Samuel Jerome and Richnightder

Samuel Jerome and Richnightder
Our boys in Haiti

Sunday, December 19, 2010

Is it really a burn-in-hell card to drink the sacramental wine...after church?

Today was a long day in church for us, by Lutheran standards.  We were the greeters at the 8:30AM service so we had to be there by 8ish.  In addition, I was the reader and Madison was doing altar guild duties which require her to put out the dish with the communion wafers and fill the challices with wine and grape juice.  Then the kids had Sunday School which today was practice for the 10:30 service which was solely the Christmas play.  Marc and Thomas had leading roles and both rocked the lines and play.  Madison had confirmation class and as a Confirmation guide I had to sit thru class with her too.

Pastor Paul is a super cool, hip guy and today's confimation class consisted of a video of the orginal "How the Grinch Stole Christmas."  His hope was that the kids would grasp the meaning of the movie which is that Christmas is not about things, it's about love, which God gave us with the gift of Jesus and that nothing can stop that from happening...not even a grinch.  Ok, ok, I just wanted to give you a brief synopsis of our day before I get to the sacramental wine.

I helped Madison put away the un-used Communion wafers, otherwise known as the Body of Christ and helped her empty the chalice's which held the wine and grape juice, AKA the Blood of Christ.  Pastor Paul had told Madison that she could either drink the left over liquids or pour them out as they cannot be reused.  Seeing as it was going to be a LOOOOONNNNNNGGGGGG day, I decided I would take a large gulp of the "Blood of Christ" before pouring it down the drain because being wasteful is a sin (HA)!  Well, in walks Pastor Paul as I'm sipping (cough) the wine and just shakes his head.  He did point out that in all his years of Pastoring he has never walked in on someone in the Sacristy drinking the wine.  I quickly pointed out that he had informed my 13 year old daughter that she could either drink the unused wine or pour it down the drain, so he should not be shocked to find her mother volunteering for 'clean-up' duties.  He's a cool guy, so it was a funny situation especially as I was just elected to a 3 year position on the church council.  God I love the Lutheran's.

1 comment:

Tifanni said...

That's hilarious. We always got the leftovers as kids, so I don't think your on your way to hell, but when your a Baptist kid, those white grape juice leftovers aren't all that exciting. Too bad we didn't get the good stuff :)