,” but he will not “age” well.
Luke’s New Testament book declares that “old” wine is better, an interesting addition to the wineskin metaphor recorded in Mark and Matthew. Of course aged wine is better! Everybody knows this. I’m so glad the writer of Luke said so. It’s important, I think. We don’t like adding facts that mess up our narrative.
However, reading all three accounts together reminds me that new and old are not over-and-against. In other words, the old guard is not the enemy of the young and restless. The old guard, the protectors of orthodoxy, instinctively know that there is much to lose by moving too quickly. They are right to hold feet to the fire when old answers are discarded as if old is automatically proclaimed out of touch.
In the same vein, those who are asking uncomfortable questions and raising doubts that challenge certainty are not trying to destroy old guard thinking on everything the old guard thinks. Our sons and daughters asking these questions and raising these doubts are not the enemy of the settled and certain keepers of the traditions.
And neither of these is Jesus’ enemy. With the world on fire, and so much to care about, it must be frustrating to be God. And Jesus, is caught in the middle of two sides fighting the wrong battles and making the wrong enemies.
