New Wine, Old Wineskins: Coming Home After Thirty Years Abroad

For thirty years the plan was simple. Work hard in Birmingham, or Brooklyn, or Toronto. Send money home. Buy a piece of land in the parish where you grew up. Build a house slowly, one container of materials at a time. Then, when the pension comes through, go back and live there in the sun, under the breadfruit tree, among the people you left.

Many returning residents find that the plan works, and that the life is good. Many also find that the home they return to is not the home they left. The district has changed. The friends they remembered have died or moved away. Prices are higher than they expected. Relatives who looked after the house have their own ideas about it. And they themselves have changed more than they realised: they now expect a queue to move in a certain way, a council to collect rubbish on a certain day, a phone call to be returned.

Why the old skin splits

Jesus used an image His listeners would have known well. New wine was stored in fresh leather skins that could stretch as it fermented. Put new wine into an old, brittle skin and the skin would split, wasting both. “And no one pours new wine into old wineskins,” He said. “Otherwise, the new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined” (Luke 5:37, NIV). Instead, new wine must go into new wineskins (Luke 5:38).

He was speaking about the newness of His kingdom, which would not fit neatly inside the old religious habits of the day. But the image travels well. When life changes profoundly, trying to contain it within old expectations can cause things to split.

For a returning resident, the old wineskin might be a memory of home frozen in the year they left: the shop that was always open, the neighbour who would always help, the idea that family would be just as it was. The new wine is the actual life that awaits, with its own blessings and its own difficulties. Pour the new life into the old expectations and disappointment is almost certain.

What a new wineskin might look like

Consider a couple who returned to their home parish after decades in England. The first year was hard. The house their nephew had supervised needed more work than they had been told. Water supply was irregular. Church felt different. They quarrelled more than they had in years.

What helped, they said later, was deciding to treat home as a new place rather than an old one. They stopped comparing everything to the way it used to be, and to the way it was in England. They made new friends instead of waiting for old ones. They joined a group of other returning residents who met monthly and shared practical advice. They put in a larger water tank rather than complaining about the supply. They learned to see themselves not as people coming back, but as people starting again.

Practical stretching

New wineskins are flexible. For anyone planning a return, a little flexibility built in early can prevent a lot of splitting later:

• Spend real time there before the move. A few weeks at Christmas is not the same as living through a rainy season or a water lock-off.
• Have an independent person inspect the house. Relatives mean well, but an engineer or surveyor will tell you what needs doing.
• Sort out the paperwork. Check the title, the survey and any family agreements about the land with an attorney-at-law, ideally before shipping your belongings.
• Plan for healthcare, transport and income. Understand how pensions, banking and medical care will work, and take advice on tax if you will have income in more than one country.
• Talk openly with family. If a sibling has lived in or managed the house, discuss expectations before you arrive, not after.

Letting go without losing

The saying about wineskins is not a call to despise the past. The old skin served well in its time. Returning residents bring decades of experience, skill and faith that can enrich their communities: organising a church building project, mentoring young people, bringing an eye for detail to a neighbourhood committee.

It is simply a recognition that the new season requires a new container. Isaiah heard God say, “Do not remember the former things, nor consider the things of old. Behold, I will do a new thing” (Isaiah 43:18–19, NKJV). That is not a command to forget where you came from. It is an invitation to stop measuring the present against a memory, and to watch for what God is doing now.

For anyone packing up a life abroad to go home, or leaving home for a new country, the question is the same. Are you trying to pour tomorrow into yesterday’s skin? Or are you willing to be stretched?

This article is general information only and is not financial, legal, tax or other professional advice. Please speak to a qualified professional about your own circumstances.

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