On Wine and Atheism
I’m not much of a wine drinker but I’ve been researching about the fermentation process of wine as I’ve been studying some passages from the minor prophet Zephaniah. In his warnings to the Israelites, Zephaniah details how the Lord will “Search Jerusalem with lamps, and I will punish the people who rest complacently on their dregs, those who say in their hearts, ‘the LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm” (Zeph 1:12, NRSV). This verse comes in the opening section of Zephaniah’s book of prophecy and it is in this section that he opens with a warning of judgment that awaits the whole earth. Zephaniah describes early on how God will sweep away with destruction everything he had created. Interestingly, the list of destruction is in reverse order to the list described in Genesis 1 (Zeph 1:2-3). The Lord describes how he will wipe out everyone who is corrupt, evil, continuing to worship with superstition (1:9), idolatrous (1:4), and especially those who have fallen out of love with God (1:6). However, Zephaniah’s counsel narrow’s its focus in verse 12 to Jerusalem specifically. So what is it about Jerusalem and those whom live there that God focuses so intently on? What is it about those who are the people of God that they are dealt in a separate manner than everyone else on this Day of the Lord?
What is a dreg?
The opening part of this verse is rather straightforward. God tells that on that day coming, he will travel throughout Jerusalem with a lamp. This lamp, perhaps Christ, is used to bring light to every dark corner. What’s unique about the word used for “search” here is the inference of success. In other words, the Lord will search and find. Some will be found to be guilty of what follows: “those who rest complacently on their dregs.” What in the world does that mean? There is a bit of confusion surrounding this particular phrase because it is strictly a cultural phrase, sort of like how many of us use little quips and phrases that mean certain things in our culture but do not translate to other cultures. That is the problem with this phrase, it was significant to the culture it was written for, but loses some of its meaning and emphasis when transcribed in our cultural context. Some translators have written it like this: “the men are settled on their lees,” “who rest complacently on their dregs,” “like wine left on its dregs,” and “who are settled on their dregs.” What on earth is a dreg or lee and what does it mean to rest on it or sit complacently as one?
A dreg or lee is part of the sediment that settles to the bottom of a container of wine. During the fermentation process, if wine is left to sit quietly for a long period of time, there is a tendency for the heavier particles to settle at the bottom – sort of like when you take a cup of muddy water and let it sit until all the dirt settles at the bottom. This part is good for the wine, because then these heavier particles are left behind as the wine is poured from one container to the next. However, the misfortune comes when that wine sits for too long. For if it is not drained, those dregs or lees will begin to thicken or “coagulate” and ruin the wine.
What’s so bad about dregs?
The connection Zephaniah is trying to make is to say that some of the people in Jerusalem have started to stagnate and settle: they have, figuratively, become the dregs of God’s people. Without beating around the bush, the word shemer, translated as lees or dregs, is described as such: the most useless or worthless part of something. That is a rather striking image! The Lord will search, with success, throughout Jerusalem and find people who have slowly become the most useless part of the people of God. The follow-up to this is, what has caused these people to become useless?
To put it in a word: atheism. Those who have been chosen to be the people of God have turned away from their love for the Lord and, instead, have fallen in love with other gods. Now they haven’t completely denied the reality of God, but they have stripped him of his power and sovereignty. Zephaniah describes how the dregs of Jerusalem contend that, “The LORD will not do good, nor will he do harm.” What they really mean is: God isn’t powerful enough to do anything, good or bad. And thus, some of the people of God have become practical atheists – God is not the god of anything. These people have been moved to indifference, quietism, apathy, and a lack of love for God. They have “drawn up their feet” and sit still instead of striving forward in their love for God.
So what?
Here is what we should draw from Zephaniah’s warning from this passage: love God and pray with hope and confidence. Because of their other sins, like idolatry and lack of prayer, the Jews had slowly fallen out of love with God and fallen away from believing God has the power to do anything, whether for good or bad. We run the risk of slowly becoming practical atheists – we might still believe in God on a theological level but, because of our growing complacency, we outgrow any thoughts of God being able to help the world or us. And thus, each of us could become the dregs of God’s Kingdom – the most worthless part. In his reflection on this passage and the growing complacency in the Church, George Adam Smith affirmed that, “The great causes of God and humanity are not defeated by the hot assaults of the Devil, but by the slow, crushing, glacier-like mass of thousands and thousands of indifferent nobodies. God’s causes are never destroyed by being blown up, but by being sat upon.” The risk we run is that we might actually stop being the forerunners of the Christian faith and, instead, become active agents working against the plans of God! Nothing should frighten us more than realizing that we might become a person who actually keeps others from God. So what can we do? We keep praying. We keep hoping for God’s hand of strength and love to move in our lives and the lives of others. Furthermore, we strive to love God more and more as we get to know him more. We should never get tired or complacent in our exploration of who God is and his will for our lives.