"A Glass of Wine"

Dear WRC,

Thank you for your engagement with last month’s letter! I think I got, by far, more feedback and conversation from that letter than any of the ones before it. I’m grateful to know you’re reading and thinking along with me. It’s also just so good to think together about important things like dying. One of my further wonderings is if one of the most important ways to prepare to die well is actually just to think about what it will be like. I wonder how contemplating and imagining it, trying it on instead of ignoring it or pretending it’s not there, will impact the experience of drawing near the end of life. I have a hunch it might be important. But that’s all last month’s letter. We’re on to a new month, and with it comes something very different!

This month’s letter is an invitation to have a glass of wine. Seriously. Before I tell you when and where, let me tell you why.

There have been several different conversations slowly coalescing in my head over the past few months:

·         One of the first things you learn about WRC is that we love food. Serve food and you will come. Invite you and you’ll bring food (good food!). Ask you to help feed the hungry and the response is overwhelming. We love food!

·         We are living in an age of disconnection, isolation, and loneliness. I don’t think I need to say much more. We know more and have more “friends” and “followers” than ever before in human history, but it has left us isolated and lonely. If you don’t feel it, trust me, there are plenty in our community who do.

·         I bought a book of prayers and liturgies called Every Moment Holy that has things for almost every situation imaginable. There is an incredible liturgy before feasting with friends that I’ve shared a couple times in different places. The first time I read it, it hit me deep. It calls feasting together an act of war against the darkness! That it is joy and fellowship and shared meals that are the “true evidences of things eternal.” That notion awakened something in me.

·         Lent begins soon! Often, we have some specific opportunity to deepen your faith and discipleship during that season. I was thinking about how we might do that this year and if gathering some small groups together might be part of it.

Then, several weeks ago I preached on Jesus turning water into wine in John 2 and all the beautiful imagery and connections that that story has throughout the rest of the Bible. That story seemed to gather up the food and feasting. It seemed so compelling in the midst of the loneliness around us. It also seemed to resonate with a number of you.

It was around then that I found a 6-week small group study guide written by a friend-of-a-friend that was all about wine’s place in Scripture, the way it is an invitation to experience God’s joy, the importance of feasting together, and how all of this points to God’s coming Kingdom. That book is called Wine in the Word and I want to invite you to join a small group to walk through it this Lent!

Groups will gather in people’s homes and hosts can decide if they’d like to serve wine during the gathering or not. You’ll meet weekly during Lent for about an hour and a half. There is a video to watch and questions to discuss together. The guidebook offers further opportunities to reflect during the week—if you choose to. Hopefully we’ll be able to form various groups that meet at different times throughout the week.

I hope you’ll consider being part of one of these groups. I’m hoping that this is a bit of a launching-off point for us into some more conversation about feasting and hospitality. I’m curious about how God will use all the conversations that seemed to come together into this one. I really do think that one of the most important and beautiful things that the Church—and our church in particular—has to offer to the world today is the community, fellowship, and love that Jesus establishes between us. Gathering others to your table for a feast with good food and wine may be one of the more important things you can do and one of the best ways to invite them deeper into the love and joy of God.

Maybe we can experience a little more of it, too!

In Christ,
Pastor Andy