Vignette #001: The Galilean Drunkard

 The Galilean Drunkard

I write a wine blog for work. Usually, it goes something like this: “The Sauvignon Cabernet is a classy, carmine libation, destined to tantalize your taste buds and stay in your memory long after you’ve finished a glass.” I use a ton of sensory words like ‘boozy’, ‘revelation’, ‘silky’, and ‘mellow’, and frankly, I am sort of sick of it. So I thought for the month of December, given Christmas is around the corner, I’d write something different.

A while back, I had wanted to write about wine and literature. I wanted to talk about the Rubaiyat of Omar Khayyam and somehow marry the themes from the book to selling wine (since that’s what the blogs are written to do), or merge wine with music, wine and poems, anything but a direct sale.

Then for Christmas I decided I wanted to write about Jesus. I thought I would talk about how Jesus called himself the “true vine”.

But I knew I could not mention his name outright since that isn’t permitted, so I came up with a moniker for him: The Galilean Drunkard. The name comes from the Pharisees calling Jesus a glutton and drunkard.

Suffice it to say, I didn’t have the courage to float the idea, and knowing that it isn’t fair to sneakily promote my beliefs on somebody else’s blog, I thought why not write what I wanted, on my own blog?

This isn’t a story or a poem, it’s about Jesus calling himself the “True Vine” and why I feel let down by the Galilean Drunkard.

Welcome…

My text is from the Gospel of John, Chapter 15. and in particular the verse 16. The verse goes something like this: “You did not choose me, I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures.”

There was a time when I believed God meant that verse for me. But now, I am not too sure.

I remember Reverend Nigel Pope preach this sermon one Christmas morning about the Vine into which all believers are grafted. The Vine is Jesus, God is the Gardener who does the grafting, and the fruit that we produce are the good deeds we do that show off our new faith.

Then comes the painful yet necessary part of pruning…

There were strange things going on in my life at that time, and I sort of believed God was pruning me to bear more fruit.

There was another episode where this verse came to help me. 

I was at my wit's end once and I turned to scripture to find solace, and I read these words from John’s gospel. “You did not choose me, I chose you, and appointed you to go and bear much fruit, the kind of fruit that endures.”

That Sunday I went with a friend to AG Church to seek help from a Pastor there. They were giving out awards to kids who had finished this course on the Bible or something, and the Pastor quoted John 15:16. I thought he was speaking to me.

My heart leapt.

If there ever is one thing I said, that I meant with all my heart, it was this: this time I’m going to follow Jesus.

I sometimes wonder why that wasn’t enough for the Galilean Drunkard…