For 14 days, the yeast will work away on the wine. At first, it blooms, which is how we know it’s working. Have you ever met a new Christian who blooms? A baby freshly baptized baby who radiates love? An adult who finds a community who really does want them, just the way they are? Love makes us bloom.

The yeast works it’s way through the whole batch of wine, and eventually sinks to the bottom where we can’t see it working. But we know it’s working. We can measure it.

A gadget called a wine thief sneaks into the pail and doesn’t disturb the yeast, allowing us to draw a sample. We transfer the sample to a test jar with a hydrometer.

The hydrometer measures how much sugar is in the liquid. SG stands for “specific gravity.” In plain water, it reads an even 1.000. The sugar-rich grape juice reads 1.086.

If it weren’t for the hydrometer, we might not know the yeast was doing its work. By day 3, we’re at 1.085. It looks like the yeast is going away. But by day 6, some real action is happening (1.048!) and it’s all under the surface.

We won’t be transformed by God’s love all at once. Sometimes it’s a little slow to get going, after the bloom fades. You might even be fooled into thinking the bloom is all there is, and when it’s gone, it’s all done. But really, the action of God’s love has only just begun. Over time, love takes hold, and works it’s way through our whole being.

Day 8, and we’ve passed our target. We can move on with the process, but there’s no rush. We can let it go for a few more days. It won’t go much past 0.996, but we can take our time.

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Early Christians were called “People of the Way.” Transformation of our lives by God’s love is the way. It is the purpose of our church communities, our liturgies, our spiritual disciplines. As we are transformed by love, we seek to become agents of transformation in the world God loves.

The wine is ready to start. There are two things we need: juice from grapes and yeast.

The bag of concentrated juice is 10 litres. It goes in the pail with the bentonite slurry, and about 9 litres of water. The water that goes in is slightly warm, so that we end up with 23 litres of grape juice that is just the right temperature.

Everything we need is here. The sugars in the juice will be transformed into alcohol. The tannins from the grape skins, stems and seeds give the wine texture. The varietal of the grapes give the wine particular smells and flavours.

You and I are like this pail of grape juice ready to become wine. Everything God needs is right there. You are the complete package, full of the raw ingredients that God will use and transform with love, making a new thing. Even the parts we might not be proud of make us who we are, and are included in the final product.

The transforming agent in our wine is yeast. It gets sprinkled on the top of the juice, and gets to work right away. We’ll be careful not to disturb it too much. It needs the right conditions to thrive. Enough sugars, the right temperature. We’ll need to keep the temperature of the room even for the next 14 days. Sometimes the yeast stops working. It can be reactivated, or if need be, another packet of yeast can be added.

If we are to be fully transformed by God’s love, there will be an incubation period where we need focus and attention to what’s going on around us. It seems delicate and fragile at first, but once it takes hold in our lives, the process cannot be stopped.

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Bentonite is used widely in a number of industrial applications. A small pouch of the dried clay is included in our wine-making kit, and we add it to four litres of water in our freshly cleaned and sanitized pail.

It seems strange to wash everything so carefully, and then start with muddy water. It’s going to help clarify the wine – grab a hold of particles that would make the wine cloudy – helping produce a shiny, clear, ruby-red liquid.

We use ashes to mark the beginning of Lent, a small cross on our foreheads. “Remember you are dust, and to dust you shall return.” We cover ourselves with dirt to make things clear. It becomes clear that we are justified by grace, not by our own doing. It becomes clear that our mortality s always with us. It becomes clear that transformation of our lives by God’s love is the way forward. A little bit of dirt helps remind us of that.

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