Here’s to the Cooks.

We elevate religious leaders.  But the preacher is not a different breed.  My childhood pastor was a gifted orator and a man with nearly irresistible leadership qualities.  Yet, he was humble and chose to be called “Brother John”—an equal.

Preachers, elders, and priests are your equals.  So are doctors, lawyers, bankers, statemen.  But you know who deserves special consideration?  Cooks.  We eat three times a day.  That’s 21 meals a week for every man, woman, and child on earth.  With nearly 8 Billion on earth, someone has to cook 24,000,000,000 meals every week.  Who will do all that cooking?  Cooks: some paid, most unpaid, none paid enough.

You could spend days studying scriptures on food preparation and people eating.  Jesus ate after fasting. He ate at the wedding at Cana. He ate with tax collectors and sinners at Matthew’s house. He was anointed during a meal at Simon’s house. He fed the 5,000. He fed the 4,000. He ate with Mary and Martha. He told a parable about a banquet. He ate with Zacchaeus. He ate at the Last Supper. He ate following the road to Emmaus. He ate fish on the beach with the disciples.  He will eat in Heaven at the Marriage Supper of the Lamb (Revelation 19:6-9).

Eating is a huge part of life—and God is interested in it.  Look at the varieties of food, the infinite ways to prepare it, the globe covered in filling staples and flavorful herbs and spices.  The Bible steers us toward healthy options and away from the unhealthy.  And entire chapters concern the sacrificial system whereby priests prepared “meals” for God, complete with butchered and seasoned lambs, bulls, doves, grains, and more.  See Leviticus 1-4.

The Bible is a book of doers, men of action, from carpenters and builders to craftsmen and cooks.  God is not interested in “religious people.”  God is interested in PEOPLE.  Busy, hard-working, productive people.  People who get things done. 

The next time you cook a meal, think about the literally billions of meals prepared every single day.  Cooks keep humanity going.  Cooks make the world go ‘round. 

ΑΩ