Star Trek opening -- new Spock, new Kirk. Chris Pine is Kirk -- another movie he was in earlier this year -- the movie "Bottle Shock"
"Bottle Shock" is a 2008 film that tells the story of the events that led up to the Judgment of Paris in 1976, when California wine beat French wine in a blind taste test. Sommelier and wine shop owner Steven Spurrier, a British expatriate living in Paris, concocts a plan to hold a blind taste-test intended to introduce Parisians to the quality wines coming from elsewhere in the world (and save his business in the process). He travels to the not-yet-famous Napa Valley in search of contestants for his Judgment of Paris taste test, where a chance meeting introduces him to floundering vintner Jim Barrett of Chateau Montelena. This twist of fate and the resultant oenological epiphany forever change their lives, the fortunes of the Napa Valley wineries, and the global wine industry as a whole. (Thank you Wikipedia)
Points: 1) The "new" CA wines are tastier than the "old" wines -- shocking the world. Reminds me of how Jesus said something about new wine and old wineskins. New wine will burst old wineskins and the minds of the wine tasting world were burst open by this blind tasting. The new wine of the new covenant is just plain tastier ...
2) Jim Barrett and his son Bo quoted Hemingway quote "The world breaks everyone, and afterward, some are strong at the broken places." We are promised that Christ will be with us -- not that we are not going to have to suffer. And some of us may be broken by this world -- some of us by the church -- some of us by things beyond our control. Interesting fact: Most grapes are grown onto grafted vines. Meaning that the "vines" were broken off/ cut off old rootstock and placed on new. In fact all French wines now are grown on vigorous California root stock. (Keep going, stressing the points that fruitful vines will be grafted back on -- unfruitful ones cast into the fire -- and that the place where graft is placed into the rootstock is the strongest place, the knottiest place, the most fiberous place on the whole plant.)
3) stressing the vines make a sweeter grape -- quote from Jim Barrett to Sam, his intern. Again, the suffering we endure now will make the final promise sweeter.
Final illustration from http://www.godandscience.org/apologetics/communion.html:
Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin were the first men to walk on the moon in the Apollo 11 space mission. Michael Collins third member of the group, was in charge of the command module, essential for their return to earth, which circled the moon while Armstrong and Aldrin landed. The moon lander touched down at 3:17 Eastern Standard Time, Sunday, July 20, 1969.
Aldrin had brought with him a tiny communion kit, given him by his church, that had a silver chalice and wine vial about the size of the tip of his finger. During the morning he radioed, "Houston, this is Eagle. This is the LM pilot speaking. I would like to request a few moments of silence. I would like to invite each person listening in, whoever or wherever he may be, to contemplate for a moment the events of the last few hours, and to give thanks in his own individual way."
"In the radio blackout," he wrote later, "I opened the little plastic packages which contained the bread and the wine. I poured the wine into the chalice our church had given me. In the one-sixth gravity of the moon, the wine slowly curled and gracefully came up the side of the cup. Then I read the Scripture, 'I am the vine, you are the branches. Whosoever abides in me will bring forth much fruit.' I had intended to read my communion passage back to earth, but at the last minute Deke Slayton had requested that I not do this. NASA was already embroiled in a legal battle with Madelyn Murray O'Hare, the celebrated opponent of religion, over the Apollo 8 crew reading from Genesis while orbiting the moon at Christmas. I agreed reluctantly..." "Eagle's metal body creaked. I ate the tiny Host and swallowed the wine. I gave thanks for the intelligence and spirit that had brought two young pilots to the Sea of Tranquility. It was interesting for me to think: the very first liquid ever poured on the moon, and the very first food eaten there, were the communion elements."
This is indeed The final frontier
These are the voyages of the church of God
Its ongoing mission
To explore strange new worlds
To bear fruit in our new life within our civilization
To boldly go where no man has gone before. (too schmutzy?)
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