Family Recipes

Mark 9: 38-50

If you are from the south, food matters. I happen to be from Charleston, South Carolina, (the heart of the south, and possibly the entire universe, if you ask us Charlestonians) and, to put it mildly, we pride ourselves in our food and enjoy it as often as possible. We will use any excuse imaginable to get together and eat: weddings, funerals, church services, Mondays; really anything is a potential feast. As children being drug from one potluck to another, my friends and I quickly became connoisseurs in our own rights. We learned that if Mrs. Martha’s Sweet Potato soufflé was out, we’d better get it quick before it was always gone. She always had this way of putting just the right amount of cinnamon, nutmeg and whatever else she put in there to make it perfect. Mr. Jones’ green bean casserole was always too runny. We tried to avoid that like the plague. But the line was always around Mr. Herb’s bar-b-q. He would predictably have two piles: “spicy” and “not-so-spicy” and each pile was devoured almost as soon as it was put out. To this day, Mr. Herb’s bar-b-q is a favorite in the low country. One bite of his bar-b-q, or one taste of his sauce, and there is no doubt where it came from. It has this unmistakable, distinct taste, and nobody knows what he puts in the sauce to make it so good. He guards his secret recipe like Fort Knox and won’t tell anyone what makes it so special. Unless, like me, you happen to be his son.
I’ll never forget the time that he finally pulled my brother and me aside, and in a quiet, calm tone, Dad told us the secret to his sauce. ¼ cup Molasses. ¼ cup Brown Sugar. ½ cup vinegar. And the most important ingredient…. and then he whispered it. There, in those close quarters, the family secret was handed down. (You didn’t think I was going to tell you, did you?)
In our Gospel lesson this morning, Jesus has pulled the disciples aside to share the secret to a family recipe. They have been alone with him for a while now, getting to spend some rare, uninterrupted time with their master. They have watched him teach the crowds and heal the sick. They have seen him become a local legend, and have been swallowed up by the crowds that followed him. It has been a while since they were able to be alone with him. Finally, the crowds subside, and hustling stops, and in the 9th chapter of Mark, the disciples find themselves alone with Jesus in Galilee, the same place that he called many of them for the first time some three years earlier. There, in the same place that it all began, Jesus whispers to his family the secrets to the Kingdom of God.
“Do not hinder the little children. Do not seek to be first, but seek to be a servant to all. Do not keep others from doing good in my name. Do not place stumbling blocks in the ways of others. Be at peace with one another.” Almost like he is listing off items in a recipe, Jesus is passing down the ingredients that make up the kingdom of God. And then, finally, when he has listed all of the items that go into the feast of God, he lists that final, secret ingredient; that one item that gives God’s kingdom that distinctive taste, that recognizable goodness that is God’s signature. The disciples lean in, and Jesus whispers, “you”. “Have salt within yourselves and be at peace with one another.” You are the secret ingredient in the kingdom of God according to Jesus. Like salt added to a batch of cornbread, the kingdom of God just doesn’t taste right without you. The church, the people of God, those people who welcome children, who offer life to those in need, who meet at least once a week to praise God’s name, who above all seek to live in peace and love with one another, the Church, you, are the secret ingredient to the kingdom of God. Wherever the Church is doing these things, you will find that distinctive, life-giving taste of God’s goodness that is unmistakably the flavor of the Kingdom of God.
Like Greg Jenkes in Zimbabwe. Three years ago, Greg was serving a church in our conference when, in his words, “God began to give him a heart for the orphans in Africa.” The fact that there are 12 million orphans in Zimbabwe today left a bitter taste in God’s mouth, and so did the fact that most of those orphans would die of AIDS, or in a war as they were handed weapons and forced to fight in gorilla armies. God began to dream of a different taste in Zimbabwe, so he began making another meal for those people there. His special ingredient? Greg Jenkes and the North Carolina Annual Conference. Greg left the local church, became a missionary commissioned from our conference and began ZOE, Zimbabwe Orphan Endeavor. To this day, we as a conference are feeding 10,000 orphans, offering medical care to over 2,000 children, and helping school and clothe over 1,500 orphans. Our work there in that place has a distinct taste, a recognizable flavor known the world over. It tastes like life. It tastes like the kingdom of God.
Now I know that it is almost cliché for a preacher to tell about a missionary to Africa, and that seems to have very little to do with us. But today is World Communion Sunday. Today, every Christian, of every denomination, in every nation is gathered around this feast of the Kingdom to be reminded of that distinctive taste of God’s handiwork. Today, in Zimbabwe, those orphans are gathered around a life giving meal with us to be let in on the family secret.
Today, all around the world, Jesus calls his entire family aside to the table to remind us of what our lives are to be, to whisper to us yet again the secret recipe of the Kingdom of God. Today, as the world continues to feast at the tables of violence and war, Jesus mixes into his meal peacemakers. As many around the world are forced to eat from trashcans and garbage heaps, Jesus adds relief workers and people who feed the hungry with a feast of love. As our world of affluence beckons us to come and eat once again at their empty tables of opulence, Jesus stirs in a helping of people called to be broken open, poured out for others. Here, at this feast, the whole church around the world gathers around this table with our Lord, the Author of Peace, as he whispers his secret recipe to us once more.
God is cooking up a feast for all the world to eat, a feast of peace and of love, and of hope. The world is starving for this food, this bread of life, that distinctive food that can only come from one place, from one person, the Lord, the giver of life. God is cooking up a feast for all the world to eat, and God’s secret ingredient? It’s you.