Have you ever noticed that at family get togethers or parties, the kitchen tends to be where folks bunch up? Good food and cooking can be magnets, drawing people in and together.
Food has power. It doesn't have to be gourmet to be good. Simple food is often times the most powerful, particularly if it has that little something extra: love.
Sure, one can eat a quickly made sandwich over the kitchen sink and get full. Folks can go to one of many cafeteria style soup kitchens up and down Lancaster and get full, often from a starch heavy meal that can easily be prepared for hundreds on the cheap.
But, if you can sit down and eat a meal that has been thoughtfully and lovingly prepared, full of flavor and well rounded, and share that meal with someone who genuinely cares about how you are, how much more powerful is that?
When we serve roasted chicken, mixed steamed vegetables, and (the increasingly becoming famous!) hash brown casserole along with homemade peach cobbler to homeless veterans who have been working hard, for example, we are bringing the warmth of the family table and the love of Jesus Christ.
We are not just serving a meal that is delicious and several cuts above what else is available, we are responding to the call of Jesus to love our neighbor. Authentically, consistently and unconditionally.
That's Kingdom building, and we are humbled to be a part of it.
