Our
final game show this summer is on the Food Network and is called Chopped. I thought something food related would be fun
on this Labor Day weekend. This show pits four chefs against each other as
they compete for a chance to win $10,000. At the beginning of each round, the chefs are
each given a basket containing four mystery ingredients and are expected to
create dishes that use all of them in some way. For example:
the Appetizer ingredients consisted of watermelon, canned sardines, pepper jack cheese, and zucchini. The chefs are
given unlimited access to a pantry and refrigerator stocked with a wide variety of other ingredients, and
each chef has his/her own stations for preparing and cooking food. Each
round has a time limit, typically 20 minutes for Appetizer, and 30 minutes each
for Entrée and Dessert. At the
end of each round, the judges have sampled the dishes and decide which chef
will be chopped. They reveal the loosing
dish by having it under a serving dish and lifting up the cover.
I do have to remind myself that
these are chefs, when I watch the show. To
watch them just come up with an idea as to what to do with these ingredients
and just run with it, no recipe, I find myself rather amazed. Watermelon and Zucchini are definitely in
season right now, and most people will probably have a watermelon or two at
their Labor Day picnics, but to add cheese and some sardines into the mix –
what would your family and friends say?
Baskets of food, this is how our
worship service started today with the call to worship. As the Israelites make their way through the
wilderness they will one day arrive to a new land. And when they do, they are gather a basket of
the first fruits of the land, their first harvest, and they are to bring their
baskets to the priest, and they are to remember their past and give thanks to
their God for bringing them to this new land.
Baskets of food, perhaps food that is completely new and different to
them. Many of them only know the manna and
the quail of the wilderness. What are
these mystery ingredients, these new foods that they will learn to love? They will collect grapes, figs, dates, and
olives. On this first harvest, they might
just have the most basic of ingredients.
But before they get to this new
land, their baskets are pretty much bare.
Each morning they have manna to collect and eat and each evening they
have quail to eat. The people complain
against Moses, they are ready to have him chopped, as they remember the good
foods they had back in Egypt. They are
struggling with an important question:
is it better to be oppressed but still have food to eat, or is it better
to be a free people with a very limited diet?
If I could only eat two food items for the rest of my life, I know my
body would crave foods of my past. And
although their baskets are never empty, the monotony of the food feels like
scarcity.
But then, we have this other
story. One with a basket of just a few
items, a couple loaves of bread and a few fish.
Ingredients very similar to manna and quail, and yet there are no
complaints this day. This day those very
limited ingredients multiply and feed the thousands. What seems like scarcity is transformed into
abundance. Whereas the people wanted to
chop Moses, Jesus moves on to the next round.
Interesting how similar ingredients can be received so differently depending
on who the judges are.
God gives us all our own baskets,
filled with a variety of fruits, fruits of the Spirit. Sometimes we look at our basket and wonder
how to use some of those fruits. There
are definitely a handful that are familiar, easy to incorporate into our lives,
But there are times when we almost have to force ourselves to embrace
them. Just like forcing ourselves to use
sardines with watermelon. And there are
times when we know we just didn’t manage to be our best self. But the thing is, even when the chefs are
chopped, they are still chefs, they gave that situation their best effort, they
took risks, and they hopefully learned something new. We too, are like those chefs, there are going
to be moments when we feel as if we have been chopped, but we are still
children of God, learning, growing, taking risks, and always given the
opportunity to be renewed in God’s love.
So, as we take the simple basket we have before us today of
bread and juice, God is able to transform these ingredients into a holy meal of
grace, forgiveness, renewal, spiritual sustenance, and love. The contestants on chopped know who the judges
are, they know to whom they are preparing the meal. To often we forget who the judges are, we
allow the world around us to be our judge instead of realizing the only judge
we have before us is God. Just as a chef
prepares a meal for the tastes of the judge, we too should be preparing the meal
of our life, they way in which we live, for our loving and grace filled Creator.
, love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness,
faithfulness, gentleness, self-control.
