Lent 3, year C - 11^th March 2007
Isaiah 55:11
Come, buy wine

In the Name of the Living God, Father, Son and Holy Spirit.

A couple of months ago an old friend of mine and his wife came to lunch.  We do not see them very often as they live in Hong Kong.  When we met at university he was a tall, very slim, fit young man with a very good memory, useful when reading for a law degree.  Now he has recovered from bowel cancer, but has diabetes, ulcerated legs, and his memory is poor.  He is so unfit he can barely climb one flight of stairs.  His weight has increased from ten and a half stone when I first knew him to a colossal twenty five stones.  The reason is that he drinks a great deal every day.  When he came to lunch the three of us had just over half a bottle between us, while John drank two and a half bottles as he does at every meal, as well as spirits and beer in large quantities.

Alcohol is a strange substance.  In moderate quantities it is a source of great pleasure and is even good for our health.  In large quantities it is an evil and pernicious drug.  Every year in this country 35,000 people are admitted to hospital with alcoholic liver disease, twice what it was ten years ago.  Thirty percent of the population exceed the safe daily drinking limits of about two smallish glasses of wine a day for women and three for men.

Alcohol raises steeply the chances of strokes, memory loss, mouth, throat, breast, stomach, bowel, and liver cancers.  It harms babies in the womb, and increases the chances of osteoporosis, and many other health problems.  3,000 people are killed or seriously injured by drink driving which causes twenty percent of all accidents.  It is a major cause of crime, of violence, wife beating, child abuse, unemployment, homelessness.  A recent commission says it is the fifth most dangerous drug, worse than tobacco and cannabis.  Most drug addicts began as heavy drinkers, and many people combine drugs and drink.

Yet despite all these problems there is no serious pressure to ban alcohol except for young children who nevertheless can easily obtain alcohol.  It is now very cheap.  It is also ever-present.  A few years ago Jennifer and I both caught hepatitis, and as that affects the liver, one must stop drinking any alcohol for six months.  We are very light drinkers so that was no problem, apart from getting rather bored of lemonade in pubs, but it made us realise how prevalent alcohol is.  At every meal out, at all social church functions, alcohol is kindly offered before any thing else, and soft drinks are often difficult to find.  It also makes one realise how much we all drink.  No doubt many people here have a glass of wine or two with their meal every day, possibly with the exception of this Lenten season, in a way that was far rarer twenty or thirty years ago. As we get used to it, the amounts consumed creep up for some people from a glass to two or three or more.  I was amazed when I moved from an inner city to a suburban parish how much people drank, how many church families bought a full bottle of whisky or gin every week at the supermarket, while one woman had two or three bottles of vodka every day.  I am scared how many of my friends drink substantially more than they ought.

Drink divides religions.  We all know it is completely banned in Islam, while in Jewish and Christian traditions it is usually seen as a gift from God.  'Wine that makes glad the heart of man' wrote the psalmist.  'Stop drinking only water, and take a little wine for your stomach and your frequent illnesses' wrote Paul to Timothy.  Jesus famously turned the water into wine.  Wine was a staple of society, and has for millennia been safer to drink than water.  Teetotallers in the nineteenth century in London had to pay higher rates of life insurance because of the threat of water borne diseases.  Yet as always, the Bible is remarkably balanced.  Wine was a healthy pleasure, but it was also a danger if too much was consumed.  Its first mention in the Bible is early in Genesis when Noah planted a vineyard, and then became drunk and shamefully passed out naked before his children.  Paul wrote to Titus that bishops must not be given to drunkenness.

This balanced attitude to alcohol has continued.  St Benedict in his famous rule for his monks written some fifteen hundred years ago told them they were not to drink more than a bottle a day, except when they were working in the fields in very hot weather when they could drink two bottles.  And there is also a tradition of abstinence, for particular groups of ascetics in Biblical times and since, and for all of us on occasions such as the Lenten discipline.

It would be good for our society if far less alcohol was consumed, especially if the money saved was given for charitable causes.  Perhaps we should drink less or no alcohol this Lent, with all the money saved going to the Church’s support of Water Aid – thus turning wine into water!  As well as all the extremely dire consequences to health and relationships and society, excessive consumption of alcohol sets a dreadful example to our children and grandchildren.  There is something shameful about being over dependent on the crutch of alcohol to provide us with enjoyment and good spirits and fun, so that we are unable to celebrate without it, while we also need it to combat stress and disappointment.

Wine is, with bread, the central element of the Last Supper, the Eucharist, and will thus always have a central part in all our Christian worship.  But the observant amongst you have noticed that water is always brought up with the wine, and added to it in the chalice.  There are many explanations for this custom, but the one that I find most compelling is that in the time of our Lord only drunkards ever drank wine without adding water to it.  It was their equivalent of having straight gin without any tonic to reduce its strength.  Let us honour those who have no drink, and use moderation if we do drink alcohol, so that we may properly appreciate and use one of the gifts of God to whom be all honour and glory, majesty and power.  Amen.