Comfort Food

It's been a rough week. I led memorial services for two families whose mothers had recently died. One on Friday and one on Saturday. At the same time we were all hearing about the devastating 9.0 earthquake in Japan. 9.0. We experienced a 7.2 earthquake here in El Centro last Easter Sunday. The Japan quake was significantly greater. I wasn't sure how these things are measured, but I discovered that the TNT (dynamite) equivalent for a 7.2 is about 943 kilotons. For a 9.0 it is about 474 MEGAtons. I cannot imagine that kind of energy release, the damage, the human loss. The world is responding to Japan with aid in all kinds of forms. Our church is responding by contributing to a designated fund opened by UMCOR (United Methodist Committee on Relief). 100% of the donations go to relief efforts in Japan. I'm  hoping and praying for a full recovery for the people of Japan.

Sunday we had friends over for dinner and I was craving what many of us call "comfort food." What is it? I think it's different for us all, but the one thing in common with comfort food is it reminds us of "home", and home reminds us of a sense of belonging, safety, security, and love. (Home being that place real or imagined for each of us)

Have you ever wondered why food plays such an important role in the life of Jesus? Maybe it's a reminder of all that is good about "home." Food and home seem to go together.

One of my great childhood memories of what I'd call home was going to my Grandmother's house. She baked her own bread and put up her own preserves. She had a boysenberry bramble at the back of the yard where she picked the fruit to make jam.  Sometimes we kids would help, but we usually ate more than we saved! There was nothing like entering the back door of here home, which into the kitchen, and smelling the aroma of fresh baked bread. There was nothing like having a piece of toast with homemade boysenberry jam. I think in those moments and memories we catch a glimpse of heaven. Home. Heaven. Same place as far as I'm concerned.

Fat Tuesday

Tuesday morning Sara and I were having breakfast and she asked, "So, what will we do for Fat Tuesday?" Fat Tuesday, or Shrove Tuesday is a long standing tradition in many cultures honoring the beginning of Lent. I had never really experienced Fat Tuesday when growing up, but Sara had. She grew up in York, Pennsylvania, and attended the Moravian church there. Each year on the eve of Ash Wednesday the members would gather and have donuts. Yes, donuts. But not just any ordinary donut. Called "Fastnachts" they are a yeasty, potato/flour donut. Traditionally they were made as a way of emptying the pantry of eggs, butter, sugar and other items that were to be given up for Lent. Our conversation got me to thinking about what kind of a family tradition we could start as we readied ourselves to celebrate the beginning of Lent. Fastnachts are pretty labor intensive. Overnight rest, multiple risings, etc. make these Pennsylvania Dutch delicacies difficult for a pastor with a busy schedule preparing for Ash Wednesday worship and the like. I have heard that other traditions made pancakes their Fat Tuesday/ShroveTuesday dinner so I thought, "Why not crepes?"  Perhaps rivaling Fastnachts in Sara's mind they are a fancy pancake (at least I think they are), but they're not too difficult to master. And they can be filled with either sweet or savory ingredients. "Perfect," I thought. I planned to make savory crepes with a cheesy, veggie, meaty filling, depending on what I had on hand in the fridge. I found a great recipe for crepes at Cooks Illustrated (cooksillustrated.com) and knew I had all I needed for our first Griffen Family Fat Tuesday dinner. But then I realized I had NO time to go home and make the crepe batter before I had to be back at church for meetings (I told you I was busy!). And then it hit me: I'll call home, and if Evan (our son) is there he can make the batter. I called. He was home. We began. "Evan, put your phone on speakerphone." "Ok." I read him the recipe. "Take two whole eggs and put them into the food processor." Evan asked, "Do I put them in whole or do I crack them first?" That is when I realized I'd done a lousy job of teaching him how to cook. "Crack them. Add the milk, water, flour, a little salt and melted butter." The key to the recipe and the reason I couldn't do this myself is the batter needs to "rest" for a couple of hours. It relaxes the gluten and makes for a tender crepe. With the batter made and stored in the fridge for a two hour rest I attended my meetings and came home to make our Fat Tuesday crepes.

Family traditions are important. It's why we do them. They bind us together with something, or someone, that is bigger than ourselves. They are the kind of things we can do even when we are far apart. And family traditions almost always include food. Food was important to Jesus as far as I can tell. He was always out eating with someone and it didn't matter to him who that person was. Which is to say ALL people mattered to Jesus. Yes that got him into trouble with the church leaders, but I got the message that food is way more important than simply meeting a dietary need. It's a very human thing too.Which is to say a very humane thing to do. It's the ultimate of hospitality. And wouldn't it be nice if our world became a little more hospitable? I know that in our hurried lives the idea of sitting down for a meal with family is often more of a hope than a reality. Maybe this Lenten Season we can all make the effort to sit down together and share a family meal a little more often. May it be a blessing on our journey.

Is Generosity Compulsory?

While checking Facebook the other day I saw a post that was arguing against tax hikes for the wealthiest group of Americans. The argument was that, since this group is already accounting for 59% of all tax revenue they are already paying a fair share. What wasn't included in the argument was the fact that this group controls about 95% of the wealth. I commented that we are arguing about the wrong issue.

As a nation that claims to be mostly Christian, I find it hypocritical that the wealthy resist efforts to help those less fortunate when those efforts are made through legislation. In conversation with others it became clear that their issue, a political one, was whether something like generosity should be compulsory, that is, something legislated as in a tax code.

Even though there are multiple issues here, I would argue that central to them is the Christian understanding of generosity. It seems to me that if one claims to be Christian one is saying their life is being lived in a way that reflects the Christian ethos. And the Christian ethos makes it clear that generosity is imperative. That is, you cannot be Christian and ungenerous. But is generosity compulsory?

I think we'd all like to believe that generosity shouldn't need to be "required, mandatory, obligatory, required by law or a rule." But, remembering John Wesley's belief that "we are all moving on to perfection" is it too much of a stretch to recognize that generosity is not always something that happens naturally?

For example, a sign company was hired to create signage for a local non-profit. The non-profit paid in advance for the work to be done. Now, one might argue that that was not a good business decision on the part of the non-profit. But the non-profit took the Christian symbol on the sign company's business card (along with the Bible quotes on the back) as evidence the sign company was legitimate. It turns out they weren't. They did no work. They gave a false address and phone number. They simply took the money and ran.

Some would argue there ought to be a law against such behaviors and that is my point. While generosity is clearly an important aspect of Christian identity (see Galatians 5:22-23, Matthew 25:34-40 and Proverbs 22:9 for example) it doesn't mean that accountability isn't required while we move on to perfection.

We need rules and laws to help us grown in awareness of what it means to be fair and even-handed. Christian Tradition has always maintained the necessity of disciplined spiritual growth. Scripture is filled with examples of required, mandatory, obligatory behaviors that, I believe, are for good reason.

I'm tired of the current conversation about taxes, about who should pay what. Why isn't the conversation more like, "I've received so much and  I want to give back in order to help others."? In the end it comes to what one of my friends said, "It's all about attitude." And I believe that a proper Christian attitude exhibits the fullness of generosity. Do we do that all the time? I know I don't. That's why I'm forever grateful for God's gift of grace, and I'm also grateful for the reminder that generosity is not an option. Compulsory? I think so. At least for now.