I am inexplicably drawn to books about writing and food, New Testament Greek and spiritual theology. Bizarre, I know. If someone wrote a book regarding insights into the Incarnation and peanut butter cookies, or how coq au vin illustrates the sacrifice of Christ, or parallels between red wine and the Lord's Supper, I would be ALL over it. I'd be up to my elbows in peanut butter, raw chicken, Beaujolais and the gospel of John. Bizarre, I know.
So tonight's meal begins with this great red cabbage recipe, topped off with some bockwurst that I brought home a couple weeks ago. Sort of a spin off of a dish our mothers used to make with red cabbage, smoked sausage and potatoes, sans potatoes. Our world here has been chock full of potatoes lately.
This is what it looked like a couple hours into cooking...
So what does that have to do with theology? I honestly don't know. What I do know and believe is that whether it's red cabbage and bockwurst or chicken or peanut butter, God is found in the particulars, in the real and tangible and relational parts of our lives. As Eugene Peterson writes in his book, The Jesus Way, “The gospel is not an idea or plan or a vision: it works exclusively in creation and incarnation, in things and in place” (Peterson, pg. 189). And maybe that's what this meal points to, that in the simplest, earthy places, molded and formed and chopped and stuffed and soaked through and sent through the fire, that what comes out in the final product is not just a mish-mash of tastiness (or not), but from beginning to end is part of God's creation and means through which that creation can be transformed.
I believe that is God's way with us too.
What connections do you see? Let's hear in the comments.
