There is nothing like home cooking. Growing up you probably had a favorite meal or dish that if you had it today … it would take you right back home with all the smells, flavors and sounds of mama or grandma in the kitchen. There is a restaurant in Houston that I went to several years ago called This Is It Soul Food and it was amazing! Started in 1959, it is one of the oldest African American owned restaurants in Houston. This Is It dishes out delicious soul food to a diverse mix of customers, working-class and professionals to politicians, entertainers, tourists, as well as its neighborhood residents. The foods originated from traditional slave and Southern cuisine, including ham hocks, chitterlings, black-eyed peas, smothered pork chops and oxtails. Personally, I like the name as much as the food … This Is It Soul Food!
Now soul food might not be your favorite cuisine, but there is something about tasting different foods that opens us up to the experience and culture of others. I have eaten food in Indonesia, Africa, Egypt, Brazil, Israel, England, Germany, and a ton of other places where the food is unique. Scripture actually uses food as an analogy quite often. The Psalmist writes, Oh, taste and see that the LORD is good! Psalm 34:8a or in John 6:35 where “Jesus said to them, “I am the bread of life; whoever comes to me shall not hunger, and whoever believes in me shall never thirst.” Food analogies in scripture get right to the point. You cannot physically stay alive without food and you will never leave this physical earth to spend eternity with God apart from the spiritual food that Jesus offers us. When you find it, you taste it … and you realize that there is nothing like it.
This past Sunday we looked at the story in Acts 10 where Peter has a vision, and of all things, it is a blanket filled with food. All kinds of animals, birds, fish, reptiles, many of which were by Jewish standards, “unclean” but in the vision Peter hears these words, “Rise, Peter; kill and eat.” But Peter said, “By no means, Lord; for I have never eaten anything that is common or unclean.” And the voice came to him again a second time, “What God has made clean, do not call common.” (Acts 10:13–15) Of course Peter is talking about food, but he soon finds out that it is the bread of life and living water that he is being instructed to take to the spiritually thirsty unclean and common people called the Gentiles. I am one of those Gentiles and unless you are Jewish, so are you! I am so glad that God sent Peter to share with Cornelius the gospel of Jesus Christ. It is it … soul food!
THIS WEEK: Take some time and enjoy your food a little longer. Slow down over dinner and savor what God has provide. Then spend some time reflecting on how good life is with Christ and how your soul is full. Read Acts 10 and meditate on it one morning and let it feed your soul.
-Dr. Jerry