Becoming a new creation

 

A very good friend, confidant, and co-worker and I were having a discussion at lunch several years ago about the haste with which our company made changes.  I was constantly frustrated, while he seemed to keep his cool no matter what changes were made.  I asked him how he was able to do accomplish that.  His answer transformed my whole outlook on the situation.  “Change is the only constant in our business”, he said.  Although I later found out that a variation of this quote can be attributed to dozens of people from Greek philosophers to Buddha to French psychiatrists to Benjamin Franklin to countless preachers, it was the first time I had heard it; from that day on I looked at the changes in my company as inevitable and even necessary for our success, whether I agreed with them or not.  It made some of the more distasteful changes easier to implement and pass on to my subordinates.

I thought about this discussion when I reflected on Jesus’ words to the scribes and Pharisees after they objected to His words and actions and challenged Him while He was dining with tax collectors and sinners at Levi’s (Matthew) home.  In response, Jesus told this parable as a way of explaining that He came to call everyone to change and to experience a new transformation of their life (Luke 5:33-39):

“No one tears a piece from a new cloak to patch an old one.  Otherwise, he will tear the new and the piece from it will not match the old cloak.

Likewise, no one pours new wine into old wineskins.  Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins, and it will be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. Rather, new wine must be poured into fresh wineskins.

And no one who has been drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

The “new wine” spoken of in this parable is the grace poured forth from the Cross.  Remember that blood and water sprung forth from Jesus’ side as He hung upon the Cross.  This has been symbolically understood as the grace and mercy given to us from the Cross, which is transmitted today through the Sacraments of Baptism and Holy Communion.  Baptism transforms us into a new creation, and, as a new creation in Christ, we must desire the new wine of the Most Holy Eucharist so as to be daily transformed by our Lord.

Many of the early Church Fathers pointed out that the “old wine” that many prefer is a reference to those who wanted to continue living according to the old law.  This is especially true of the scribes and Pharisees to whom Jesus was speaking this parable.  Jesus was bringing them a new teaching and preparing them for a new grace.  But they rejected it, preferring the old life they were living.

One thing this tells us is that if we’re to receive this new wine of the grace of God, we must be ready and willing to abandon our old selves and become new.  Change can be hard.  Even as evangelized Christians who are already living in the grace of Christ, we’ll be continually called to a deeper and deeper change in our lives.  Too often we can easily become complacent and content with the life we’re living.  When that happens, it will hinder our Lord from pouring the new wine of His grace into our souls in ongoing superabundance.

So my friend’s advice to me that day at lunch was spot on; “Change is the only constant in life”.  If we want to grow in holiness, we have to be certain of that.  We must become new creations each and every day, growing, being more fully transformed, changing our ways, giving up the old and embracing that which is ever new.  This requires a certain amount of courage as we come face-to-face with the daily need to be changed by grace.  It means daily death to our old self and daily becoming a new creation in God.