... then tell them, ‘This is what the LORD says: I am going to fill with drunkenness all who live in this land, including the kings who sit on David’s throne, the priests, the prophets and all those living in Jerusalem. – Jeremiah 13:13

Today’s Scripture Reading (March 8, 2014): Jeremiah 13

A recent study on alcohol consumption suggests that the more money you have at your disposal, the more alcohol you are likely to consume over your life. But the same study also reveals that while lower socioeconomic classes will drink less over their lifetime, they are more likely to drink great quantities of alcohol in short periods of time. In other words, the higher the socioeconomic status, the more likely it is that social drinking will become a daily behavior, but the lower the socioeconomic status, the more likely the person is to binge drink – and the more likely that the person’s life will be characterized by seasons of out of control drunkenness.

Whether or not the study is true, and there are other studies that show a very complex relationship between money and alcohol consumption revealing very little difference between the classes, especially within the cultural west, the public image of drunkenness seems to regard it as a lower class issue. And the image is an ancient one.

So Jeremiah tells this parable of the wineskins. And Jeremiah says that the wineskins would be filled, and the immediate reaction of those in power was of course – in the day when God is in control, there will be no shortage of wine. But then Jeremiah adds the plot twist. He is not talking about wineskins – or even wine jars. In the parable, the wineskins are the people. And in the day that is coming, Jeremiah says that the people will be filled with wine, and they will be drunk. The image that Jeremiah is building off of is found in Psalm 60. “You have shown your people desperate times; you have given us wine that makes us stagger” (Psalm 60:3.) But maybe the most frightening aspect of the parable is that it described the drunkenness of the nation as applying to all the people – including those in control of the nation. When the desperate times came for the nation, those that should have been able to think through the problems and defend the nation were only going to be able to stagger. When the people needed someone who could smooth out the rough spots, the leaders of the nation would be giddy, stupid, and unable to help themselves – let alone those who would depend on their wisdom as they walked into an uncertain future.

The problem with alcohol has never been the moderate consumption of it – it has always been the drinking to excess. This would not be the first or the last time that leaders would trade sober thought during times of stress for escaping reality with alcohol. And in our culture the drinking to excess is usually done as an escape from reality – and that is the problem. Sometimes, when we need to face the reality most, we use alcohol to simply avoid it. And that is our cultural problem – and one that we need to be able to avoid.

Tomorrow’s Scripture Reading: Jeremiah 22