Mar 5, 2012
Taking Root: Preparation
Taking Root is a series of meditations I’m writing and editing for Central Vineyard Church during the season of Lent. You can download the podcast version of each post by subscribing to my church’s podcast or visiting the podcast blog for each day of the series.
From prepared food to prepared people. What does the act of preparing food teach us? We don’t need to prepare food every day, but we can explore some ways that it matters and that we can effectively pull it off with a crock pot or freezer.
I learned two things in seminary that really stuck with me. Oddly enough, they’re closely related: prepared dinners and prepared sermons.
In my preaching class, we both studied how to communicate the Bible and how to understand our audiences. One of the cultural trends my professor noted is the growth of prepared food. As more Americans work longer hours, food preparation is a being done in factories so that it only needs to be warmed up.
Thinking back to my first high school job at a Boston Market, I remembered the bags of prepared food that were dumped into warming trays and then lugged to the serving area. For many, food preparation has been outsourced.
Oddly enough, this culture of prepared food has also transferred to some churches where pastors download prepared sermons and preach what others have put together for them. While there’s nothing wrong with communicating good ideas wherever they show up, it struck me that pulling a sermon word for word from another congregation may not be the best way to address the particular needs of a community.
Then again, the same goes for how I prepare food for my family.
Over the years we’ve tried to take greater control over the food we eat. This isn’t for everyone. However, we eat enough bread and yogurt that it makes sense economically to make these items on our own.
As I mix bowls of bread and roll out loaves on our counter, I’m intentionally slowing myself down. This allows me to focus on a particular process. Within this process there are lessons to learn. While I don’t think we all need to slow down in the same way, engineering this kind of inefficiency into our days reminds us that there is value in the process and not just in the product.
God Has Prepared Us
The act of preparing food is creative to a certain degree. It’s intimate and requires attention. Each loaf of bread is unique. I mix honey and corn meal into some of them, while others have molasses and oatmeal. Each has a particular flavor that I enjoy.
Preparing food is an act that I enjoy. It’s delightful to see a loaf rise in the oven and emerge as a golden brown. Besides the joy I gain from making the loaf itself, I can also take a great deal of joy in the process of sharing it with others.
Spiritual Preparation
God takes joy in both creating us in unique ways and in sharing us with one another. The thought that God took the time to prepare me is almost too much to believe. That he thought I could somehow serve others borders on the absurd some days.
And yet, this simple, sacramental act of mixing, shaping, and baking bread is rich in spiritual lessons about the ways God shapes and uses us. If you want to know what it’s like to become holy, try kneading bread for ten minutes. This is not a gentle, quick process!
God delights in preparing us. Even today he is preparing something for us. He’s not concerned with preparing us in the fastest way possible. He’s very much immersed in the process. By adopting God’s slow-paced rhythm at certain points in our lives, we can better understand what it means to be prepared for the life of God.
The Greenhouse
Reflect on how yeast works in bread. If you haven’t made your own bread from scratch before, check out a video on YouTube or read a recipe.
Take two minutes to meditate on passages that use yeast as a metaphor, such as Luke 13, 1 Corinthians 5:7, and Galatians 5:9.
This meditation is lovely, Ed. I’ve been baking bread since I was 10. There’s peace in that dough.
Though it does seem that God punches us down more than once…
Thanks Sheila. I’d agree. I think I need some pretty regular punching! There is a lot of joy that I find in the practice of making bread and just thinking of how yeast works.
Me too, Ed. Me too.
Does using a breadmaker count? *wink* Seriously, one of my favorite memories of experiencing community during seminary was a six-hour breadmaking event with two good friends. We talked, laughed, and spilled flour together as a way to de-stress after the end of the quarter. Thanks for taking me back to such a happy place. – Laura
[...] advocate, and author Ed Cyzewski writes about this process of preparing food. Of his own experience in the kitchen, he says: As I mix bowls of bread and roll out loaves on our [...]