Thursday, November 29, 2012

Recipe


One of my favorite recipes that my mom makes is Cauliflower salad. The recipe is so simple and yet beautiful.

Cauliflower in little pieces
Mayo a Cup or so
Shredded cheese the amounts depends on how much you like cheese
Green Onions cut up
And a little salt

Throw that in a bowl, let it rest, and you have created a masterpiece—a masterpiece that goes with almost any summer meal that comes off the grill. It goes great with pizza. (ok, maybe Nurse Nancy, our parish nurse, wouldn’t approve, but change it to light mayo or fat free dressing, and then she would). I have so many fond memories of eating this salad--except for the one instance when I was making it for the first time. I had all the cauliflower cut, the mayo mixed in, the right amount of cheese tossed with the green onions, and then I added salt. I put in a tablespoon instead of a teaspoon--big mistake. I took a bite and the salt crystalized on my tongue. I was alone in my vicarage apartment and I was looking forward to eating this salad all day while I watched TV. So I decided to try and choke it down, refusing to go to the store and get more cauliflower.  But as you may have guessed, there was just no changing it. No matter how much mayo or extra cheese I could add, it was wrecked, and so was my stomach the next day.

It is funny how much one ingredient like salt can affect a recipe. It can be the key missing ingredient or the one that destroys it. A recipe, whether constructed for food or plays, for sports or business plans, can contain some key elements that could make or break it. In almost every plan, recipe, or play you can find someone discussing the key element of break down. This could be for the losing play, the business plan that tanked, or the recipe that just didn’t taste right. We have experts who spend hours analyzing things like this. There are plenty of jobs out there to show breakdowns in all kinds of these plans, plays or recipes.

This weekend we begin the season where we discuss the recipe that completely failed, and the recipe that is the greatest masterpiece of all time. Yes, I am talking about God wanting us to be with Him, and how we messed that up because of sin. Then God completely redeemed us by altering His plan to save us. The thing that makes God’s recipe unique is that He uses the ingredients that mess up His recipe to also be the ones that help complete His masterful formula.

Advent is a season that other denominations recognize, but we are one of the few to place so much focus on it. Recently, it seems, many of our churches have lost the true meaning of Advent, which is to prepare for the coming of Jesus. It is important, because while we may not be preparing for Jesus to come into the world as a baby to alter the broken recipe, we are waiting for Him to come back and fully complete it. This month we will spend time talking about just that. I pray it will be a powerful month for you as you prepare for Jesus. As we begin the last month of 2012, we will hear all kinds of unique ideas about the end of the world, but our job is the same every year: prepare for Jesus to come. What a wonderful thought! Advent is a gentle and beautiful reminder of what God calls us to do every day: to prepare for Jesus’ coming by using our gifts to share His wonderful recipe.

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