My spouse and I had a conversation coming back from church the other day.

They had sung a song about “turning the other cheek” and I mentioned the importance of ‘honour and shame’ in 1st century Palestine, and that we misunderstand “turn the other cheek” if we remove it from this cultural context (it gets altered into something about pacifism cum self-effacement).

She wondered if I ever thought that I’m too critical or too anxious to nuance things “just so,” or if I feel a need to distance myself from other Christians, or something.

I explained it differently.

I said that I don’t feel any anxiety or anger (or a particular need to show that I’m not “like them”)—it’s different than that. I compared it to a culinary model. I said that I feel like a chef who is constantly being offered food to sample.  So like a chef relative to other cooks, I have more training than most. I also referenced the non-taster / taster / super-taster model (about how perceptively people taste) and suggested that in this realm I was like a super-taster.

On this analogy Christianity is interested in / about food (as in, “one may not live by bread alone”) and, as I sit in church and listen (or read books like Not A Fan), I am sampling the dishes that I am being served.  And because I am a chef, I have an educated (or to a certain degree, ‘faithful’) understanding of the dishes (I know their ingredients, preparation, and history). And because I am a super-taster (both by virtue of my experiences and of the skills I’ve developed through the long practice of examining those experiences), I have a sense of ‘creative’ flair that I apply to this understanding.

In other words, I have honed a ‘biblical’ skills set marked by creative fidelity.

So I’m sampling the dishes that I’m being given and, at times, tasting that something is missing, or maybe something is too strong, or that one dish is supposedly being presented when in fact the meal is really some other dish.  Or perhaps the way that a cook is combining dishes or presenting them is somehow dissonant, displeasing, or even inedible.

And in addition to sampling the food of others I want, of course, to be preparing and providing healthy, accessible, and yet glorious food myself. Indeed, to my mind (and on this analogy), that is the goal of the Kingdom of God “for” and “towards” me and you.

The Kingdom of God is not mine or “about” me, but it involves me deeply. And it does so in two ways. First, where I am outside of God’s Kingdom and not in relationship with God it presents itself to me as a nourishing meal to one who is famished—it is invites me through its richness and fullness (so “taste and see that God is good”).  Second (and later), as one who has embraced God’s Kingdom, my close relationship with God sustains me as a hearty meal sustains one who “realizes” oneself in dedicating oneself to one’s deepest passion: a deep commitment that is self-sacrificial YET joyous, without contradiction (so Paul “counting it all joy”).

So where and how am I evaluating and serving this food?  I’m not ministering in a church—churches have their own kitchens, their own chefs, their own recipes. But through this blog and my upcoming podcast maybe I could be compared to . . . a food truck.

Food trucks are mobile and intriguing.  Risky: it comes to me instead of me going to it, and I can’t guarantee whether I’ll like it.  But upfront—you see the crew and the chef(s)—and there’s no need to guess what’s on offer.  Small scale versus mass market, food trucks are only viable because they offer (and provide) excellence, and for that, you have to pay a bit more—in this case, invest some time.

But food trucks are almost always worth it.