Tart Wine: Reflections on George Herbert's "The Bunch of Grapes"

Might the wilderness experience of Israel, including its story of complaint in the midst of great blessing, mean more to us if we were to believe that, in a real sense, we were there? Might it help us to see (or hear) ways that we sometimes sound like we still are? One less we should take from Israel's story is that the shape of the Christian life--as a kind of retelling of that story--is one of regular temptation toward complaint. Though surrounded with God’s presence and his promises, the ancient Israelites still found reasons to gripe. We are often tempted to the same. If we must take up the sorrows of life, can we not expect its joys too? we bitterly ask. George Herbert’s poem, The Bunch of Grapes, unites us as Christians vulnerable to griping to the Christ in whose faithfulness the crushed grapes of judgment yield the rich wine of blessing and joy. For Greystone, which has a high view of the spiritual significance of good quality wine as a testimony of God’s favor and fellowship, it is no small thing to confess, with gladness, that in Christ, the law’s sourness for sinners has become sweet wine.

To help us reflect on these things, we are pleased to introduce you to Mr. Jonathan Stark, a longtime elder in the Presbyterian church and teacher of literature, French, and Bible, the director of spiritual life at Greystone Theological Institute, a founding Greystone board member, and a personal friend of many of us at Greystone. The lecture included as this episode of Greystone Conversations is part of a series of 6 lectures that Mr. Stark gave on George Herbert at Greystone and which is available as a series at Greystone Connect. This particular lecture is called “Tart Wine: The Bunch of Grapes,” and explores Herbert’s poem called "The Bunch of Grapes." The text of this poem is available in the online description of this episode and in many other places online and in published forms, and Mr. Stark also reads the poem in its entirety at the opening and the close of this lecture.

We are also pleased to take this opportunity to announce that Mr. Stark, a longtime lover of the biblical psalms and of the church’s liturgical life, has completed his composition of brand new, original tones for the entire biblical psalter, and this will be released, with introduction and supplemental helps, as The Greystone Chanted Psalter. It’s hard to put into words how excited we are about this project and about Mr. Stark’s excellent work on it.


The Bunch of Grapes

by George Herbert

Joy, I did lock thee up: but some bad man
Hath let thee out again:
And now, me thinks, I am where I began
Sev'n years ago: one vogue and vein,
One air of thoughts usurps my brain.
I did towards Canaan draw; but now I am
Brought back to the Red sea, the sea of shame.

For as the Jews of old by God's command
Travelled and saw no town;
So now each Christian hath his journeys spanned:
Their story pens and sets us down.
A single deed is small renown.
God's works are wide, and let in future times;
His ancient justice overflows our crimes.

Then we have too our guardian fires and clouds;
Our Scripture-dew drops fast:
We have our sands and serpents, tents and shrouds;
Alas! our murmurings come not last.
But where's the cluster? where's the taste
Of mine inheritance? Lord, if I must borrow,
Let me as well take up their joy, as sorrow.

But can he want the grape, who hath the wine?
I have their fruit and more.
Blessed be God, who prospered Noah's vine,
And made it bring forth grapes good store,
But much more him I must adore,
Who of the Laws sour juice sweet wine did make,
Ev'n God himself being pressed for my sake.