I’m still appreciating the offerings from the pen of Frederick Buechner. And I completely dig his take on wine:

‘Unfermented grape juice is a bland and pleasant drink, especially on a warm afternoon mixed half-and-half with ginger ale. It is a ghastly symbol of the life blood of Jesus Christ, especially when served in individual antiseptic, thimble-sized glasses. Wine is booze, which means it is dangerous and drunk-making. It makes the timid brave and the reserved amorous. It loosens the tongue and breaks the ice especially when served in a loving cup. It kills germs. As symbols go, it is a rather splendid one’. – Frederick Buechner, Wishful Thinking. A Theological ABC (San Francisco: Harper, 1973), 95–6.

These words reminded me of the first time I ever heard Robert Jenson speak. It was at Ormond College in Melbourne about 7–8 years ago. I recall the conviction with which he spoke of the centrality of the Eucharist in the life and mission of the Church. I also recall the passion with which he condemned the use of individual shot glasses and highlighted the need for congregations to drink from the one cup, and to fill it with the best wine that we can afford. This conviction finds echo in his Conversations with Poppi about God, where he writes: ‘the wine should be the very best’ and dissolvable bread should be banned. The meal should be appetising, and not like those baptisms ‘when they just dribble a couple of drops on the baby’. – Robert W. Jenson and Solveig Lucia Gold, Conversations with Poppi about God: An Eight-Year-Old and Her Theologian Grandfather Trade Questions (Grand Rapids: Brazos Press, 2006), 33, 34. [Reviewed here]

I’m into sharing meals that make ‘the timid brave and the reserved amorous’. I believe that God is as well. Sounds like the kind of meal we ought to be having more often too.