September 7, 2014 ~ Ancient Stories: Who Frees the Bound and Hardened from John Knox Kirk on Vimeo.
A sermon preached at John Knox Kirk of Kansas City, Missouri, on September 7, 2014.
Romans 13:8-14
and Exodus 12:1-14
(Click above link for the Scripture texts upon which this sermon is based)
The communion table constructed by the Rev. Shawna Bowman during and for the 2014 NEXT Church national gathering.
They say that food is a great component of memory, or so I’ve read.
And I don’t know how true that is, but it seems to fit well enough with
my experiences to bear with it the ring of truth.
Just this week I was out at lunch
and I ordered a slice of pizza, from a Pizza Shoppe
you know, where they sell the pink stuff,
and my mind raced to the time that I had that very sort of Pizza
Pizza Shoppe pizza,
with my kids when they were around three years old
when they made a mess on the floor…
and with the youth group at my old church a couple of times
after their annual fall kick off pool party.
Come to think of it, they made a mess on the floor too.
Or I’ll be trying to remember something,
stuck in the crevasses of my mind,
and what I find myself honing in on is the food:
My grandmother’s house:
ever marked by the canned veggies and jams in mason jars
food she made from the supersized garden in the back yard.
Atlantic, Iowa, where I lived as a younger child:
Windsor Pork Chops and Lime Green Jello at church pot lucks.
That trip to San Francisco. Right.
Lets see: We ate the first day at a diner down the street
And we found a great Thai restaurant
and an incredible breakfast place
where they steamed the milk for the coffee
and had farm-fresh, artisanal sausages,
with their hash bake
And the signature activity,
the bike ride across town, to a few museums,
over the Golden Gate bridge
into Sausalito…
that bike ride lead us to a place aptly named Fish,
where we sipped a beer and ate some seafood
as the California Sun warmed us on the patio.
Wedding night: I didn’t actually eat at our reception,
I think I was too much in a fog,
but I remember the IHOP after it was all done
a first meal with Brook of our new life together…
Taste. Texture. Aroma. The stuff that makes food pleasurable, palatable,
these things, at least for me, maybe for you,
seem to spark connections with the past
the experiences, the memories, the stories,
that root me and ground me and that make me who I am.
Funny how mundane things, normal things, can carry such significance. [Read more…]
