Same Wine, New Skin

On Jesus, fermentation, and the time the Church Lady ran for the exit

A 13-minute read — slightly longer than the Church Lady stayed

Let me tell you about the night I almost gave a sweet little woman a heart attack.

It was years ago. I was a younger pastor, a little more reckless, a little more sure of myself, and I had this idea — because I have ideas, and not all of them are good — that we should try a contemporary service on Sunday night at a Methodist Church.

Seven o’clock. Casual dress. And I went down to the Executive Surf Club on the bayfront and I hired the house band.

Now — if you have ever been to the Executive Surf Club, you know that is not a Wednesday-night-handbell-choir kind of establishment. These were professional musicians. They played loud. They played well. They had been playing in bars on Saturday nights, and now I was paying them to play in my sanctuary on Sunday nights.

And I will tell you exactly who showed up.

Kids. Twenty-somethings. Tattoos. Nose rings. Eyebrow rings. A few rings I had questions about and decided not to ask. Folks who had not been inside a church building since their grandmother dragged them to Easter service when they were eleven. Some who had never been inside one.

And I loved every single one of them.

Because here is what I knew in my bones, even as a younger pastor: Jesus did not die for the kind of people who already know how to behave at church. Jesus died for the people who think they would not be welcome at church. Which, frankly, is most of the world.

And Then — The Church Lady

So the band starts. And it is loud. And it is good. The kids are on their feet. Some of them are crying. A few of them are praying for the first time in their adult lives.

And then I see her.

A sweet, tiny, purple-haired woman in the third row — I am not making this up — who looked like she was sent over directly from Central Casting after they finished filming a Dana Carvey sketch.

Church Lady.

Pearl necklace. Floral dress. Hair tinted that particular shade of blue-purple that ladies of a certain generation get because the rinse was supposed to make their white hair look whiter but instead makes them look like a soft blueberry. Pursed lips. Hands clutching a handbag like it owed her money.

And she stands up. In the middle of the first song. Right in front of God and everybody. And she starts walking up that center aisle — walking turned into trotting, trotting turned into something just shy of a sprint — and as she is going she is announcing, loud enough for half the sanctuary to hear:

“This is NOT church!”

“This is TOO LOUD!”

“This is NOT CHURCH!”

And out the back door she went.

Like the building was on fire.

Like the rapture had happened in reverse and she had been left behind to deal with the tattooed people.

And here is what makes me sad about that story to this day.

It is not that she left.

It is that if she had just stayed five more minutes, she would have heard the gospel.

Same Jesus. Same cross. Same blood. Same Father who loved her, and loved every kid in that room, with the same unreasonable, unrelenting, undignified love.

She wasn’t running away from bad theology.

She was running away from a guitar.

And Here Is What Gets Me About the Hair

That blue-purple hair on an 80-year-old woman — nobody bats an eye. It is darling. It is what grandmothers do. Somebody in the third row leans over and goes, “Oh, isn’t Mildred’s hair just precious this morning?”

Put that exact same color of hair on a 16-year-old girl, and watch what happens at the next Elder’s meeting.

“Have you SEEN what that girl has done to her hair?”

“Her parents must be heartbroken.”

“What is wrong with kids today?”

Same color of dye.

Same chemical compound.

Same molecules sitting on the same strands of human hair.

Different container. Different verdict.

And we do this all the time.

We don’t just do it with hair.

We do it with tattoos.

We do it with music.

We do it with the way somebody dresses, how they hold a coffee cup, whether they raise their hands during the chorus or sit on them.

Same gospel, same Jesus, same Spirit — but if it shows up in the wrong container, we suddenly have opinions.

She confused the wineskin with the wine.

Which, as it turns out, is exactly what Jesus warned us about.

What Jesus Actually Said

This parable shows up in three different Gospels — which is the New Testament way of saying, “Pay attention, this matters.” Mark, Matthew, and Luke all tell it. And in all three places, it shows up as Jesus’s answer to a question that you would think would have nothing to do with wine.

The disciples of John the Baptist come to Jesus and they go:

“Hey — we fast. The Pharisees fast. Why don’t Your disciples fast?”

Which is a religious-club question if I have ever heard one.

It’s not really about fasting. It is about who is in and who is out. It is about, “We do it this way. Why don’t You?” It is about the rules.

And Jesus answers with three quick parables stacked on top of each other — the bridegroom, the cloth, and the wineskins. Listen to the wineskin one:

“And no one puts new wine into old wineskins. If he does, the new wine will burst the skins and be spilled, and the skins will be ruined. But new wine must be put into fresh wineskins.”

— Luke 5:37–38

Now — if you are reading that in 2026 in Corpus Christi, Texas, you may not feel the weight of what He is saying.

Because we don’t store wine in goatskins anymore.

We store it in bottles. We store it in boxes. Some of you have a Costco-sized bag-in-a-box of cabernet in the fridge right now and don’t lie to me, I have been a pastor too long.

