WINESKIN

The ministry of the church must become aquatic.  It’s time for the church to get wet in ways it has never before.  Unless we fashion a ministry out of ‘living water’ and understand water as a metaphor for ministry, we will not become the new wineskins Jesus was talking about in Luke chapter 5.

We know of the crisis happening right now in places like Sudan and Ethiopia and Bangladesh.  In some of these places, supply of water is seriously deficient.  In other places, they are starving because there is not enough fresh, potable water.

You die without water - both physically and spiritually.  It takes less than 1% deficiency in our body’s water to make us thirsty.  A 5% deficit causes a fever.  An 8% shortage causes the glands to stop producing saliva and the skin to turn blue.  Just an 8% shortage.  A person can’t even walk with a 10% shortage, and at 12%, we die.  Every day, 15,000 children around the world die from lack of water or diseases borne by polluted water.  It’s a crisis.

But the church is in the middle of a water crisis, too.  Part of our problem is bad plumbing.  Over time, our pipes can get rusty with legalism or clogged with tradition.  We must be careful that the rain that falls thru our church pipes is the fresh rain of the Spirit and not the rainfall collected by our ancestors.  That water, though good in its own time, can become stagnant.

We need fresh water.  We need people who are hungry and thirsty for something real.

Our mission is to lead people to water.  We can’t make them drink, but we can hand them the containers that hold the living water.  These containers are the new wineskins. 

Notice something about water: water fills the shape of any receptacle.  As long as we trust the water and don’t tamper with the recipe - don’t dilute the recipe or thicken the recipe or change the recipe - the content remains the same while the containers change.

Every generation needs a shape that fits its own hand.  Each generation needs a different handle from which to receive the living water of Jesus Christ.  Our God-given task is to pour the living water into anything anyone will pick up short of being sinful.  If we’re going to reach your 22nd century grandchild with the Gospel (because they will probably live to see the year 2100), we have to be willing and prepared to pour the living water into containers from which we ourselves would never be caught dead drinking - new wineskins. 

I am a virtual fundamentalist when it comes to content - the Word is the Word and it does not change --- but I am a virtual libertarian when it comes to containers.  Containers are not sacred.

Jesus’ remarks about old and new wineskins remind us that we cannot make an idolatry of any form or container.  We must not elevate our personal, favorite form to the level of authority that belongs only to the content.  Too many will only pour the living water into something they like or something they would pick up. 

The mystery of the Gospel is that it is always the same (that’s content) ... and it is always changing (that’s container).  For the Gospel to remain in the hearts of the next generation, the containers have to change.  That is, the old, old wonderful story needs to be told in new, new wonderful ways.  New wineskins.

And be blessed.