(Luke 5:33-39, also Matt 9 and Mark 2)
The Pharisees asked (actually, “accused” is closer to the mark) Jesus why John the Baptist’s disciples regularly fasted and prayed, and their own disciples also – but His disciples just kept on eating and drinking.
Jesus answers them with three figures: the bridegroom and his friends; the old cloak that needs patching; and the new wine that needs a skin. Matthew, Mark and Luke all have this passage, with minor variations.
Most notably, Matthew and Mark both talk about using uncarded rag to patch an old cloak, whereas Luke says you wouldn’t cut a patch from a new cloak to fix the tear in an old one; in Matthew and Mark the implication is that unshrunk cloth pulls away from the old well shrunken cloth, in Luke that you wouldn’t ruin a new cloak to fix an old one.
The last figure (of wine and wineskins) is similar. You don’t ruin old wineskins and lose the new wine by putting the one in the other.
The first figure is however a little different. The bridegroom’s friends are there to celebrate with him; when he is taken away from them then they will indeed fast. The difference here is that this is not something expected in most marriage celebrations.
However, what all three figures do is make the point that comparing Jesus and His disciples (in the context, including a crowd of tax-farmers and ne’er-do-wells) with the established religious movements of the Baptist and the Pharisees is a mistake. The first figure says that this is a celebration of a forthcoming wedding, not a religious exercise; the last two that trying to fit what Jesus is doing into the framework of established religious movements – maybe “religious movements”, full stop – will only cause loss and destruction on both sides.
But Luke includes one detail which the others omit, and which is always mistranslated.
“And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’” (Luke 5:39, NIV)
We read this and conclude that following Jesus is after all a bit rough and ready – “nasty new wine, not as smooth and mellow as old wine” and so on. There is, after all, something beautiful about mellow old religion, that we lose when we respond to the awkward demands of Jesus.
Except…
καὶ οὐδεὶς πιὼν παλαιὸν θέλει νέον· λέγει γάρ· Ὁ παλαιὸς χρηστός ἐστιν. (Luke 5:39, SBL Greek NT)
“And no one drinking old wine is willing [to drink, to try] new; for he says “the old is fine”.
χρηστός is the key word here. It does not, ever, mean “better”. It means adequate, useful, serviceable, good of its kind. That is an important distinction, and we should hear the hint of “damning with faint praise” inherent in the phrase. Jesus is not saying that people refuse the new because the old is so much better; like someone who has had a few flagons already, they say “what do you want to bother me with new wine for, this stuff is fine.”
In other words, familiarity with religion and religious practice is a hindrance to even trying to understand what Jesus has on offer. This would explain why Jesus’ house is full of such atypical disciples (from a religious point of view).
And, since so many explain this verse with reference to the judging of old versus new wine, we don’t actually know how either would have tasted in Jesus day. But we might do well to be a bit cautious: wine that has spent a few years in a goat skin may have little in common with the 1952 Chateau Lafite Rothschild, which has spent its life in a glass bottle in a cool cellar, and been rotated on its axis every few months to keep the cork wet. Clearly the new wine must be more active, biologically (hence the danger to old skins), but old wine may have been pretty sour, too.
So Luke 5:39 should actually be understood as a prod and a positive provocation to His interlocutors (ie the Pharisees who had questioned Him about why his disciples just kept eating and drinking.)
“You are happy with your religious observances, which is why you can’t begin to imagine how good it is in the Kingdom. (But maybe you should find out, instead of carrying on like a maudlin drunk in a tavern.)”
The Kingdom isn’t eating and drinking, but it sure is worth celebrating.
Seeing the Kingdom 