I recently completed a wine appreciation class at the Viticulture Center at Chemeketa Community College. It was an awesome class taught by Bob Sogge of Eugene. The class made me wonder about how I incorporate my love of wine with my life of faith. Is that possible? Many would say no. Interestingly to me they do so despite what the Bible says about wine. There are so many references to wine in the Bible and most of them are positive. Some people will argue that what the Bible talks about is not really wine, but some form of grape juice. I sort of wonder if such people have ever taken a science class. Grape juice, left for any amount of time in a non refrigerated space will automatically turn to wine. What the people of the Bible did not have was the technology to keep grape juice FROM turning into wine.
The Bible has a much richer and more complex view of wine than I had anticipated. The law of Leviticus is very concerned about wine, and vineyards. There are many rules for how to care for the land, and how a vineyard owner must be reimbursed if someone's animal gets into his land and eats all his grapes. There are references to how we are to care for the planet, and how we are to care for one another. Being just to all people is another huge theme, along with how to live a balanced and meaningful life.
We were never created to work as hard and as constantly as we are right now. Americans add more and more hours onto their workload each year. Many never take vacations. That is not the way God created us to work. At first blush the idea of a simple life style and drinking wine may seem incompatable (and they can be.) However, to take some time and to relax and enjoy good food and good wine with close friends is a theological event--greatly encouraged by the Bible. It seems to me that most of the work we do is to buy crap that we don't need, that will wear out about the second time we use it, and which will add to our local landfill much sooner than we would anticipate. I've decided to focus on wine as a gift, a blessing, and to do without some of the other stuff.
One of the things I've given up is TV. I was on a trip to Guatemala recently to work with Habitat For Humanity. On the trip one of the fellow workers said that the goal of TV is to make us unhappy. Think about that for a while. Why do we participate in something that we know will make us unhappy? I've made far fewer impulse purchases since I made the decision to give up the tube. (And it gives me more time to do things like this.)
Pastor Mark