A Quick Field Trip to Ancient Wine Storage

Stay with me. This is going to matter.

In the first century, in Jesus’s part of the world, wine wasn’t kept in barrels. Barrels were a Roman thing, and oak trees were not exactly thick on the ground in Galilee.

So they used wineskins. Made from goatskins, mostly. Sometimes lamb. They would take the whole animal hide, sew up all the openings except one, seal the seams with resin, treat the leather with oil to keep it supple, and you’d end up with a leather bag about the size of — oh, I don’t know — a small toddler. Held about three to four gallons.

Now here is the part that matters. Fresh-pressed grape juice is not yet wine. It is becoming wine. As it ferments, the yeast eats the sugar, and — here is your science lesson for the day, you’re welcome — it produces alcohol and carbon dioxide gas.

That gas has to go somewhere.

A new wineskin can stretch. An old wineskin has already done all the stretching it is going to do.

Pour new, still-fermenting wine into a brittle old skin and the pressure builds, the seams give, and you have a mess on the floor that nobody wanted. The skin is ruined. And the wine — the new, glorious, just-becoming-what-it-was-meant-to-be wine — is gone.

Now, here is the part most folks miss. In the Greek, the words for “new” and “old” do not just mean “recently made” and “made a while ago.” They speak to nature. To essence. To character.

A new wineskin is supple. Flexible. Has give. Can grow. An old wineskin is rigid. Set. Stiff. Brittle. It can hold what is already settled, but it cannot hold what is still becoming.

Jesus is not just talking about leather bags. He is talking about your soul.

The Wine Hasn’t Changed

Here is the thing about this parable that nearly everybody misses.

The wine in the new skin is the same wine. It’s the container that needed to change.

Jesus did not show up and bring a different gospel. He did not bring a different God. He did not bring a different forgiveness, a different mercy, a different love.

He brought the same wine that had been promised since Genesis 3, that the prophets had been pointing to, that Abraham believed for, that Moses preached toward, that David sang about, that Isaiah saw coming —the wine of the covenant love of God for sinners who do not deserve it and cannot earn it and could never afford it.

Same wine.

But the container the religious leaders had built for it — the Pharisees’ rules, the legalism, the in-crowd / out-crowd, the “you-have-to-be-this-clean-to-ride-the-ride” religion — that container was old. That container had been stretched all it was going to stretch. That container had no room left for the kind of people Jesus kept showing up with.

Tax collectors. Prostitutes. Roman soldiers. Samaritans. Fishermen who couldn’t quote a verse if you spotted them the first four words. Lepers nobody else would touch. Children the disciples kept trying to shoo away.

The old container could not hold them.

So Jesus didn’t change the wine. He just refused to use their wineskin.

Here Is the Trap We Fall Into

We do this every generation. Every. Single. Generation.

We fall in love with a wineskin — a particular style, a particular sound, a particular way of doing church — and then somewhere along the way, without even meaning to, we start treating the wineskin like it IS the wine.

We confuse our preferences with the gospel. We confuse our traditions with the truth. We confuse our comfort with the Kingdom.

“This is NOT church.”

“This is TOO LOUD.”

“This is NOT how we do it.”

And what we are really saying is: “This is not the wineskin I am used to.”

Which is fine. Wineskins are wineskins. You can have a preference.

I do not want a worship service with a banjo.

That is a preference.

I am not pretending banjos are unbiblical.

They might be, but I will not die on that hill.

The problem is when we start mistaking the leather for the liquid.

When we start guarding the container like it’s holy and the gospel inside gets spilled trying to fit somebody new into our old shape.

This Is Personal For Me

I want to tell you something about coming back.

I was gone for nine months. That’s enough time to make a baby. I did not, in fact, make a baby. But what God did do in those nine months was stretch me.

I came back wiser. I hope. I came back gentler. I think. I came back, frankly, with less patience for the wineskin arguments and more patience for the people Jesus actually died for.

Some folks have called this season John 2.0. I will take it. It is better than what Renee calls me, which I will not repeat here.

But here is what I want to say plainly:

The wine I came back preaching is the SAME wine I have been preaching for thirty years.

Same Jesus. Same cross. Same empty tomb. Same Father who runs down the road to meet His prodigal sons. Same Spirit who blows where He wants and does not need our committee approval.

That has not changed. That will never change. If I ever start preaching a different wine, find another pastor. That is a promise.

But the wineskin? My personal wineskin? Some of that needed stretching.

I came back with less interest in being right and more interest in being faithful. I came back with less interest in defending my reputation and more interest in lifting people out of the ditch they are sitting in. I came back with a wider arm-span. I came back willing to love people a younger Pastor John might have only been willing to witness to.

There is a difference. If you have to fix somebody before you can love them, you are not loving them. You are auditioning them.

And Jesus never asked anybody to audition.

