I have just returned from a few days away with (amongst other aspects) a great re-connection to Victor Lorenzo. I first met Victor in 1997, he and Silvia were very helpful during the months of journey with Sue when she was ill. He moved to the UK in 2003 (from memory) and has always held to a persepctive that what they experienced in Argentina is not to be repeated in Europe but something is to manifest that he had never seen before. Has to be so as we are well and truly post-Christendom… makes the journey unpredictable and full of adventure.
While away someone pulled a Scripture out that I had never seen before:
Noah, a man of the soil, was the first to plant a vineyard (Gen. 9:20)
I don’t know what point was made from this but it hit me in the context of Argentina (past stories) and the present (Europe etc). We all know ‘Noah and the flood’ and how he ‘saved’ people through the safety of the ark. There are times of emergency when the ark is the means of transport… but we have to be people of the soil, of the land, embedded and connected. Stories that Victor told about his time pre-Europe can encourage but also set false hopes and expectations. We are to work the soil, find what is in it and learn how to work with what is there.
And of course enjoy the fruit of it… but not so much that we indulge ourselves and like Noah (and the first two) be found ‘naked’. However, we have to look for the new wine that does not taste as good as the old. The new wine of ‘God is doing this and that’ but it is a completely new vintage.