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Jonas Hanway, a British wool merchant working in Persia in the mid-1700s, had a knack for recognizing great ideas.
One day he saw a Persian prince being escorted down a city street. The prince was sheltered from the sun by a strange, portable, tent-shaped structure.
It was the first time he had ever seen an umbrella.
Hanway quickly concluded that other Persians might welcome a bit of protection on sweltering days. On the spot he decided to go into the umbrella business.
What he failed to grasp is that the umbrella was a symbol of royal power in Persia. He might as well have tried selling king’s crowns to ordinary citizens. People were so outraged that they forced him to pack his things and head back to London.
Britain isn’t the sunniest of places, but Hanway wasn’t deterred. Why not use his umbrella as a shelter from the rain?
The first time he stepped from his front porch carrying taut material stretched over wooden ribs, people stopped and stared.
Who was this guy, and what was he trying to prove?
The owners and drivers of hansom cabs, who always welcomed falling rain because it was great for business, were actually incensed. They pelted Hanway with rubbish. One driver even tried to run him down. That’s when Hanway pioneered another use for his umbrella: He used it to give the driver a serious thrashing.
And you thought you had trouble promoting your new ideas.
Hanway at least had the satisfaction of seeing London become a city of umbrellas before he died.
Call it the Wineskins Dilemma.
In one of his parables, Jesus points out that it’s a bad idea to pour new wine into old wineskins.
As new wine expands during the fermentation process, it puts overwhelming pressure on older, already-expanded skins. “The new wine will burst the skins; the wine will run out and the wineskins will be ruined. No, new wine must be poured into new wineskins” (Luke 5:37-38).
Then Jesus adds, insightfully, “And no one after drinking old wine wants the new, for they say, ‘The old is better.’”
Or as a Londoner might have put it in 1750, “My father walked in the rain, and my grandfather walked in the rain, and it was good enough for them. Why should I miss out on walking in the rain by using an umbrella?”
Great ideas often perish because we cannot imagine how new ways of picturing the world, and making our way through it, can ever be contained by our old paradigms.
New wine requires the new wineskins of changed hearts and transformed minds.
Today is a great day to ask God to perform such a miracle.
Or as Jonas Hanway might have put it, it’s high time we come in out of the rain.