Which Is Why Grace Church Has the Core Value It Does:

Grace Church welcomes everyone who welcomes everyone.

Which is not a slogan.

That is a wineskin.

A new one.

A supple one.

A flexible one.

It is built to hold the kind of people Jesus kept inviting to dinner.

It is built to hold the kid with the tattoos.

It is built to hold the businesswoman in the pearls.

It is built to hold the doubter.

It is built to hold the divorced mom who has been told she is not welcome at her last church.

It is built to hold the addict on day three.

It is built to hold the addict on day three thousand.

It is built to hold the Republican and the Democrat in the same pew without anybody bursting.

It is built to hold the kid who has questions about gender and the grandmother who has questions about the kid.

All of them. Same wine. Same Jesus. Same gospel. Just a wineskin built with enough give to hold all of it.

Because here is what I figured out somewhere around year twenty of pastoring: if the wineskin is too small to hold everybody Jesus died for, the wineskin is too small. Period. Get a new one.

And the Wineskin Still Stretches

Renee — Baby Doll — has a line she has used on me for years. Usually after a sermon where I have said something that I thought was sharper than it was, or louder than it needed to be, or where I made a joke that landed for about two-thirds of the room.

She’ll look at me afterward, eyebrow raised, and she’ll say:

“Well — at least nobody ran down the center aisle screaming this is not church today.”

Every. Time. For more than two decades now. It is her benediction over my preaching career.

And I’ll tell you what — I have come to receive that line as a kind of grace.

Because what she is really saying is this: “John, you were willing to risk the wineskin today. You said something somebody might not have wanted to hear. You preached the new wine knowing it might stretch the room. And the room held. Nobody burst.”

That is what I want for this church for the rest of my ministry.

Pour out the new wine. Trust the wineskin to stretch. And if it doesn’t — get a new wineskin.

One Last Thing — The Verse the Preachers Usually Skip

Luke does something funny right after this parable. Mark doesn’t include it. Matthew doesn’t include it. Just Luke. The Greek physician. The detail guy.

He records Jesus adding one more line:

“And no one after drinking old wine desires new, for he says, ‘The old is good.’”

— Luke 5:39

Now — preachers usually skip this one because it seems to contradict the rest of the parable. Like, wait, I thought we were supposed to be the new wine people? Why does Jesus end with, “Yeah, but most people prefer the old”?

Here is what I think He is doing. I think Jesus is being honest about human nature.

Most of us, given the choice, will pick the familiar. The old hymn. The old pew. The old format. The old version of ourselves. Because the old is settled. The new is fermenting. The new is becoming. The new might change us, and that is terrifying.

So we say, “The old is good.” And Jesus does not even argue with us. He just notes it. Like a doctor noting a symptom.

Friend — do not let comfort decide your theology. “The old is good” is not always the same thing as “the old is right.”

So Here Is What I Am Asking

Three things.

First — know the difference between the wine and the skin.

The wine is the gospel.

The skin is the form.

If you are angry about something at church this week, ask yourself: am I defending the wine, or am I defending the skin?

If it is the wine, fight for it. If it is the skin, hold it loose.

Second — stay supple. The old wineskin is the one that’s stopped stretching. If you have stopped being able to be surprised by what God is doing, or who He is doing it through, ask the Holy Spirit to soak you in oil again. That is what the Hebrews did with old wineskins to make them new again — they soaked them. They oiled them. They made them flexible. Sit in the Word until you can stretch again.

Third — do not run out of the room. If something at church surprises you, if a song is loud, if a person looks different, if the wineskin you walked in expecting is not the one you got — stay. Five more minutes. Sit there. Pray through it.

Find out what is in the cup before you reject the cup.

Because the Church Lady who ran out that night? She missed the wine.

I have thought about her over the years. I hope she found a wineskin she could trust. I hope somebody loved her well. I hope she got to the same gospel by a different route.

But I will tell you what — the kids in tattoos that night? Some of them stayed. Some of them got baptized. Some of them are married now with children of their own. Some of them are sitting in our chairs on Sunday mornings. I can point them out. And none of them — not one of them — would tell you that the loud guitar got in the way of meeting Jesus.

It was the wineskin that finally fit them.

A Prayer for the Stretching

Lord, forgive me for the times I have confused my wineskin with Your wine. Forgive me for the times I have defended my comfort and called it faith. Make me supple again. Make me curious again. Make me willing to be surprised by who You are showing up through and what You are pouring out. Help me hold the gospel with a strong grip and the form with a loose one. And when the people who do not look like me, sound like me, or vote like me walk through the doors of Your church — give me the grace to stay in my seat, open my hands, and welcome them into the same wine that welcomed me. In Jesus’ name, amen.

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Same wine.

New skin.

The gospel hasn’t moved.

We just keep getting new bags to hold it in.

The best is yet to come.

— Your Hope Dealer, John 2.0